10 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 114. 



Such was the entire command of the country 

 which this tree enjoyed, that it is said that 

 " Only Harrow on the Hill plays Ilex, 

 And will have none more high in Middlesex." 



"Essex Broad Oak" [where did that stand?] 

 from which more than twenty miles could be seen, 

 is poetically declared to have been " but a twig" 

 in comparison with his relative at Ilampstead ; to 

 find whose equal it is stated that 



" You must as far as unto Bordeaux go." 



There are other things worth remembering in 

 connexion with this wonder of Hampstead : but I 

 have occupied already more than enough of your 

 space, and will only express my hope that some 

 one will tell us where the Hampstead tree stood, 

 and what was its fate ; and what is known about 

 the Essex Broad Oak ; and what also about the 

 Bordeaux compeer of the tree monarch of Hamp- 

 stead. John Bkuce. 



Minor caitcrt0^. 

 " Invent portum " — " For they, 'twas they." 

 — You will much oblige me by permitting me to 

 ask, through the medium of your entertaining pub- 

 lication, from whence the two following quotations 

 were cited : 



" Inveni portum. — Spes et fortuna valete : 

 Sat me lusistis; ludite nunc alios." 

 *' For thei/, 'twas thei/, unsheath'd the ruthless bLide, 

 And Heav'n shall ask the havock it has made." 



The first will be found in Gil Bias, livre lOieme, 

 •hapitre lOieme ; and the second is used by the 

 renegade Paul Jones in his mock-heroic epistle to 

 the Countess of Selkirk, in extenuation of his 

 having plundered the family seat in Scotland of 

 the plate, on the 23rd April, 1778. 



I should not trouble you, but I have asked 

 many, of extensive reading and retentive memo- 

 ries, for solution of these Queries ineffectually. 



Amicus. 



Matthew Walker. — Can any of your cor- 

 respondents, learned in naval antiquities and bio- 

 graphies, give any account of Matthew Walker, 

 whose knot (described and figured in Darcy 

 Lever's Sheet Anchor) is known by his name all 

 over the world ; and truly said to be " a handsome 

 knot for the end of a Lanyard ?" Regedonum. 



Aleclenef^ate. — The east gate of the town of 

 Bury St. Edmund's, which was always under the 

 exclusive control of the abbot, is sometimes men- 

 tioned as " the Aleclenegate." What is the origin 

 of the word ? Burieksis. 



Smothering Hydrophohic Patients. — I can re- 

 collect, when I was a boy, to have been much 

 surprised and horrified with the accounts that old 

 people gave me, that it was the practice in decided 



cases of rabies canina to suffocate the unfortunate 

 patient between feather beds. The disease being 

 so suddenly and so invariably fatal, where it ap- 

 peared une(;[uivocally to attack the sufferer, might 

 dispose the world to ascribe the death to what 

 surely may be termed foul play ; but perhaps 

 some of your readers may be able to state where 

 mention is made of such treatment, or what could 

 give rise to such an opinion in the public mind. 



Indagator. 



Philip Twisilen, Bishop of Raphoe. — In Haydn's 

 Book of Dignities, p. 475., there is the following 

 note on the name of this prelate : — 



" Sir James Ware, or, more properlj', the subse- 

 quent editors of iiis works, narrate some very extraor- 

 dinary circumstances that rendered the close of the 

 life of ^his prelate very remarkable and unfortunate ; 

 but we fesl unwilling to transeriba them, though there 

 seems to be no doubt of their truth." 



As Sir James Ware died in 1666, and the latest 

 edition of his work on the Bishops of Ireland (by 

 Walter Harris) was published in 1736, it is im- 

 possible that either he, or his subsequent editors, 

 could have recorded anything of the last days of a 

 prelate who died Nov. 2, 1752. 



Mr. Haydn, however, speaks as if he had ac- 

 tually before him the mysterious narrative which 

 he has gone so far out of his way to allude to, and 

 which for some equally mysterious reason he was . 

 " unwilling to transcribe," although he thought it 

 necessary to call attention to it, and to express his 

 inclination to believe in its truth. 



If this should meet his eye, would Mr. Haydn 

 have the kindness to say where he found the story 

 in question, as it is certainly not in Ware ? I 

 know of two stories, one of which is probably that 

 to which Mr. Haydn has called the attention of 

 his readers ; but I have never seen them stated 

 with such clearness, or on such authority, as would 

 lead me to the conclusion that " there seemed no 

 doubt of their truth." James H. Todd. 



Trinity College, Dublin. 



" Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative," edited by 

 Miss Jane Porter.— I am in possession of a copy 

 of the above work, presented to my father by the 

 late amiable authoress, Miss Porter. It is, as you 

 are no doubt aware, a journal of adventure in the 

 Carribean Sea and its islands, between 1733 and 

 1749; but on the publication of the first edition 

 its authenticity was questioned, and a suggestion 

 made by some of the critics that the editor was 

 also the author. This, Miss Porter assured me was 

 not the fact, and that the work is a genuine diary, 

 placed in her hands for publication by the family, 

 still existing, of the original writer. The name I 

 think she i'ntlmated was not Seaward, but she 

 expressed some hesitation to detail the circum- 

 stances of Its coming into her possession. She 

 makes, in a preface to the second edition, an assu- 



