2«'» S. No 69., Aprid 25. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



335 



vout mind," and to have been in " keen request by 

 zealous Christians of freely inquiring minds," form 

 the subject of one of Voltaire's Lcttres au Prince 

 de Brunsicick, sur Rabelais et sur cTautres Auteurs 

 accuses (^ avoir mal parle de la Religion Chretienne ; 

 while of the form of religion pronounced essential 

 in these Letters^ Voltaire remarks : 



"Ilfaut convenir que mallieureusement cette religion 

 essentielle est le pur th^isme, tel que les noachides le pra- 

 tiquferent, avant que Dieu eiit claignd se faire un peuple 

 ch^ri dans les deserts de Sinai et d'PIoreb." 



Another writer remarks : 



"Get ouvrage, traduit en Anglois et en Allemand, a 

 essuye des contradictions et de justes censures. L'auteur 

 se borne au pur d^isme. Mile. Huber etait protestante. 

 Elle avait des connaissanees et de I'esprit ; mais elle ne 

 savoit pas toujours d^velopper ses id^es, et leur donner 

 cet ^clat lumineux qui dissipe I'obscurite de la meta- 

 physique. Elle n'avait jamais lu d'autre livre que la 

 bible." — Nouveaii Diet. Historigue, 1804. 



In the production of this book, thus promul- 

 gating abstract Deism, Voltaire further tells us 

 that Mile. Hubert was assisted by an eminent 

 metaphysician : we are now farther advanced — a 

 male and female philosopher of the present day 

 teach pure Atheism : will another century see 

 Atkinson and Martineau On Man's Nature and 

 Development a favourite manual of " zealous 

 Christians " ? William Bates. 



Birmingham. 



S^tsXitS t0 iWin0r ^utvit^. 



Education of the Peasantry (2"'' S. iii. 87. 279.) 

 — In answer to Viator's inquiry, I have some 

 recollection of seeing a report of a case of assault 

 dismissed at one of the metropolitan police courts, 

 on the plea of the defendant that he was simply en- 

 forcing his right to walk on the right-hand side of 

 the way that he was going, and that if the plaintiff 

 had only kept to his own right-hand side he would 

 not have been pushed into the gutter as he was. 

 I have a faint glimmering that I met with this 

 report in a volume of one of the first years of the 

 Gardeners^ Chronicle newspaper, 1841 to 1843, or 

 thereabouts. I think I have seen notices in Nor- 

 wich and in Bristol, that the mayor recommended 

 pedestrians to adopt the London rule in walking, 

 but these are the nearest approaches to a remedy 

 for the inconvenience that occur to me. Viator 

 might easily convince himself of the existence of 

 the rule, if he would only come to London, and 

 endeavour to walk in any crowded thoroughfare, 

 Bond Street, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Fleet 

 Street, or Cheapside, when densely crowded ; 

 keeping to his left for one half the length of the 

 street, and to his right for the other half. I have 

 a suspicion, too, that if a person is seen either 

 pertinaciously keeping to his left side, or evidently 

 undecided on which side of the footpath he ought 



to walk, his pockets, or rather their contents, are 

 apt to be marked by the light-fingered gentry for 

 their own. Veian Rheged. 



Yarmouth. 



Indian War Medal (2°'» S. ii. 508.) — If R. H. 

 B. will send me a careful impression, in sealing 

 wax, on a card of both sides of this medal, I will 

 endeavour to find out for what purpose, and when, 

 it was engraved. R. S. 



''Hobby Groom"' and ''Bottle Groom" (2"'» S. 

 iii. 199.) — I would suggest that the hobby-groom 

 was the groom who attended to the light horses 

 formerly called nags, latterly hacks. By the Com- 

 mission of Array for Wiltshire of 1484 {Pat. Rolls, 

 2 Rich. IIL m. 20. d. [7] d. 2nd col.),* the com- 

 missioners were to array the men-at-arms (heavy 

 cavalry), hobilers (light cavalry), and archers 

 (probably mounted archers who acted as skir- 

 mishers). The animals ridden by the hobilers 

 were called hobbies, and were many of them pro- 

 bably mares ; the heavy horses of the men-at- 

 arms being usually stallions, as all the horses are 

 which are represented in the Bayeux Tapestry. 

 I have, however, never met with any ancient au- 

 thority showing that the hobilers were mounted 

 on mares only. If the hobby was a light horse, it 

 would be a very probable duty for the hobby- 

 groom that he should ride with messages. The 

 term " bottle-groom " I never saw or heard 

 before. But as in the county of Worcester a 

 small truss of hay is still called a bottle of hay, it 

 is possible that the bottle-groom was the groom 

 who had the charge of the hay. 



F. A. Carrington. 

 Ogboume St. George. 



Nolo Episcopari (2°'' S. ii. 258.) — St. Bernard 

 in his Treatise on Bishops says : (I. ch. vii.) : 



" When you were first conducted to the episcopal chair, 

 you shed tears, you held back, you entreated support, 

 saying how much it was for you to undertake ; too much 

 for your single strength, crying out that you were a 

 miserable unworthy person; that you were not fit for so 

 sacred an office ; not sufficient for such great responsi- 

 bility." 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



Moses Fowler (2"^ S. iii. 247.) — I can add 

 very little to the account of Moses Fowler given 

 by your correspondents, and shall be very glad to 

 know more. He was the first dean appointed 

 after the reconstitution of the Collegiate Church 

 by James in a.d. 1604, after a dissolution of more 

 than fifty years. In 1608 he was succeeded by 

 Dr. Anthony Higgens, as appears on a table of 

 the Dignitaries of Ripon preserved in the Chapter 

 House. His monument, a stone altar tomb sur- 

 mounted by a flat entablature, in the Jacobean 

 style, exhibits a full-length figure of the dean in 



In the Rolls Chapel. 



