218 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



ta-d S. X. Sept. 15. '60. 



rence, and all its great lakes, is 297,600 square 

 miles (537,000 according to Darby) : — 



" If the quantity of water discharged by rivers is, in 

 similar climates, proportionate to the surface of the 

 country which they drain, then the Mississippi discharges 

 about three times as much water as all the Atlantic 

 streams [of North America] united." — Geog. of America 

 and the West Indies, U. K. S., p. 204. 



T. J. BUCKTON. 



Lichfield. 



The Four Geoeqes : George II. (2"^ S. x. 

 169.) — Horace Walpole, in his Reminiscences of the 

 Courts of Oeorge the First and Second (chap. 6.), 

 thus I'elates the destruction of George L's jvill : — 



" At the first council held by the new sovereign, Dr. 

 Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced the will of 

 the late king, and delivered it to the successor, expecting 

 it would be opened and read in council. On the contrary, 

 his Majest}' put it into his pocket, and stalked out of the 

 room without uttering a word on the subject. The poor 

 prelate was thunderstruck, and had not the presence of 

 mind or the courage to demand the testament's being 



opened, or at least to have it registered As the 



king never mentioned the will more, whispers only by 

 degrees informed the public that the will was burnt ; at 

 least that its injunctions were never fulfilled." — VValpole's 

 Letters (ed. by Cumiingham), 1. cxx. 



R. F. SKKTCHXJir. 



Sir Dudley Diggs (2""* S. x. 162.) — Your 

 correspondent Mr. Cockle in his article, " Ma- 

 thematical Bibliography," quotes a memorandum : 

 " The eldest son of Thomas was also very learned : 

 he was Sir Dudley Diggs, and Master of the Rolls 

 to Charles I., died about 1639." 



Visiting Chelham near Canterbury lately, I saw 

 from his monument in the church of that pic- 

 turesque village that he died on the 13th March, 

 1638. 



The following extract from his epitaph is cha- 

 racteristic : — 



« A liberal master and a noble friend when after much 

 experience gained bye travel, and an exact survey of the 

 lawes and people of foreigne kingdomes he bad enabled 

 himself for the service of his Countrie: observing too 

 many justle for place, and crosse y® publique interest if 

 not joined with their private gaine hindering y" motion 

 of y® greate bodie of y* Commonwealth unlesse y« in- 

 ferior orbe of their estates were advanced thereby." 



In one of the rooms at the inn is a lock of his 

 hair, with an inscription that it was taken from his 

 tomb when it was opened in 1719. 



He is more remembered in the village for his 

 charity than for his learning. I was told that one 

 trust of his had been betrayed, and litigation and 

 strife wei'e the consequence. Alas ! there would 

 not be space in " N. & Q." for the list of cases 

 where the benevolence of one generation has been 

 perverted by another. Clarry. 



Longevity (2'"^ S. x. 15. 5G. 155.) — In" Me- 

 moirs of Gilbert Wakefield, vol. i. p. 187., he states 

 that his wifie's great-grandfather's and great-grand- 

 mother's matrimonial connexion lasted seventy- 



five years : they died nearly at the same time, 

 she at the age of ninety-eight, he at the age of 

 107. His name was Joseph Watson, and he was 

 buried at Disley in Cheshire, June 2, 1753. He 

 was out hunting a short time before his death. 

 In the hall of Mr. Legh of Lyme there is a por- 

 trait of him. Some farther account of this Joseph 

 Watson may be found in a work called Historic 

 Lands of England. K.. W. 



Windsor Registers (2°* S. x. 146.)— The 

 monument in memory of Edward Jobson and 

 Elynor his wife deserves attention. The elder 

 Elizabeth must have died before the younger was 

 christened. The infant swathed up at the foot of 

 the altar commemorates her death, in her infancy. 

 Can Abracadabra explain any other grounds 

 for its introduction ? Parents in stating the num- 

 ber of their children in this countiy usually in- 

 clude those who died in infancy : I have done 

 so myself a hundred times. I knew a lady who 

 included a still-born child in hers, and a neigh- 

 bour of hers said she was right, for it was the 

 only well-behaved child she ever had. There is 

 a very strong and well-known prejudice in Ire- 

 land against giving a child the name of its de- 

 ceased brother or sister, founded perhaps in 

 superstition. 



An Anticadabrian Irish Mother. 



Buff (2"'> S. ix. 5.)— If not too late I should be 

 glad to notice this word in the paper of the Right 

 Hon. G. C. Lewis on the Bonasus, &c. 



" To stand buff" is there taken to mean stand 

 firm, and to allude to a thick leathern jerkin of 

 a tawney hue. That may have been the meaning 

 in Hudibras' Epitaph, but it is very common in 

 Yorkshire, when two men strip off their clothes 

 for a fight, or a race, and stand ready for the 

 contest with their skins exposed, to say they 

 " stand in buff" or are stripped into buff, meaning 

 that they are naked. The saying may probably 

 have arisen from the supposed similarity in colour 

 of the naked man and the buff leather. M, B. 



Nottingham. 



Confessions in Verse (2""* S. x. 108. 155.) — 

 These, though announced as the production of the 

 convict himself on the eve of his execution, were 

 generally the sessional handywork of a Catnachian 

 poet, and — mutato nomine — published upon 6very 

 fresh occasion. Of one of them the opening 

 stanza still lingers on my old brain, S. M. of a 

 Knight of the Roade, whom in 1788 I saw on 

 his way to the Worcester gallows : — 



" I, William Prosser, poor man ! 

 Condemned am to die. 

 For robbing and beating Mr. Drinkwater ; 

 The fact I now cannot deny." 



A more spirited autobiography is preserved in 

 an Irish Chap-book ; the hero whereof was known 

 on the road as '" Captain Feeny." Many of his 



