128 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. N« 33., Aug. 16. '66. 



look the Quarterly Review and County Chronicle, 

 and betake himself for amusement to the morocco 

 gilt volume which contains the now intelligible 

 title deeds of his estate. 



As all men will, doubtless, welcome any indica- 

 tion of the advent of this mission of the Press, it 

 may be worth while recording in the pages of 

 "N. & Q." that the initiative in this movement 

 has already been taken in a very appropriate 

 quarter; for there now lies before me a very 

 handsome, thin royal 8vo., entitled Glenormiston, 

 1849-50, which contains the history of the acqui- 

 sition of that estate, with plans, title deeds, and a 

 variety of useful information thereanent, expressly 

 compiled and printed "with a view to the con- 

 venient preservation and reference" of the pro- 

 prietor, Mr. William Chambers. J. O. 



Family of Pendrell. — The following brief addi- 

 tions to the notices of this loyal family, which are 

 collected by Mr. Hughes in his edition of the 

 Boscohel Tracts (1830), may not be unacceptable 

 to your readers : — 



" Frances Jones "J 



& V Daughters of "VVm. Pendrel. 



Anne Lloyd J 



« At the court at Windsor, 27«' June, 1680. 



" His Majesty is graciously pleased to refer this peti- 

 tion to the right hon^e Lords Com''' of the Treasury to 

 take such course as they shall judge most ready and 

 expedient for the Pet" relief." 



Notes of Petitions, in Bodl. MS. Eawl., c. 421. 

 fol. 182. 



" Yesterday the Commons in a Committee received a 

 clause to oblige all papists and nonjurors in Great Brit- 

 tain to register their names and estates ; alsoe a clause to 

 exempt the familyes of the Pendrells in Staffordshire, 

 ■who are papists, from being taxed by this bill, on account 

 of their eminent services to the crown by saving King 

 Charles the 2, in the Boyal Oak." 



News-Letter of 9 May, 1723. Eawl. MS. C, 151. 

 fol. 98. 



W. D. Macrat. 



Superstition of the present Day. — The following 

 cutting, from The Tablet of July 26, is worth 

 the attention of the readers of "N. & Q." as a 

 specimen of the worse than heathenish supersti- 

 tion of many of our people : 



" Will it be credited that thousands of people have, 

 during the past week, crowded a certain road in the vil- 

 lage of Melling, near Ormskirk, to inspect a sycamore 

 tree which has burst its bark, and the sap protrudes in a 

 shape resembling a man's head? Rumour spread abroad 

 that it was the re-appearance of Palmer, who ' had come 

 again, because he was buried without a coffin ! " Some 

 inns in the neighbourhood of this singular tree reaped a 

 rich harvest." 



K. P. D. E. 



Mortgaging the Dead! — If a literal be also a 

 legitimate use, in its present application, of the 

 word mortgage (a dead pledge), we have classical 

 authority for stating that mortgaging the dead 



was a legalised mode, among the Egyptians, of 

 giving security for money borrowed : a poor in- 

 demnity to the creditor in case of non-payment. 

 The embalmed body of the deceased relative ac- 

 companied a guest to the feast, where, if money 

 was required, the sacred possession was deposited 

 by the borrower in pledge — it was a strictly legal 

 transaction. For ?«o«-redemption there was a 

 severe penalty, which one might imagine the pe- 

 culiar doctrine engrafted on that of the soul's 

 immortality would rarely allow an Egyptian to 

 incur. The parties not redeeming were denied 

 the right of interment themselves, and the privi- 

 lege of giving their relatives and friends burial. 

 In such cases the coffin-less body was carefully 

 preserved at home, without turial ; but the de- 

 scendants of the deceased and excluded debtor 

 might honourably bury, provided compensation 

 was first made for the crime (if such had been 

 committed), or the debt refunded. It has been 

 conjectured, and with great probability, respect- 

 ing this law, mentioned by Herodotus (lib. ii. 

 s. 136.), that its object was to discourage the bor- 

 rowing of money ; rendering it peculiarly infa- 

 mous by entailing on those who practised it a 

 revolting traffic, and forfeiture of what the debtor 

 was accustomed to regard as his dearest and most 

 sacred treasure. F. Philloxt. 



The King's Health. — 



" Here's a health unto his Majesty, with a fa, la, la. 

 Conversion to his enemies, with a fa, la, la. 

 And he that will not pledge his health, 

 I wish him neither wit nor wealth, 

 Nor yet a rope to hang himself. 



With a fa, la, la, la, 



With a fa, la, la," &c. 



Mr. Peter Cunningham, in his charming Story of 

 Nell Gwyn, quotes the above lines from Forbes's 

 Songs and Fancies., Aberdeen, 1682. When the 

 volume is printed again, which it must be ere 

 long, the author should alter his reference to 

 Catch that Catch Can ; or the Musical Companion : 

 containing Catches and Rounds for Three and Four 

 Voyces, SfC, 4to. 1667, in which work the song or 

 glee in question first appeared. Forbes misprints 

 the composer's name John Savile ; it ought to be 

 Jeremiah Savile, as in Catch that Catch Can. 

 Nothing is known of the composer, farther than 

 that he wrote the music of " His Majestie's 

 Health," and "The Waits," The latter is well 

 known to all lovers of social harmony. 



Edwaed F. Eimbault. 



Miixav HEiutviti. 



" The Brute Chronicles." — Being engaged in 

 preparing for publication the French Prose Chro- 

 nicles of England called the Brute, for which 

 purpose I am now collating the various texts, I 



