2»* S. No 55., JAI*. 17. '57.] 



NOTiES AND QtJEKIES. 



49 



in produciiiij theni is said' to have exceeded the 

 amount he obtained for tliein at fifty guineas each. 

 If this be true, these copies must now be of great 

 value. I>AVi]* Gam. 



" The Wife of Beith Giving an Account of her 

 Journey to Heaven" Sfc — I sliould be obliged to 

 any one who, from his stores of antiquarian lore, 

 could direct me where t will find an authentic 

 copy, the older the better, of tlie poem or ballad 

 (comprising about 700 lines) as above entitled, 

 and also inform me who was its author. The 

 heroine of the tale is founded on Chaucer's Wife 

 of Bath — 



" Of whom brave Chaucer mention makes." 



It is the production of sbihe Scottish poet of 

 considerable antiquity, and has froth the earliest 

 recollections been hawked about as n. penny chap 

 hook in Scotland, and read by tbousaiids. There 

 is but one version of it, but from the circumstance 

 of its being so often printed by illitdrate hands, it 

 is in general full of typographical blunders, and 

 evidently much both of the' sense artd' text cor- 

 rupted, which it would be wortli' while rectiiying 

 as far as possible. G. N. 



Kent Street, Borough. — Within the last five- 

 and-twenty years, Kent Street, in the Borough, 

 was the great emporium for the supply of the 

 arbor sapientice, or, in other words, birch rods, for 

 the benefit of the grammar schools of the metro- 

 polis. 



Some time ago I read" a passage in one of our 

 old poets, showing that in the earlier part of the 

 seventeenth century, school's were su{)plied with 

 this commodity from the same place. I omitted 

 to " make a note" of it, and have lost the passage. 

 Can any of your readers help me to recover it ? 



Henry T. Riley. 



Bacons Judgments. — Lord Bacon says, in his 

 confession and submission : 



" I hope also that your lordships do rather find me in 

 a state of Grace, for that in all these particulars there are 

 few or none that are not almost two years old; whereas 

 those that have a habit of corruption do commonly wax 

 worse : so tiiat it hath pleased God to prepare me by pre- 

 cedent degrees of amendment to my present penitency." 



Was this statemeiit true ? And is it true' that, 

 though there were numerous appeals, in no one 

 case was a decision of Lord Chancellor Bacon's 

 altered or reversed ? ^||^ W. H. S. 



Bromjiton, Middlesex. ^^ 



Thomas Adams. — Fuller dedicates the third 

 stection of his Church History of Britain, (century 

 vii'i!.), " Thomae Adamidi, senatori Londitiensi, 

 Mficaeftati meo," and mentions as a' compliment to 



him that an edition of Bede, Saxonicis typis, had' 

 lately issued from the {iress under his auspices. 

 Can you giVe me ilhy further information respect- 

 ing this pati*on of literature ? E. H. A. 



[Sir Thomas Adams, born at Wem in Shropshire, in 

 1596, was educated at CanibHdjJje, and afterwards joined 

 the Drapers' Company. Wh^ri President of St. Thomas's 

 Hospital, he was the means of saving that institution from 

 total ruin; by discovering the frauds .of a dishonest 

 steward. In 1645-0, he Was elected Mayor of London; 

 and such was his known attachment to the royal cause, 

 that his house was searched for treasonable correspond- 

 ence; and one year he was committed to the Tower by 

 the usurpers of thfe government. During the exile of the 

 second Charles, he exhibited a notable proof of his loyalty 

 by remitting 10,000/. to that monarch. He was seventy- 

 foui' years of age wheii' sent, conjointly with General 

 Monk, to' congratulate Charles at Breda, by whom he was 

 knighted, a dignity which was soon after raised to a ba- 

 ronetcv. Of this generous patron of learning and learned 

 men, I?uller has given the following account in his History 

 of Cambridge, sect. ix. 23 — 26. : " Thomas Adams, theii 

 citizen, since Lord Mayor of London, deservedly com-' 

 mended fbr his Christian constancy in all conditions, 

 founded an Arabian professorship, on condition it were 

 frequented with corajictency of auditors. And notwith- 

 standing the general jealonsy that this new Arabia {happy, 

 as all novelties at the first) would soon become desert, yet 

 it seems it thrived so well, that the salary was settled on 

 Abraham Wheelock, Fellow of Clare flail, " By his muni- 

 ficence Wheel'bck ^'^'as enabled to bring out his edition of 

 Bede. In the dedication of this work he has paid a just 

 compliment to Adams. Sir Tliomas died Feb. 2-t, lGl)7-8', 

 aged 82 ; and the cause of his death is tlius noticed by 

 Pepys, Diary, 27th March, 1668: "This day, at noony 

 comes Mr. Felling to me, and shows mo the stone cut 

 lately out of Sir Thomas Adams, the old comely alder- 

 man's body, which is very large indeed, bigger I think 

 than my fist, and weighs about twenty-five ounces; and, 

 which is very miraculous, he never in all his life had any 

 fit of it, but lived to a great age without pa5n. and died at 

 last of something else, without any sense of this in all his 

 life." But, as an editorial note informs us, " the shock 

 caused by a fall from his coach displaced the stone, and 

 led to fatal consequences." His arms are. Ermine, three 

 cat-a-mbutitains passant guardant in pale azure. His fu- 

 neral sermon was preached by Dr. Hardy, and is entitled. 

 The Royal Common-wealth's Man ; or King David's Pic- 

 ture, represented in a Sermon preached at the solemnity 

 of the Funeral of Sir Th mas Adams, knight and baronet, 

 and Alderman of London, in St. Katherine Cree Church, 

 on the 10th March, 1667. By Nath. Hardy, D.D., Chap- 

 lain in Ordinaiy to his Majesty, and Vicar of St. Martin's 

 irt the Fields, 4to., Lohd. 1668. At p. 37., the munificence 

 of Sir Thomas Adams is thus noticed by the preacher: 

 " r must not forget to tell you how he served the town 

 [Wem, in Shropshire] where he received his first breath, 

 by building and endowing a free-school there with a con- 

 siderable maintenance for tiie education of children. How 

 he had served the University of Cambridge by erecting 

 an Arabick lecture, and settling upon the lecturer 40?. per 

 annum for his pains in reading it [paid by the Drapers' 

 Company] ; hereby testifying him>elf to be a lover of 

 learning, to which "indeed none is an enemy but the ig- 

 norant. Nor were these munificent works to bear the 

 date of their beginning from his death ; but the one began 

 twentv, and the other thirty years ago, nor is their main- 

 tenance only settled for some term of years, hut (as we 

 usually express it) /or ever : by which means he hath not 

 only served his o-^Vn, but succeeding generations. Nay, 



