14 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2*<t S. VIII. JutY 2. '59. 



give any farther information as to the history of 

 Mr. Wright ? G. 



[Mr. Edward Wright, of Stretton in Cheshire, born Aug. 

 25. 16*^0, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 was a gentleman of refined and elegant taste in useful 

 knowledge and polite literature. He set out on his travels 

 in company with the Earl of Macclesfield (then Lord Par- 

 ker) in 1720, and spent three 5'ears in a tour, of which he 

 published an account entitled. Some Observations made in 

 travelling through France, Italy, ^c, in the Years 1720, 

 1721, and 1722, illustrated with several prints from his 

 own accurate drawings. Lond. 1730, and 2 vols. 4to., 

 1764. Several of his papers appeared in the Fhilosophical 

 Transactions. He was married to Elizabeth, daughter of 

 .... Lej', on May 2, 1709. Mr. Wright died on May 7, 

 1750, and was buried at Tilston, in Cheshire. A pedigree 

 of the family is printed in Ormerod's Cheshire, ii. 389.] 



" Odcombyan." — Taylor, the water poet, dedi- 

 cates his Three Weeks', Three Days', and Three 

 Hours' Observations and Travel from London to 

 Hamburgh, to " the odcombyan decambulator, per- 

 ambulator, amblei*, trotter, or untyred traveller, 

 Sir Thomas Coryat." 



What is an " odcombyan decambulator ?" 



Ache. 



[Sir Thomas Coryat was a native of Odcombe, in 

 Somersetshire: hence Odcombyan decambulator, or more 

 correctly deambulator, a walker abroad. Decambulator, 

 in Taylor's days, inay have been classical slang for 

 " Bayard's ten toes." Supposing the coiner, whoever he 

 was, of the word decambulator to have designed this 

 jocose allusion to the number ten {Stxa), is it not possible 

 that he may have had in view the old Italian word rfe- 

 cameron, a volume in ten parts, or of tales related in ten 

 days?] 



Edward Chandler, Bishop of Durham. — Wanted 

 his arms. Y. S. M. 



[Cheeky G. and A., on a bend engrailed S., three 

 lioncels passant of the second. — Hutchinson's Durham.'\ 



GHOST STOEIES. 



(2"« S. V. 233. 285. 341. 386. 462.) 



The Wynyard ghost-story is thus alluded to in 

 the tenth of Sir Walter Scott's Letters on Demon- 

 ology and Witchcraft : — 



'_' The story of two highly respectable officers in the 

 British army, who are supposed to have seen the spectre 

 of the brother of one of them in a hut or barrack in 

 America, is also one of those accredited ghost-tales which 

 attain a sort of brevet rank as true, from the mention of 

 respectable names as the parties who witnessed the vision. 

 But we are left without a glimpse when, how, and in 

 what terms, this story obtained its currency ; as also by 

 whom, and in what manner, it was first circulated ; and 

 among the numbers by whom it has been quoted, although 

 all agree in the general event, scarcely two, even of those 

 who pretend to the best information, tell the story in the 

 same way." 



As it has been revived in the above pages of 

 "^ N. & Q.," I will endeavour to throw alittle 

 light upon it. 



_ On the 23rd of October, 1823, a party of dis- 

 tinguished^ big-wigs were dining with the late 

 Chief Justice Sewell, at his house on the esplanade 

 in Quebec, when the story in question became a 

 subject of conversation. Among the guests was 

 Sir John Harvey, Adjutant-General of the forces 

 in Canada, who stated that there was then in the 

 garrison an officer who knew all the circum- 

 stances, and who, probably, would not object to 

 answer a few queries about them. Sir John im- 

 mediately wrote five queries, leaving a space op- 

 posite to each one for an answer, and sent them 

 to Colonel Gore, who, if my memory serves me 

 rightly, was at the head of either the Ordnance 

 or the Royal Engineer department. The following 

 is a copy of both the queries and the answers, which 

 were returned to Sir John before he, and the other 

 guests, had left the Chief Justice's house : — 

 " My Dear Gore, 

 " Do me the favour to answer the following 



Queries. 



" 1. Was you with the 33rd Reg', when Captains 

 Wynyard and Sherbrooke believed that they saw the 

 apparition of the brother of the former officer pass through 

 the room in which they were sitting ? 



" 2. Was you not one of the first persons who entered 

 the room, and assisted in the search for the ghost.' 



" 3. Was you not the person who made a mem" in 

 writing of the circumstances by which the singular fact 

 of the death of Wynyard's brother, at or about the time 

 when the apparition was seen, was established ? 



" 4. With the exception of Sir J. Sherbrooke, do you 

 not consider yourself almost the only surviving evidence 

 of this extraordinary occurrence ? 



" 5. When, where, and in what kind of building did 

 it take place? "(Signed) J. Hakvey." 



" Thursday morn?, 

 23d Ocf. 1823." 



Answers. 



" 1. Tes, I was. It occurred at Sydney, in the Isl* of 

 Cape Breton, in the latter end of 1785 or 6, between 8 

 and 9 in the evening. We were then blocked up by the 

 ice, and had no communication with any other part of 

 the world. " R. G." 



" 2. Yes. The ghost passed them as they were sitting 

 before the fire at coffee, and went into G. Wynj'ard's 

 bed-closet, the window of which was putted (sic') down.* 



« R. G." 



" 3. I did not make the memorandum in writing myself, 

 but I suggested it the next day to Sherbrooke, and he 

 made the mem". I remembered the date, and on the 6"> 

 June our first letters from England brought the account 

 of John Wynyard's death on the very night they saw his 

 apparition. " R. G." 



" 4. I believe all are dead, except Colonel Yorke, who 

 then commanded the regiment, and is Depy. L'. of the 

 Tower, — and I believe Jones Panton, then an ensign- in 

 the reg». " R. G." 



" 5. It was in the new barracks at Sydnej', built the 

 preceding summer, one of the first erections in the settle- 

 ment. " (Signed) Ralph Gore. 



" Sherbrooke had never seen John Wynyard alive ; but 

 soon after returning to England, the following year, when 



• Query, puttied down, to exclude the cold ? 



