418 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 131. 



Ti6 ill feeling had ever existeJ between himself and 

 the deceased. He said that he knew of no law 

 Svhich aduiilted of the evidence of a ghost ; and if 

 iiny did, the gliost had not a])i)eared. The crier 

 "Was then ordered to summon the ghost, which he 

 did three times, and the judge then acquitted the 

 prisoner, and caused the accuser to be detained, 

 ■which was accordingly done, and his house 

 searched, when such strong proofs of guilt were 

 discovered, that the man confessed the crime, and 

 •was executed for murder at tlie following assizes. 

 Could any of vour readers inform me when this 

 remarkable trial took place, and where I could 

 meet with a more detailed account ? 



SOUTHAMIENSIS. 



Roman and Saxon Cambridge. — Dr. W. "Warren, 

 formerly Yice-Muster of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 

 wrote some papers to pi'ove that the situation of 

 the Grantacsester of Bede was at the Castle end 

 of Cambridge, not at Granchester, and " demon- 

 strated the thing as amply as a matter of that sort 

 is capable of." Brydges states (^Restituta, iv. 

 388.) that his brother. Dr. R. Warren, intended 

 to publish this tract, which came into his hands 

 after the death of the vice-master, which happened 

 in, or shortly after, the year 1735. He left some 

 MSS. to the college, but this is not amongst them ; 

 and Dr. K. Warren did not, as far as I can learn, 

 ever carry his intention of publishing it into exe- 

 cution. W^hat I want to learn is, where this tract 

 now is, if it still exists ; or, if it has been piinted, 

 ■where a printed copy is to be found. C. C. B. 



Queries on the Mistletoe (Vol. iv., p. 110.). — 

 Will your correspondent who some Numbers back 

 stated, in a communication on the mistletoe, that it 

 was not uncommon upon the oak in Somersetshire, 

 kindly give two or three localities on his own know- 

 ledge ? I fear some mistake has arisen, for, as far 

 as my experience goes, an arch-Druid might hunt 

 long enough in the present day for the "heaven- 

 descended plant " among a grove of oaks, ere he 

 fortuitously alighted upon it. Some years ago a < 

 friend assured me that he was credibly informed i 

 by a timber merchant often in the Sussex forests, ! 

 that mistletoe was not uncommon upon oaks 

 there ; but on a personal inspection it turned out | 

 that ivy, not mistletoe, was intended. I suspect a 

 similar mistake in Somersetshire, unless two or 

 three cjrtain localities can be named as seen by a 

 competent observer. 



1 should also like to know from your Carolinian 

 correspondent H. H. B., v/hether the mistletoe he 

 mentions is our genuine " wintry mistletoe" — the 

 Viscum album of Linnasus, or another species. The 

 " varieties of the oak" he speaks of as having mis- 

 tletoe upon thorn, are, I presume, all American 

 species, and not the European Quercus rohur. 



A. F. 



Worcester. 



Portrait of Mesmer. — I should be glad if you, 

 or any of your readers in England or in France, 

 could inform me whether there is anywhere to be 

 found a portrait — drawing, painting, or engraving 

 — of Mesmer f SiG m a. 



Saint Richard (Vol. iv., p. 475.). — On what 

 authority do the particulars recorded of this per- 

 sonage in the Lives of the Saints rest ? I cannot 

 help considering his very existence as rather apo- 

 cryphal, for these reasons : — 1. Bede, who must 

 have been his cotemporary, and whose EcclesiasLi- 

 cul History was written several years after the date 

 assigned for Kichard's death, never mentions his 

 name. 2. When did his alleged renunciation of 

 the throne occur, and what historian of the period 

 mentions it ? At the time of his death, and for 

 thirty- five years before, the kingdom of W^essex 

 was under the sway of Ina, one of the greatest and 

 best of the West Saxon kings. 3. His name is 

 not a Saxon one, and I believe it is not to be found 

 in English history till after the Norman Conquest. 



S. S. W^ARDEX. 

 [The Britannia Sancta, 4to. 1745, contains the fol- 

 lowing notice of St. Richard compiled from the col- 

 lections of the Boliandists : — " St. Richard, whose 

 name occu's on Feb. 7 in the Roman Martyrology, is 

 styled there, as well as in divers other monuments, 

 King of the English, though in tlie catalogues of our 

 Saxon kings there is no one found of that name; the 

 reason of which is, because the catalogues of the kings, 

 during t!ie Heptarchy, are very imperfect, as might be 

 proved, if it were necessary, by several instances of 

 kings wliose names are there omitted. As for St. 

 Ricliard, it is thouglit he was one of those princes who, 

 as we learn from St. Bede, lib. iv. ch. 12., ruled the 

 West Saxons after the year 673, till they were forced 

 to give way to King Ceadwall ; which is the more 

 probable, because he flourished about that time, and 

 was of the province of the West Saxons, as appears 

 from his being a kinsaian to St. Winifred, or Boniface, 

 b,)rn and brought up in those parts (at Crediton in 

 Devonshire), and from his son Willibald's being 

 brought up in a monastery of the same province, and 

 from his own setting o-at upon his pilgrimage from 

 Ilamble Haven, which belonged to the West Saxons." 

 Some account of St. Richard and his tomb at Lucca 

 will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixix., 

 pt. i. p. 14.] 



" Coming Events cast their Shadows before^ — =■ 

 W^here does this coujilet occur ? 



'■ 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 

 And coming events cast their shadows before." 



E.G. 



[This couplet is from Campbell's " Lochiel's Warn- 

 ing."] 



St Christopher. — Fosbroke says, " the Greek 

 Christians represented this saint with a dog's head. 



