2"'» S. No 62., Mar. 7. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



189 



5 resent Query is, What became of the portrait of 

 ohn Henderson mentioned by Miss Mitford in 

 Recollections, ^"C. as having been seen by her at 

 Cottle's house a few years ago ? I have a small 

 oval print of John Henderson, A.M., of Oxford, 

 published May 1, 1792, in the European Maga- 

 zine, and stated to be engraved by J. Conde from 

 a miniature in the possession of John Tuffin, Esq. 

 Who was John Tuffin, Esq. ? and of what au- 

 thority is the portrait ? N. J. H. 



Rev. Dr. Michael Ward. — In what church, or 

 where, was the Rev. Dr. Michael Ward married 

 to Mary Margetson ? and where may an entry of 

 the ceremony be found ? It is supposed to have 

 been solemnised in Dublin, or the neighbourhood, 

 1674-8. Abhba. 



Monoliths. — I shall be glad if some of your 

 readers will add to the following list of extraordi- 

 nary monoliths, and also if they can name the 

 kind of stone of which those enumerated (with 

 the exception of two) consist : 



Ft. In. 

 Pompey's Pillar - - - - 67 4 



Columns at the Cathedrcil of Casan, St. Peters- 

 burgh - - - - - 42 

 * Columns at St. Isaacs Ch., St. Petersburgh, 



Finland granite - - - - 56 



Alexander Pillar, St. Petersburgh - - 80 



Columns of the Pantheon Portico - - 46 9 



Ch. of St. Paul, Rome - - - 38 4 



Koman obelisk at Aries, France, 7 ft. diameter 



at base - - - - - 52 



Pillar at the Hippodrome, Constantinople, 



Egyptian granite - - - - 50 



R. W. Hackwood. 

 " Nimkiiigang." — What is the derivation of 

 this word, in common use In Devon for a whitlow ? 

 Also Apse and Pinswell for a common boil. 



George. 



Rev. Robert Talbot of Eyam. — In Wood's His- 

 tory and Antiquities of Eyam, pp. 139, 140., I 

 find the Rev. Robert Talbot, Rector of Eyam, who 

 died 1630, is said to be of the family of the 

 Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury. Can any of your 

 readers inform me when he was appointed to the 

 rectorship, and from what branch of that noble 

 family he sprang ? H. G. Clarke. 



Healing by the Touch. — Reading lately the Lives 

 of the Bishops of Aberdeen, by Hector Boethius, a 

 small work printed in Paris, a.d. 1522, I observed 

 that Bishop Elphinston, the founder of King's 

 College, Aberdeen, before his elevation to the 



* Kohl says that these columns "are 60 feet high and 

 have a diameter of 7 feet — all magnificent granite mono- 

 liths from Finland buried for centuries in its swamps." 



episcopal dignity, while on an embassy from 

 James III., King of Scots, to Louis XI., King of 

 France, in a complimentary speech addressed to 

 the French monarch, congratulated him as the 

 only prince to whom God had granted the pecu- 

 liar gift of healing by the touch. Before record- • 

 ing the speech, Boethius says : 



" Orationis non sententiam solum, sed et verba, ne quid 

 varietur, visum est referre." — De Vitis Episcop., folio 

 XX. p. 2. 



The words of the speaker on the subject of the 

 touch, are ; 



" Tantum regem amicum habere gaudet, gloriatur 

 (Jacobus III.) ; te, inquam, Francorum rex invictissime, 

 qui inter mortales princeps solus, Dei sine controversia 

 dono peculiari, branchum foedum atque perniciosum mor- 

 bum solo manus curas attactu." — Fol. xxii. p. 2. 



It is well known that it was at one time thought 

 that some of the British sovereigns possessed the 

 power of healing by the touch. In a Pi-ayer-Book 

 of the Church of England, printed in the reign of 

 Queen Anne, I find a service entitled " At the 

 Healing," in which the following passage occurs : 



" Then shall the infirm Persons, one by one, be pre- 

 sented to the Queen upon their Knees, and as every one 

 is presented, and while the Queen is laying her Hands 

 upon them, and putting the Gold about their Necks, the 

 Chaplain that officiates, turning himself to her Majesty, 

 shall say the words following : — 



" God give a Blessing to this Work ; And grant that 

 these sick Persons, on whom the Queen lays Her Hands, 

 may recover, thro' Jesus Christ our Lord." 



These Notes suggest the following Queries, 

 which some of your correspondents may pei'haps 

 have the goodness to answer : 



1. Who was the first British sovereign who at- 

 tempted to heal by the touch ? 



2. When was the ceremony disused ? 



T. R. Abredonensis. 



[The practice of touching for the evil appears to be 

 one of English growth, commencing with Edward the 

 Confessor. Carte (^Hist. of England, book iv. sect. 42.) 

 says, " It was to the hereditary right of the roj'al line 

 that people in William of Malmsbury's days (lib. ii. 

 c. 13.) ascribed the supernatural virtue of our kings in 

 curing the scirrhous tumour, called the king's evil; 

 though this author is willing to impute it to the singular 

 piety of Edward the Confessor. There is no proof of any 

 of our kings touching for that distemper more ancient 

 than this king ; of whom Ailred ( Vit. S. Edwardi, 

 p. 390.), as well as Malmsbury, observe, that he cured a 

 young married woman, reduced by it to a deplorable con- 

 dition, by the stroking the place affected with his hand. 

 There are no accounts of the first four kings of Norman, 

 or foreign race, ever attempting to cure that complaint ; 

 but that Henry II. both touched those afflicted with it, 

 and cured them, is attested by Petnis Blesensis {Epist. 

 150. p. 235.), who had been his chaplain." See Plot's 

 Oxfordshire, ch. x. § 125. and plate xvi. No. 5., for some 

 account, accompanied with a drawing, of the touch-piece 

 supposed to be given by Edward the Confessor. The 

 kings of France also claimed the right to dispense the 

 gift of healing. Laurentius, first physician to Henry IV. 

 of France, who is indignant at the attempt made to de- 



