2°i S. VIII. Nor. 12. '59.3 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



401 



Poole, Barfc., is there returned as prebendary of 

 Ipthorne, rector of Chailey, and rector of Wal- 

 dron, in the diocese of Chichester. Can any 

 reader of " N. & Q." give the genealogy of Sir 

 Horace, the date of his death, place of burial ? 

 &c. A. M. 



[The Rev. Sir Horace is a misprint for the Rev. Sir 

 Henry Poole, Bart, who died May 25, 1821, at the Hooks, 

 near Lewes, Sussex, in his seventy-seventh year, when 

 the baronetcy expired. Sir Henry was born Feb. 29, 

 1744-5, and succeeded to the title and estate June 8, 

 1804. His family, which is very ancient, and the stem 

 of many eminent branches, took its surname from the 

 lordship of Poole in Wirrall hundred in Cheshire, and 

 was honoured with a baronetage 25th Oct. 1677. For 

 the pedigree see Ormerod's Cheshire, ii. 235.] 



Had Bishop Williams a Play performed in his 

 House on a Sunday ? — Mb. J. Payne Collier, in 

 his History of British Dramatic Poetry, ii. 30., 

 publishes from a MS. in the Library at Lambeth 

 Palace the statement that the Midsummer's 

 Nighfs Dream was privately performed on Sun- 

 day, the 27th of September, 1631, in Bishop 

 Williams's house in London. The circumstance is 

 mentioned by Dr. Peter Heylin in his Observa- 

 tions on the Church History of Britain, p. 243., 

 where it is said that the Bishop 



" caused a comedy to be acted before him at his house 

 at Bugden, not only on a Sunday in the afternoon, but 

 upon such a Sunday also on which he had publicly given 

 sacred orders both to priests and deacons. And to this 

 comedy he invited the Earl of Manchester, and divers of 

 the neighbouring gentry." 



I borrow this quotation from Ambrose Philips, 

 who in his Life of the Bishop (Camb. 1700) has 

 nothing more to say in reply than to 



" wonder how the circumstance, if true, came to be 

 omitted by the author of his [formerly published] Life, 

 who doubtless knew the Bishop's private actions the best 

 of any man, and who affirms that Lincoln did no more 

 in recreating himself with such diversions than he had 

 seen that grave prelate Archbishop Bancroft do at Lam- 

 beth."— P. 253. 



This is not even a faint denial; yet I should 

 like to have farther evidence on the subject, and 

 to see the passage in the previous Life, referred 

 to by Philips. Scotus. 



[The passage is too long for quotation, and is merely 

 an apology for Bishop Williams's conduct : it occurs in 

 Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 37. It 

 must be borne in mind that some of the Caroline divines, 

 as stated by Fuller, " make the Sabbath to begin on 

 Saturday night (' The evening and the morning were the 

 first day,') and others on the next day in the morning ; 

 both agreeing on the extent thereof for four-and-twenty 

 hours." (^Church History, book xi. cent. xvii. sect. 33.) 

 Hence the recreations allowed by the Book of Sports were 

 not to commence until after what was then called Evening 

 Prayer. George Herbert, that beautiful model of a parish 

 priest, informs lis how he spent the evening of the Lord's 

 Day ; ' Having read Divine Service twice full3'-, and 

 preached in the morning, and catechized in the afternoon, 

 he thinks he hath in some measure, according to poor and 

 frail man, discharged the public duties of the congrega- 



tion. The rest of the day he spends either in reconciling 

 neighbours that are at variance, or in visiting the sick, 

 or in exhortations to some of his flock by themselves, 

 whom his sermons cannot, or do not reach. At night he 

 thinks it a very fit time, both suitable to the joy of the 

 day, and without hindrance to public duties, either to 

 entertain some of his neighbours, or to be entertained of 

 them, where he takes occasion to discourse of such things 

 as are both profitable and pleasant, and to raise up their 

 minds to apprehend God's good blessing to our church 

 and state ; that order is kept in the one, and peace in the ■ 

 other, without disturbance, or interruption of public di- 

 vine ofiices." — A Priest to the Temple, chap, viii.] 



Pliny's Chapter on Gems and Precious Stones. 

 — Can you kindly refer me to any work which 

 gives the modern names and characters of the pre- 

 cious stones or jewels enumerated in the works 

 of Pliny or Isiodorus ? 



Glanville, in his curious work De Proprietatibus 

 Rerum, makes frequent reference to Lapidario. 

 Who or what is this authority ? A man, or a 

 book ? A. B. R. 



[We know of no work so likely to answer our cor- 

 respondent's purpose as Keferstein's Polyglot Mineralogy 

 (^Mineralogia Polyglotta, 8vo. Halle, 1849. ) This work gives 

 not only the classical names of precious stones, but the 

 corresponding terms in a great variety of languages. 

 Thus imder Diamant (p. 7.) we have about fifty render- 

 ings in different tongues. — " In Lapidario " is a con- 

 ventional mode of citing a work on gems supposed to have 

 been written by Evax, King of Arabia, and addressed by 

 him to Tiberius : " Evax rex Arabum . . . Caio Tiberio 

 privigno Augusti Lapidarium adscripsit." (Marbodffii 

 De Gemmarum Formis, Colon. 1539. See a note by Pic- 

 torius Villingius, pp. 9, 10.) It appears, however, to be 

 generally admitted by scholars, that the work which we 

 have just cited, though professedly based upon an earlier 

 treatise by Evax, is the original production of Marbo- 

 daeus himself. But on the other hand it is stated, that a 

 manuscript work bearing the name of Evax, and entitled 

 De Nominibus et Virtut'ibus Lapidum, does actually exist 

 in the Bodleian library. (^Nouv. Biog. Gen. art. " Evax.") 

 We believe that all the passages cited as from Evax will 

 be found in Marbodasus, whose work is in Latin hexa- 

 meters. Cf. Warton's History of English Poetry, ii. 157. 

 310., edit. 1840.] 



Public Sale of Library in 1810. — Can I be in- 

 formed who was the " Distinguished Collector " 

 referred to in the following? — 



" A Catalogue of Books in the various branches _ of 

 Literature which lately formed the Library of a Distin- 

 guished Collectpr, and were sold by Auction by Mr. Jef- 

 fery of Pall Mall ; with their prices and purchasers' names, 

 London, 1810," large 8vo. pp. 384. 



First day's sale, Aprif 26, 1810, to thirty-second 

 day's sale, June 1. The Nos. of catalogue run 

 from 1 to 4809, and the subjects in "contents" are 

 arranged under forty-eight different heads. By a 

 MS. note, the books appear to have been contained 

 in " 90 cases, each 3 cwt." In the descriptions 

 occur the names of such famous bookbinders as 

 Roger Payne, Johnson, Montague, Walther, Weir, 

 Baumgarten, Padaloope, De Rome ; and among 

 the purchasers quite a galaxy of noblemen, gen- 

 tlemen, scholars, divines, philosophers, and biblio- 



