2°<' S. NO 67., April li. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



287 



men alone have two eyes, the people of Europe 

 have but one, and that all the rest of the world are 

 blind. J. E. T. 



The Bottom of the Sea. — Tennyson, partici- 

 pating in the common natural impression, seems 

 to regard the fate of a drowned human body in 

 the sea as being restlessly tossed in the moving 

 waters, which are superficially agitated before our 

 eyes, by tides and winds. We read in In Mc- 

 moriam : 



" His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud, 

 Drops in his vast and wandering grave." 



And again : 



" The roaring wells 

 Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine ; 

 And hands so often clasp'd in mine 

 Should toss with tangle and with shells." 



Maury's scientific account of the depths of the 

 ocean is certainly more comfortable, and not less 

 poetical, to contemplate. He says, the results of 

 the deep sea soundings which have been made 

 " suggest most forcibly the idea of perfect repose 

 at the bottom of the sea." It is only the surface, 

 to a comparatively small depth, that is stirred by 

 tides, and currents, and storms. Here sport the 

 innumerable diatomacecs, so small as to be appre- 

 ciable only by the microscope ; and, when their 

 day of life is over, they sink to the bottom, and 

 form a fleecy and impenetrable covering to the 

 larger bodies which have preceded their descent. 



I was told by a friend that he saw a corpse 

 brought to the surface of the sea at Scarborough, 

 by firing a cannon over the spot where the man 

 was drowned. It had been reckoned that, after a 

 few days, the body would become buoyant with 

 gas, and was thus floated. Is there any fixed 

 rule for this experiment ? Alfred Gatty. 



London Post-0 ffice Initials. — How happens it 

 that the penny authorised index to these has 

 omitted the office of "I^. & Q..," though it contains 

 the Public Ledger newspaper office, whose corre- 

 spondents cannot equal the hundredth part in 

 number of those of " N. & Q." ? E. G. R. 



A British Parliament transformed into a " Diet 

 of Worms!'''' — Lord Palmerston's appeal to the 

 country was recently characterised by a certain 

 noble Lord as a "penal dissolution:" a definition 

 which reminds me of a somewhat quaint simili- 

 tude, under which a politician of another age and 

 "in another place" ventured to describe the pe- 

 rishable constituents of Parliaments, and their 

 consequent liability to a dissolution undeniably 

 penal. In the course of a debate which arose on 

 the Triennial Bill in 1 693, the speaker amused the 

 House with the following argument in support of 

 the Bill. " Parliaments," he said, " resembled the 

 manna which God bestowed on the chosen people. 

 They were excellent while they were fresh ; but 



if kept too long they became noisome, and foul 

 worms were engendered by the corruption of that 

 which had been sweeter than honey."* Grave 

 analogical misgivings as to the durability of the 

 new Parliamentary materials have compressed 

 themselves into the following Query: How long 

 will new '^^ Parliament" keep without becoming 

 offensive ? Its non-liability to " dissolution," at 

 any rate to a premature one, will, I presume, be 

 determined by the amount of Conservative leaven 

 which is to pervade the political mass. 



F. Phillott. 



<SL\xzviti, 



THOMAS SAMPSON. 



Among the Lansdowne MSS. (560, 4°), there is 

 " a Book written in the fifteenth [qu. fourteenth .?] 

 century, partly on vellum and partly on paper, 

 and by some former possessor thus entitled, ' Car- 

 tuaria Thome Sampson Clerici Hospitii Domini 

 Ducis Lancastrie.' It contains divers legal pre- 

 cedents, &c. It resembles the Carta Feodi." The 

 MS. bears a note to the following effect : " Hsec 

 cartuaria collecta fuit circa initium II. IV. [qu. 

 Ed. III. or E.ic. II. ?], ut videre licet ex dat. 

 cartaru." 



There is also to be found among " Codices 

 Manuscript. Thomee Bodleii" (No. 2086, 18.), a 

 MS. described as "Literte Thomse Samson de 



pugna Pictaviensi [ ?] apud Dunelmum 



contra Scotos commissa an. 1346, in qua David 

 Rex Scotorum per Jo. Cowpland captus est. 

 Gallice." 



Am I correct in attributing both these MSS. 

 to the authorship of the same person, viz. the same 

 Thomas Sampson, who was summoned to parlia- 

 ment (I suppose, in virtue of his official connexion 

 with the Duchy of Lancaster), through a great part 

 of Edw. III.'s reign ? I have several other notices 

 of the same name, which may further tend to 

 identify the author of these two manuscripts. 

 First, his name occurs in the following (not unin- 

 teresting) account of one of the earliest " Town 

 and Gown" riots on record, as related by Ant. 

 Wood {Hist, and Antiq. of Oxford, edit. Gutch, 

 Lond., 1792, vol. i. p. 409. ; Annals, book i. a.d. 

 1325): — 



" This year Will, de Burchestre, Mayor of the town of 

 Oxford, having taken down the common pillory in North- 

 gate Street, and set up a new one in another place dis- 

 tant from the former, without the knowledge or consent 

 of Dr. Alburwyke the Chancellor, was by him the said 

 Chancellor called into question for what he had done; 

 but the Mayor, behaving himself contemptuously towards 

 him, was, on 9 Dec, excommunicated in St. Mary's 

 Church in the presence of Mr. Rich, de Kamshale, Pro- 

 fessor of Divinity; GriflPyn Treavour, Professor of the 

 Canon, Thomas Sampson and Mathew Trevaur, Professors 



See Macaulay, vol. iv. p. 344, 



