190 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d ?. N» 62., Mak. 7. 'o7. 



rive its origin from Edward the Confessor, asserts the 

 power to have commenced with Clovis I. The ceremony 

 was more or less continued to the reign of Queen Anr.e, 

 for in Lent, 1712, we find Dr. Johnson amongst the 

 number of persons actually touched. Whiston, in his 

 Memoirs, i. 442., edit. 1749, states that " Queen Anne 

 used to touch for the evil ; though (says he) 1 think that 

 neither King William nor Queen Mary, nor King Geortje 

 the First or Second, have ever done it." Eapin also adds, 

 that "in the reign of William III. it was not on anj' oc- 

 casion exercised." Macaulay, however, mentions one case 

 during the reign of the Prince of Orange, "commonly 

 called William III.," as Tom Hearne has it. "William," 

 says Macaula}', " had too much sense to be duped, and 

 too much honest}- to bear a part in what he knew to be 

 an imposture. 'It is a silly superstition,' he exclaimed, 

 when he heard that, at the close of Lent, his palace was 

 besieged by a crowd of the sick : ' Give the poor creatures 

 some monej% and send them away.' On one single occa- 

 sion he was importuned into laying his hand on a patient. 

 ' God give you better health,' he said, ' and more sense.' " 

 (^Ifht. of England, iii. 480.) Consult on this subject, 

 Fuller's Church History, cent. xi. sects. 80 — 38 ; Beckett's 

 Free and Impartial Enquiry into the Antiqitity and Effi- 

 cacij of Touching for the King's Evil, 8vo. 1722 ; and Fet- 

 tigrew On Superstitions connected with the History and 

 Practice of 3Iedicine,^ 



Eye, near Westminster. — In the valuable list 

 of " Licences to crenellate," contributed by Mr. 

 Parker to the Gentlemaris Magazine^ is the fol- 

 lowing entry : 



"1307. Johannes de Benstede, clericus; mansum snum. 

 Eye, jiixta Westmonaster. quod vocatur Rosemont, Midd." 

 — Gent. Mag , August, 1856. 



Where can I find information relative to this 

 house, and where was it situated ? Eye and 

 Ebury I presume to be identical; and this an- 

 cient manor is entirely lost in the modern name 

 of Pimlico, unnoticed by a topographer. H. G. D. 



[Our topographers have omitted to saj' where the 

 manor-house of Eye stood. The manor of Eia, in Domes- 

 day, is said to be held by Geoffry de Mandeville, and to 

 have answered for ten hides. Eia, after the date of 

 Domesday, appears to have been divided into the three 

 manors of Neyte, Euberv, and Hyde ; for, in 1342, Neyt 

 is named in a special Commission of Sewers ; and Wid- 

 more {History of Westminster Abbey, p. 102.) saj'S, that 

 in 1362, Abbot Litlington " improved the estate of the 

 convent at Hyde, now Hyde Park ; and that Litlington 

 died Nov. 29, 1386, at the manor-house of Neyte, near 

 Westminster, at that time thought a good building." 

 Eia, as the name of a watercourse (sometimes called 

 Tyburn) appears to have been afterwards converted into 

 Aye Brook, corrupted into Hay Hill, Berkeley- Street. A 

 curious paper on this manor is given in Archceologia, 

 vol. xxvi. p. 233. Consult also Walcott's Memorials of 

 Westminster, pp. 8. 284. 325.] 



Bishop Lamplugh. — Did Lamplugh, Bishop of 

 Exeter, publish anything besides the Sermon 

 preached before the House of Lords on Nov. 5, 

 1678, and printed at their request? 



Lethrediensis. 



[Besides the 5th of November Sermon, Bishop Lam- 

 plugh published Articles of Visitation and Enquiry, 4to., 

 Lond., 1677, and a Fast Sermon on Luke xiii. 5., 4to., 

 1678. He was afterwards Arcbbi^hop of York.] 



i^eiiltci, 



ANTHONY BACON AND SIE IIENRr WOTTON. 



(2"-i S. iii. 121.) 



J. S. is right. I had not seen Dr. Birch's note 

 on the case of Anthony Bacon, when I sent " The 

 Two Bacons" to Bentletjs Miscellany ; but now 

 that I have seen it, I must own myself unable to 

 accept with the apparently entire credence of 

 J. S. the conclusion on a difficult case, of one, 

 who, being a laborious and useful compiler and 

 investigator of historic documents, was described 

 by Dr. Johnson (no unfriendly critic) as a man 

 on whose otherwise "lively faculties a pen in 

 hand seemed to act with torpcdo-Vikc effect." 



I own I did not write with any misgiving as to 

 the truth of Wotton's story ; nor, as I think must 

 be seen from my papei-, in any readiness to re- 

 ceive injurious impressions of the memory of " the 

 Bacons," though giving over Anthony to the 

 odium which such a storj', if true, must attach to 

 his character. The case, as now put by J. S., re- 

 solves itself into one of " cause and cross cause " 

 between A. Bacon and Sir H. Wotton. In ac- 

 quitting the former of rascality, we must, I think, 

 convict the latter of wilful falsehood : I can see 

 in the case no room for the compromising verdict 

 suggested by J. S. To pronounce Bacon " inno- 

 cent" and Wotton "credulous," would be a good- 

 natured " triumph- to-neither-party " judgment; 

 but it appears to me that neither the circum- 

 stances nor position of the parties will admit of 

 such a result, and that there is no "me^co ter- 

 7nine" between writing down Bacon villain, or 

 Wotton liar ! 



J. S. seems to me to argue as if no one but 

 Lord Henry Howaid, whose credit he disparages, 

 could have been Wotton's informant as to the 

 particulars of a private conversation between him 

 and Essex. Does not J. S., in this conclusion, 

 strangely overlook Wotton's own position as the 

 trusted secretary of that Essex of whom it was 

 said that "had his eye been as open to enemies as 

 his ear to friends, he had been cautious" ? In the 

 confidence of this open nature, Wotton was so 

 "inward," that when ruin came, though consci- 

 ously innocent, he was obliged to save himself by 

 flight from the vortex which engulphed his fellow 

 secretary, Cuffe, with his luckless master. It ap- 

 pears to me that J. S. might well extend his 

 sound conclusion, that " the only authentic report 

 of such an intervieio as that in question must be had 

 from one of the parties" a little further, and with 

 no violent presumption conclude that Wotton had 

 the details, not from Lord H. Howard, but from 

 Essex himself. 



That the papers of Anthony Bacon show " not 

 the least traces of such an affair as this," seems to 

 me just what might have been expected. Those 

 who plunder the mail do not preserve the letters 



