194 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. VIII. Sept. 3. '59. 



this it should be borne in mind that, as far back 

 as the time of Chaucer, the most usual colour of 

 mourning was black. Atropos also, who held the 

 fatal scissors which cut short the life of man, was 

 clothed in black. When, therefore, the judge puts 

 on the black cap, it is a very significant as well as 

 solemn procedure. He puts on mourning ; for he 

 is about to pronounce the forfeit of a life ! And 

 accordingly the act itself, the putting on of the 

 black cap, is generally understood to be significant. 

 It intimates that the judge is about to pronounce 

 no merely registered or supposititious sentence ; 

 in the very formula of condemnation he has put 

 himself in mourning for the convicted culprit, as 

 for a dead man. The criminal is then left for exe- 

 cution, and, unless mercy exert its sovereign 

 prerogative, suffers the sentence of the law. The 

 mourning cap expressively indicates his doom. 



Thomas Boys. 



ST. PATRICK S BIDGES. 



(2"0 S. viii. 89.) 



In the collection of Letters which Dr. Richard 

 Parr subjoined to his Life of Ussher (Lond. 1686, 

 folio) is one " from the Bishop of Kilmore to the 

 most Reverend James Ussher, Archbishop Elect of 

 Armagh," dated "March 26, 1624," in which the 

 writer, complaining of the spoliation of the Irish 

 Church's^ revenue, says " Impropriators in all 

 places may hold all ancient customs, only they 

 upon whom the cure of souls is laid are debarr'd : 

 St. Patrick's Ridges, which you know belonged 

 to the Fabrick of that church, are taken away ;" 

 and he adds, " The more is taken away from the 

 king's clergy, the more accrues to the Pope's : and 

 the servitors and undertakers, who should be in- 

 struments for settling a church, do hereby advance 

 their rents, and make the church poor." This 

 letter is numbered LXXX. in Parr's Collections, 

 and LXXXIV. in Dr. Elrington's. {Works of \ 

 Ussher, vol. xv. p. 272.) The late editor has not 

 exactly adhered to the orthography of Parr's edi- 

 tion, from which he professed to print, and he has 

 omitted to retain the former numeration, which I 

 think he should have given within brackets in 

 those instances where the two series did not coin- 

 cide. Nor has he effected a strict chronological 

 arrangement, although he thence deduces a rea- 

 son for changing the order of the Letters pub- 

 lished by Parr. He has not even remarked the 

 impropriety of styling Ussher " Archbishop elect" 

 there not being in Ireland any form of canonical 

 election and confirmation, consequently no conge 

 (Teslier, the sees being all donative, conferred as if 

 they were so many civil offices by letters patent 

 from the Crown. Of this it might have been ex- 

 pected that Dr. Elrington would have informed 

 his readers. In his Life of Ussher, pp. 69, 70., he 

 has quoted this Letter of the Bishop of Kilraore's 



more correctly than he afterwards printed it in 

 the collected Works, and in a note he says, 

 "Among the duties reserved in ancient leases, 

 that denominated Ridges occurs frequently ; it 

 appears probable that a certain number of days in 

 harvest to which the lord was intitled became 

 commuted, and the duty ascertained by the mea- 

 sure of the pace in reference to that of time ; 

 hence a Ridge of work in sowing or reaping be- 

 came by mutual consent a substitute for the ser- 

 vice of one or more days." And he quotes from 

 Mason's History of St. Patrick" s Cathedral, p. 71., 

 a statement in Ussher's Proctors Book for 1606, 

 showing that he had in that year received several 

 payments for St. Patrick's Ridges in several 

 places. 



I would conjecture that the name of St. Pa- 

 trick's Ridges alludes rather to some ancient mode 

 of tithing in Ireland. 



For an account of Thomas Moygne, Bishop of 

 Kilmore, 1612 to 1628, whose letter shows that 

 those " Ridges " had been only recently taken 

 away in 1624, see Harris' Ware, vol. i. p. 231., and 

 the very useful, because accurate, work of Arch- 

 deacon Cotton, Fasti Ecclesice Hihernicce, vol. iii. 

 p. 157. Abtekus. 



Dublin. 



CHATTERTON MANUSCRIPT. 



(2"d S. viii. 94.) 



The description of Bristoliensis leaves no 

 doubt of the identity of the MS. referred to; and 

 the librarian of the Bristol Literary Institution 

 has recognised it, as having been taken there for 

 comparison with Chatterton's will by some gentle- 

 man whose name has been forgotten — probably 

 Bristoliensis himself. If, however, it was pro- 

 nounced spurious upon comparison with any other 

 portion of that document than the signature, it 

 was perhaps a hasty conclusion. The will is writ- 

 ten in a stiff and formal copying-hand, with no 

 more character than in the writing of any other 

 attorney's clerk of the period ; and compared with 

 the signature (which agrees with my MS.) would, 

 to the suspicious, furnish evidence against its 

 authenticity. There is strong internal evidence 

 in favour of the MS. being an original composi- 

 tion, in the frequent change of epithets and nu- 

 merous corrections, contradicting the assumption 

 that it is only a modernised fragment of JElla by 

 Seyer. The water-mark in two leaves of the will 

 is identical with the MS., and the paper is of 

 similar texture. 



Is there any evidence that Chatterton ever ex- 

 hibited a single scrap of the supposed literary 

 labours of Rowley, said to have been found in the 

 Redcllff chest ? That Mrs. Newton should have 

 been anxious in some degree to lessen the odium 

 that attached to her brother's long career of de- 



