«?0 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 137. 



The Ring Finger (Vol. v., p. 492.). — I have met 

 with the following passage in Adam's Antiquities 

 (8vo. ed., p. 429.), which seems to assign another 

 origin to this custom than the one lately proposed 

 in "N. & Q.": 



" On this occasion " (i. e. the signing of the marriage 

 contract) " there was commonly a feast : and the man 

 gave the woman a ring (aniiulits pronuhus) by way of 

 pledj^e, Juvenal, vi. 27., which she put on her left hand, 

 on the finger next the least; because it was believed 

 a nerve reached from thence to the heart : Macrob. 

 Sat. vii. 15." 



Ebtx. 



Brass of Lady Gore (Vol. v., p. 412.). — This 

 brass still exists, and commemorates Maria Gore, 

 Priorissa, 1436, attired simply as a widovT. Owing 

 to its actual existence having been but recently 

 known to collectors of rubbings, no mention was 

 made of it in the Oxford Manual. For the same 

 reason there is no notice of a very interesting brass 

 of a bishop or abbot, date end of fourteenth cen- 

 tury, at Adderley, Salop. The editor of the above 

 •work would take this opportunity of thanking 

 ■Mb. W. S. Simpson for his corrections (" N. &. Q.," 

 Vol. v., p. 369.). The rubbing, or rather smudg- 

 ing, from which the inscription was copied being 

 nearly wholly illegible, accounts for the mistakes. 

 Any further corrections will oblige 



The Editor of the " Oxford Manual of 

 Brasses." 



Gloucester. 



Gospel Trees. — Several Numbers of " IT. & Q." 

 tave contained interesting nolices of trees which 

 are ti-aditionally reported to indicate the standing- 

 places of out-door preachers. To me, there is 

 something very pleasing and picturesque — if no- 

 thing better — in these narrations; and I shall 

 therefore be glad to find them recurring in your 

 pages, whether their claims are of ancient or later 

 date. Every reader of the vigorous poetry of 

 Ebenezer Elliott, a true member of the genus ir- 

 ritabile, will recollect Miles Gordon " the Ranter " 

 preacher, and how, in the poet's lines, — 



" The great unpaid ! the prophet, lo ! 



Sublime he stands beneath the Gospel tree. 

 And Edmund stands on Shlreclifle at his side." 



The context, too long to quote here, is a passage 

 descriptive of the scenery in the vicinity of Shef- 

 field in one direction, unsurpassed for graphic 

 scope, freshness, and fidelity in the whole range 

 of English rhyme. But the tree ? Hundreds of 

 summer visitors climb the hill, and ask that ques- 

 tion ; and they are pointed to an ash, which stands 

 in a situation conspicuous enough, but which 

 neither the rest of " the trees of the wood," if 

 they could speak, nor the quarryman, who re- 

 members it when a sappling, can allow to be the 

 veritable " Gospel tree" of the poet, though, but 

 for this memorandum in " N. & Q.," it might ar- 



rive at that distinction in the course of another 

 century. A neighbouring tree, an oak, which 

 those matter-of-fact judges, the trigonometrical 

 surveyors, have marked with a lofty pole, com- 

 petes with the aforesaid ash for the reverence of 

 pilgrims ; but its claim is equally apocryphal. If, 

 however, Avhen on the spot, " it is diliicult," accord- 

 ing to the old adage, " to find the tree for the 

 wood," as I experienced a few days since, it will 

 ever stand conspicuous enough in the poet's page, 

 and may even serve to divert or recall attention to 

 " Gospel trees," which have more than a poetical 

 claim to that appellation. H. 



" Who from the dark and doubtful love to run " 

 (Vol. v., p. 512.). — I presume the lines imper- 

 fectly quoted by H. M. are to be found in the 

 "Introduction" to the Parish Register by Crabbe, 

 and which, as the book is before me, I will tran- 

 scribe : 



" Oh ! rather give me commentators plain. 

 Who with no deep researches vex the brain. 

 Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, 

 And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun." 



s.s.s. 



Son of the Conqueror; Walter Tyrrel (Vol. v., 

 p. 512.). — No other son of William the Conqueror, 

 except William Rufus, was slain by an arrow ia 

 the New Forest. A grandson, however, of the 

 Conqueror, Richard, son of Robert Duke of Nor- 

 mandy, met with the same fate as Rufus, as stated 

 by the coteinporary chronicler, Florentius Wigor- 

 nensis. (Edition of the Historical Society, vol. ii. 

 p. 45.) Immediately after describing the death 

 of William Rufus, he says : 



" Nam et anteaejusdem Willelmi junioris germanus, 

 Ilicardus, in eadem foresta multo ante perierat, et paulo 

 ante suns fratruelis, Ricardus, comitis scilicet Norman- 

 norum Ilotherti filius, dum et ipse in venatu fuisset, a 

 suo railite sagitta percussus, interiit." 



Probably Sir N. Wraxhall or his authority had 

 read this statement hastily, and had construed 

 fratruelis brother instead of nephew, which is the 

 correct sense of the word. 



Your correspondent asks further for the autho- 

 rity for the death of William Rufus. Every 

 historian of that day— Florentius Wigornensis and 

 the Saxon chronicler among others — gives the 

 received account of his death, except Sugcr, a 

 Norman abbot, who says that Sir W. Tyrrel took 

 a solemn oath to him that he was not the slayer 

 of the king, but that the arrow came from an 

 unknown hand. 



There can, I think, be little doubt but that Sir 

 W. Tyrrel's was the hand that drew the bow ; 

 whether, however, he intended to kill the king_ or 

 not, is a point which it is probable, after the time 

 that has elapsed, will never be satisfactorily de- 

 termined. K,' c. C. 



Oxon. 



