Jan. 24. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



75 



admitted of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is equally 

 certain that he met with some slight or indignity at 

 Cambridge, from whence he returned immediately after 

 his admission, disgusted at the treatment he experienced, 

 which he afterwards visited on both universities." 

 There is an obvious confusion here which perhaps 

 I can clear up. 



I need not say, to those who know anything of 

 Westminster, and of the old system of examination 

 at our Universities, that a youth who entered 

 college, as it is called, head of an election was 

 qualified, at the time, not merely to have entered 

 the University, but to have taken a degree, had 

 age and circumstances permitted ; and this opinion 

 is confirmed in Churchill's case, by his standing 

 for a fellowship at Merton when only in his 

 " second election" — second year on the foundation 

 — at Westminster. How to reconcile this with 

 the stories current is the apparent difficulty, and 

 yet a few words will, I think, make it all clear. 

 There is what is called an " election " every year, 

 from the senior boys on the foundation at West- 

 minster, to scholarships at Christchurch, Oxford, 

 and Trinity, Cambridge. As the scholarships at 

 Oxford are understood to be worth three or four 

 times as much as those at Cambridge, all are 

 anxious to obtain an Oxford scholarship. The 

 election is professedly made after examination ; 

 but while I knew anything of the school it was 

 selection according to interest, and it must have 

 been rare scholarship indeed that obtained the 

 reward against private Interest. Herein, I take it, 

 was the repulse Churchill met with, not a( Oxford, 

 but as a candidate for Oxford. I have little 

 doubt that with all his merit, proved by the prior 

 election Into college, he was put off with a Trinity 

 scholarship; and it was not, probably, until he 

 arrived at Cambridge that he clearly understood 

 its exact no-value. He then saw that it was im- 

 possible to maintain himself there for three years — 

 he had already imprudently married, and there- 

 fore resolved to struggle for himself, and rely on 

 his father's interest to get ordained, and at the 

 proper age he succeeded in getting ordained. 



C.P. 



ENGLISH MEDALS. — WILLIAM III. AND GBANDVAL. 



In "N. & Q." (Vol. iv., p. 497.), S. H. alludes to 

 the case of Grandval, who was to attempt the life 

 of King William, and likewise to the plot to 

 assassinate him four years afterwards. In my 

 collection of medals relating to English history, 

 I have two silver medals struck to commemorate 

 these events. I beg to send you a description of 

 them for insertion, if you consider them of suffi- 

 cient interest. 



1^0. I. — Bust to the right ; flowing hair and 

 ample drapery : legend, " wilhelminus iil, d. g. 

 MAG. BBiT. FRANC. ET HiB. REX." Reverse, a monu- 



ment, or pedestal, on the top of which is the 

 naked body of Grandval, and a man about to dis- 

 sect it ; on each side is a fire-pot^ to burn the 

 entrails, and pikes, on which the head and four 

 quarters are stuck; between two pikes, on the 

 right, is a gibbet. An inscription in Latin is on 

 the pedestal to this effect : 



" Bartholomew de Grandval, a murderer, bribed by 

 the money of Louis, convicted of parricide, and suffered 

 the most severe punishment for having attempted to 

 assassinate William III., King of Great Britain; his 

 head and quarters exposed to be a frightful monument 

 of his sacrilege, and of the perfidy of the French." 



Exergue: "xiii. Aug'' 1692." 



ISTo. 11. — Bust to the right; flowing hair: 

 legend, " wilhelmus ni., d. g. mag. brit. franc. 

 ET HIB. BEX ;" the breast and shoulders covered by 

 half of a shield, on which is written in Hebrew 

 characters the name " Jehovah," and round it, in 

 Latin, thus : " He whom I shield is safe." _ Re- 

 verse: Six women, emblematical of Conspiracy, 

 armed with daggers, snakes, and torches, in dan- 

 cing attitudes, ready to attempt the king's life, and 

 are withheld by cords issuing from a cloud, held 

 by an invisible hand, which encircle their necks 

 and faces. The legend is to this effect : " An in- 

 visible hand withholds them." Exergue : " 1696, 

 Boskam F." W. D. Haggard. 



Bullion Office, Bank of England. 



BEADINGS IN SHAKSPEABB, NO. I. 



*• In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 

 A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, 

 The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 

 Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets ; 

 As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, 

 Disasters in the sun ; and the moist star, 

 Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands. 

 Was pale almost to dooms-day with eclipse." 



Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1. 



Such is the present state of the text ; and not- 

 withstanding its evident corruption, it has been 

 judiciously preferred by modern editors to the 

 various emendations and additions which, even to 

 the manufacture of a complete line alleged to be 

 deficient, had been unscrupulously made in it. 



But the slight change I now wish to propose, in 

 the substance of one word, and in the received 

 sense of another, carries such entire conviction to 

 my own mind of accordance with the genuine 

 intention of Shakspeare, that I may perhaps be 

 pardoned if I speak of it with less hesitation than 

 generally ought to accompany such suggestions, 

 particularly as I do not arrogate to myself its sole 

 merit, but freely relinquish to Malone so much of 

 it as is his due. 



With Malone however the suggestion, such as 

 it was, appears to have been but a random guess, 



