2nd s. No 75., June 6. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



447 



of reviewers ; to all the commentators that ever wrote, 

 are writing, or will write on Shakspeare ; and particu- 

 larly to that commentator of commentators, the conjec- 

 tural, inventive, and collatitious G. S., Esq." [George 

 Steevens.] 



X. 



S. Jesteru, M.A. — Can any of your readers 

 give me any account of H. Jesten, M.A., Master 

 of the Royal Grammar School, Henley-on-Thames. 

 He was author of a volume of Poems, published 

 at Reading in 1790. X. 



Charles Davenant, LL.D. — I shguld like to be 

 informed by you, or one of your correspondents, 

 whether the book bearing the following title was 

 the veritable production of Dr. Davenant, the ce- 

 lebrated author of the Essay on Ways and Means, 

 or was intended as a satire upon his publications. 

 It is not to be found under Dr. Davenant's name 

 in Watt's Biblioiheca, or in the Bodleian Cata- 

 logue ; nor is it contained in Sir Charles Whit- 

 worth's collection of his political and commercial 

 works. 



" New Dialogues upon the Present Posture of Affairs, 

 the Species of Mony, national Debts, publick Revenues, 

 Bank and East-India Company, and the Trade now 

 Carried on between France and Holland. Vol. II. By 

 the Author of the Essay on Ways and Means. Lond., 

 1710. 8vo." 



The interlocutors in the Dialogues are Sir 

 Thomas Double, Sir Richard Comover, and Mr. 

 "Trueman. 'AKtevs. 



. Dublin. 



Quotation. — Can you oblige me by informing 

 me whence the following quotation is taken : 



" The wisest man in a comedy is he that plays the 

 fool, for a man must be no fool to give a diverting repre- 

 sentation of folly." 



I have long believed that I met with it in 

 Bacon, but was surprised not to find it upon 

 searching his Essays. E. D. 



Portrait of George III. — I shall be glad of 

 any particulars enabling me to trace the history 

 of a print I have lately met with. It is a finely- 

 executed engraving, in mezzotint, of King 

 George III., Irora some portrait painted, it would 

 appear, during the latter period of that monarch's 

 life. His majesty is represented in a sitting pos- 

 ture, the chair surmounted by an ornamental 

 crown. He is dressed in a loose robe and velvet 

 cap, and has a beard of considerable growth. 

 There are other peculiarities which I need not 

 indicate. 



Who painted this portrait, and by whom was it 

 subsequently engraved ? The copy before me 

 has no margin. W. W. W. 



Tiverton. 



William Cruden. — We shall be glad of any in- 

 formation respecting the Rev. William Cruden, 



who was appointed minister of the Presbyterian 

 Church in Crown Court, Drury Lane, in the year 

 1774. He died Nov. 5, 1785, being sixty years 

 of age, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. Was 

 he the author of the following work, which is 

 mentioned in Home's Introduction to the Scriptures, 

 vol. ii. Appendix, p. 240. ? 



" The Complete Family Bible ; or a Spiritual Exposi- 

 tion of the Old and New Testament ; wherein each chapter 

 is summed up in its context, and the sacred text inserted 

 at large, with Notes, spiritual, practical and explan- 

 ator3\ By the Rev. Mr. Cruden. London : 1770. 2 vols., 

 folio." 



Was he of the same family as Alexander Cru- 

 den, the author of the Concordance ? C. & R. 



Brandon ofLuchon: St. Viar. — May I make 

 both a Note and a Query out of the following ex- 

 tract from The Saturday Review of May 23, in a 

 review of Les Eaux des Pyrenees, par H., Saine, 

 Paris : — 



" We regret to find no description of the very remark- 

 able ceremony of the Brandon at Luchon, which takes 

 place at Midsummer. It is evidently a relic of that pri- 

 maeval worship of the sun of which a remembrance is 

 preserved in the Scotch word ' Beltane,' and in those 

 fires which burn on the eve of the festival of St. John 

 along the Bohemian hills. There may be. among the 

 population of the Pyrenees and the Cantabriau Sierras, 

 many curious customs of this kind which are not at all 

 generally known. The Spanish Basques call Sunday 

 ' Astartea,' a word in which it is easy to recognise the 

 name of the Syrian Venus. We dare say that a jealous 

 investigator in those regions might find some amusing 

 parallels to the story of St. Viar." 



My Queries are : — 1. Can any one furnish this 

 information about the Brandon of Luchon? 2. 

 Who was St. Viar, and what his story ? 



Cantabbigiensis. 



Trin. Coll., Cambridge. 



Joan of Arc. — 



" We are positively told that Joan of Arc was burnt by 

 the English at Rouen in 1431, when it has been incontro- 

 vertibly established, by ancient archives of that city, that 

 on the'lst August, 1439, the council of the city of Rouen 

 made her a gift of 210 livres, 'for services rendered by 

 her at the siege of the said city.' So that the burning of 

 Joan is a myth, invented by the French to blacken the 

 English character, and transferred to our history as a 

 fact by those authors who too credulously relied on French 

 chroniclers." — London Journal, March 14. 



In a note in the Annals of England (vol. ii. 

 p. 48.), it is stated that Joan, having been taken 

 by the Burgundians, then engaged in the siege of 

 Compiegne (May 26, 1430), was by them " sur- 

 rendered for a sum of money to the Duke of Bed- 

 ford, by (whose) direction she was, after a long 

 and rigorous imprisonment, brought before an 

 ecclesiastical tribunal, at which the Bishop of 

 Beauvais presided, and was condemned to death 

 as a sorceress. In consequence, she was burnt 

 alive at Rouen, May 30, 1431." 



How is it possible to reconcile these conflicting 



