2'«> S. VIII. Sept. 3. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



185 



LEIGH HUNT S TRANSLATION OF WALTER MAP£S S 

 DRINKING SONG. 



This pretended drinking song, which has ren- 

 dered the name of Walter Mapes so popular, forms 

 a portion of his poem, Confessio Golice, lines 45. 

 to 52. : — 



" Meum est propositum in taberna mori : 

 Vinum sit appositum morientis ori, 

 Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, 

 ' Deus sit propitius huic potatori ! ' 



" Poculis accenditur animi lucerna ; 



Cor imbutum Hectare volat ad superna : 

 Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna, 

 Quam quod aqua miscuit praesulis pincerna." 



The following translation by Leigh Hunt, who, 

 at a good ripe age, has just been taken from 

 among us, has not, I believe, ever been printed. 

 It is copied from his own handwriting, as cer- 

 tified by Mr. Vincent Novello, and may be seen 

 in Addit. MS. 14,343, Brit. Museum : — 



" I propose to end my days — in a tavern drinking, 

 May some Cliristian hold for me — the glass when I 



am shrinking ; 

 That the Cherubim may cry, — when they see me sinking, 

 God be merciful to a soul — of this gentleman's Avay of 

 thinking. 



" A glass of wine amazingly enlighteneth one's internals, 

 'Tis wings bedewed with nectar, that fly up to supernals ; 

 Bottles cracked in taverns, have much the sweeter 



kernels, 

 Than the sups allowed to us, in the College journals." 



Barnabee, Jun. 



Minav ^aUi, • 



Birth-place of Sii' Isaac Newton. — Until 1 saw 

 the following extract in this day's Stamford Mer- 

 cury, I was not aware that there was any doubt 

 whatever as to the birth-place of the most illus- 

 trious of our Lincolnshire worthies. All biogra- 

 phies that I have seen agree on this head, and 

 many prints have been issued of the present 

 Woolstborpe Manor on account of its supposed 

 interesting connexion with Sir Isaac Newton. It 

 is highly desirable that as a doubt has arisen on 

 this matter, it should be set at rest as soon as 

 possible ; perhaps we may have means of attain- 

 ing certainty now, which, if not promptly used, 

 may be denied to our successors ; but however 

 that may be, " the truth can never be confirmed 

 enough, though doubts should ever cease." 



" In our obituary of this week is recorded the death of 

 a centenarian, Mr. Samuel Atter, of Woolsthorpe by 

 Colsterwortb, who completed bis 100th j'ear on the 1st of 



April last He lived all his days in close 



proximity to the birth-place of Sir Isaac Newton, of 

 whom he related many anecdotes, which had been handed 

 down to him by his parents. He used to contend that 

 Sir Isaac Newton was not born in the present manor- 

 house, but in a house adjacent, which was taken down 

 60 or 70 years ago ; and he was accustomed to point to 

 some beams in his own cottage, and tracery in the walls, 



which he said came from the original manor-house in 

 which the great philosopher first saw the light." 



Edward Peacock. 



Bottesford Manor, Brigg, Aug. 26. 



Matriculation Lists of Students of the Inns of 

 Court. — The Probation Lists of Merchant Taylors' 

 School suggest the interest that would be taken 

 in the publication of the Lists of the Members of 

 the Inns of Court as entered in the books of the 

 Societies on admittance, especially as all copies of 

 such entries that I have seen state the parentage. 

 We have our Lists of Graduates of the Univer- 

 sities : and if the learned librarians of our Inns of 

 Court were permitted by the Benchers to edit the 

 lists of names, with the genealogical notice con- 

 nected with them, of former members of these 

 most venerable and ancient institutions, such pub- 

 lications would be highly esteemed. T. F. 



Sedan Chairs in Dublin. — As an illustration of 

 the state of society in Dublin towards the close of 

 the last century, I send a copy of a short note ap- 

 pended to an interesting Biographical Memoir of 

 Bartholomeio Mosse, M.D. (Dublin, 1846), p. 

 32.: — 



" During the period when this tax [on sedan chairs] 

 was levied, the [Lying-in] hospital published A List of 

 the Proprietors of Licenses for Sedan Cfiairs, Sec, together 

 with A Scheme for Card Assemblies, §-c. From one of 

 these curious little books, now lying before us, and in 

 which are likewise given the coats of arms of all the 

 benefactors of the institution (some of which armorial 

 bearings are still preserved in the wards of the institu- 

 tion), we learn that there were 257 private sedan chairs 

 in Dublin in 1787 ; belonging, besides the ordinary resi- 

 dent gentry, to one Duke, one Duchess, twelve Earls, 

 sixteen Countesses, eleven Viscounts, nine Viscountesses, 

 thirty-seven titled Ladies, one Archbishop, three Bishops, 

 five Lords, ten Baronets, forty-two Honourables, male 

 and female," &c. 



This tax, which the governors of the hospital 

 were empowered to levy by an act of 25 Geo. III., 

 for many years made a very considerable item in the 

 resources of the Institution, having amounted in 

 the year 1798 to 547Z. The sedan chairs in Dublin 

 at the present day would, I think, fall very far 

 short of yielding 547 pence; and, with the old 

 oil-lamps, " Charlies," hackney-coaches, Donny-^ 

 brook Fair, &c., may be reckoned amongst the* 

 things of the past. Abhba. 



Petrarch and Lord Falkland. — Petrarch con- 

 cludes his 29th canzone with the words: — 



" lo vo gridando pace, pace, pace." 

 Has it ever been noticed that this line may have 

 suggested to the good and great Lord Falkland 

 his plaintive cry, when, as Clarendon reports, "sit- 

 ting among his friends, often after a deep silence 

 and frequent sighs, he would with a shrill and sad 

 accent ingeminate the words Peace, Peace " ? 



C. W. Bingham. 



