288 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. VIII. Oct. 8. '5P, 



countyes. But not being soe perfect in the par- 

 ticuler values of the severall parcells of his estate, 

 haveing trusted it constantly to the mannaging 

 of others, did give in his lands in Staffordshire, 

 Derbyshire, and Cheshire, at 350" p ann., whereas 

 the true value is but 255"; and his lands in 

 Wiltshire but 120", whereas the true value is 

 215" p ann., both amounting to the sayd sum of { 

 470", for which hee compounded. My Lord 

 desires that hee may have liberty to sett the 

 severall values upon his severall parcells of land, | 

 all amounting to the sayd sum of 470". And that 

 hee may have his letters to the severall countyes 

 accordingly, what favour you shall shew my Lord 

 Cromwell heerein you shall obleige 



" Yo"" very loveing freind, 



" Oliver CBOMWELii. 

 « 29 Octob. 1646." 



[At foot is this note inscribed] : — 

 " If it appeai'e that there be such a mistake as 

 is here alleaged, lett it be amended as is desired. 



"John Ashe." 

 [Addressed] " To my very loveinge frend 



M' Joinner at Gouldsmiths Hall thes." 

 Abracadabba. 



Minot ifiattg* 



A Merry Question anent the Burning of a Mill. 

 — The following quaint passage occurs in Sir 

 James Balfour of Pettindreich's Practieks of the 

 Law of Scotland (p. 509.). It affords besides an 

 excellent specimen of the old Lowland Scotch 

 language : — 



" A Merrie Questioun anent the Burning of a Miln. 



" Gif it happin that ony man be passand in the King's 

 gait or passage, drivand befoir him twa sheip festnit and 

 knit togidder, be chance ane horse, havand ane sair bak, 

 is lying in the said gait, and ane of the sheip passis be 

 the" ane side of the horse, and the uther sheip be the uther 

 side, swa that the band quhairwith they are bund tuich 

 or kittle his sair bak, and he thairby movit dois arise, 

 and caryis the said sheip with him heir and thair, untill 

 at last he cumis and enteris in ane miln havand ane fire, 

 without ane keipar, and skatteris the fire, quhairby the 

 miln, horse, sheip, and all is brunt ; Qucentur, Quha sail 

 pay the skaith ? Mesponcktur, The awner of the horse 

 sail pay the sheip, because his horse sould not have been 

 lying in the King's hie streit, or commoun passage ; and 

 the miliar sail pay for the miln and the horse, and for all 

 uther damnage and shaith, because he left ane fire in the 

 jniln without ane keipar." 



From the references which the author gives at 

 the close, this case would appear to have been an 

 actual one. G. J. 



The Mohawks. — "I am very much frighted 

 with the fyer, but much more with a gang of 

 Devils that call themselv's mohocks. They put 

 an old woman into a Hogshead, and rooled her 

 down a hill. They cut of som's nosis, other's 

 hands, ^nd several barbarass tricks, without any 



provocation. They are said to be young gentle- 

 men. They never take any money from any. 

 Instead of setting fifty pd. upon the head of a 

 Highwayman, sure they would doe much better 

 to sett a hundred upon thear heads." — Letter from 

 Lady Wentworth to her Son Lord Strafford, 14th 

 March, 1712. Zz. 



Proverbial Expression. — I heard the following 

 remark used by a man near Merrion, co. Dublin, 

 on seeing a stupid fellow nearly drive his cart 

 over an umbrella which a passenger had a few 

 minutes before accidentally let fall. " Oh ! that's 

 a Whitsuntide fellow, he can't eat his breakfast 

 without breaking his plate." Y. S. M. 



Scotfs Lines on Woman. — Amongst the many 

 charges of plagiarism laid against the author of 

 Marmion was one suggested by the cruel in- 

 genuity of an anonymous critic, apparently in 

 residence at Cambridge, who, under the name of 

 " Detector," accused him of appropriating an 

 elegiac couplet of Vida's : — 



" Ciim dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor, 

 Fungeris angelico sola ministerio." 



On reading these lines in Lockhart's Life of 

 Scott the other day (p. 201., ed. 1845), the jingle 

 seemed familiar to my ear ; and so it was, for 

 turning to my Arundines Cami, I found the very 

 same lines in the translation of " O woman in our 

 hours of ease," &c. My ignorance might possibly 

 amuse the upper thousand of the learned world ; 

 nevertheless, I am anxious to know if " Detec- 

 tor " and " Henricus Josephus Thomas Drury, 

 Scholae Harroviensis nuper Deuterodidascalus," 

 can be identified. Does the heading, " Splendide 

 Mendax " of the version in the Arundines contain 

 an allusion to the hoax successfully played off, as 

 it would appear, upon the Great Unknown ? 



M. L. R. 



Stanford-le-Hope. 



Relics of the Plague of London. — A few weeks 

 since the workmen, in digging out the foundation 

 on the east end of Three Nun Court, by St. Mi- 

 chael's Church, Aldgate, came to a considerable 

 quantity, upwards of a cart-load, of human skulls 

 and bones, about seven feet from the surface. In 

 some of the papers it has been conjectured that 

 they formed part of the sweepings of some ad- 

 jacent churchyard after the fire of London. This 

 was more likely the great pit, or " dreadful gulf," 

 as De Foe calls it, provided for the parishes of 

 Aldgate and Whitechapel, which, during a fort- 

 night after it was opened, had thrown into it 1114 

 bodies, when they were obliged to fill it up. De 

 Foe adds, " I doubt not but there may be some 

 ancient persons alive in the parish who are able 

 to show in what part of the churchyard the pit lay 

 better than I can ; the mark of it also was many 

 years to be seen in the churchyard, or the surface 



