2nd s. No 50., Dkc. 13. '66.3 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



469 



answer these queries : by so doing he would confer 

 a favour on Oxoniensis. 



[Richard Cumberland, the dramatist, was born at the 

 Master's Lodge of Trinity College, Cambridge, Feb. 19, 

 1732, and died in London, while on a visit to his friend 

 Mr. Henry Fry, of Bedford Place, Russell Square, May 7, 

 1811, aged eighty years. He was honourably interred on 

 May 14th, at the foot of Addison's monument, and oppo- 

 site' to Handel's, in the Poets' Corner of Westminster 

 Abbey. Dr. Vincent, the Dean of Westminster, and the 

 early friend of his youth, read the funeral service, and at 

 the close delivered the following oration : — " Good peo- 

 ple, the person you see now deposited is Richard Cumber- 

 land, an author of no small merit. His writings were 

 chiefly for the stage, but of strict moral tendency : they 

 were not without faults, but they_were not gross, abound- 

 ing with oaths and libidinous expressions, as I am shocked 

 to observe is the case of many at the present day. He 

 wrote as much as any ; few wrote better ; and his works 

 will be held in the "highest estimation as long as the 

 English language will be understood. He considered the 

 theatre as a school for moral improvement ; and his re- 

 mains are truly worth3' of mingling with the illustrious 

 dead which surround us. Read his prose subjects on 

 divinity ! there you will find the true Christian spirit of 

 the man who trusted in our Lord and Saviour Jesus 

 Christ. May God forgive him his sins, and at the resur- 

 rection of the just receive him into everlasting glory." 

 This oration seems to have been unknown to all Cumber- 

 land's biographers; but has been fortunately preserved 

 in the European Mag., lix. 397. Query, was this the last 

 occasion in which a funeral oration was delivered at the 

 grave as a supplement to the Burial Service of the 

 Church?] 



The People of Carleton Curlieu. — In Leland's 

 Itineranj, vol. ii., 1744, there is appended " An 

 Account of his intended journey through England 

 and Wales" by Dr. Plot. This Dr. Plot is, I sup- 

 pose, Robert Plot, a naturalist of some distinction, 

 who died (aged fifty-five) April 30, 1696, and of 

 whom there is a notice in AVood's Athence. In this 

 " Intended Journey," he says : 



" Next I shall inquire of animals, and first of strange 

 people, such as the Gubbings in Devonshire, the people of 

 Charleton- Curley in Leycestershire." 



Fuller, in his Worthies, art. " Devonshire," 

 gives us a very curious account of the (j-ubbings, 

 which has been skilfully adapted by iMr, Kingsley 

 in his Westward Ho ! But I have not been 

 able to obtain any information relative to the 

 other "strange people" alluded to by Dr. Plot — 

 " the people of Charleton-Curley in Leycester- 

 shire." 



Perhaps some of your readers may be able to 

 refer me to some work containing the informa- 

 tion I wish. I have glanced cursorily through 

 the County'History of Leicester, but have found no 

 reference to the subject. J. O. N. 



Edinburgh. 



[There is a tradition, which seems to have been credited 

 by Camden, Burton, Fuller, and others, that the natives 

 of Carleton Curlieu have a harsh and rattling kind of 

 speech, uttering their words with much difiiculty, and 



wharling in their throat, and cannot well pronounce the 

 letter R. Dr. Fuller seems so certain of the fact, that he 

 places it among " the wonders of the county ! " Both 

 Camden and Burton hesitate as to the cause, whether it 

 proceeds from the nature of the soil or the water ; but 

 Fuller resolves, "that it proceeds not in any natural im- 

 perfection in the parents, because the children born in 

 other places are not troubled with that infirmity, but 

 from some occult quality in the elements of the place; or, 

 as Mr. Camden speaks, some unknown cause or nature, as 

 lisping was to the tribe of Ephraim, Judges xii. 6, and 

 stammering to some families in France." Bishop Gibson, 

 however, assures us in his addition to Camden, " that as 

 the inhabitants of his time retained no remains of such a 

 guttural and wharling pronunciation, so the most ancient 

 men among them declared that they never knew any 

 thing of it in their memory." • Cf. Camden's Britannia; 

 Fuller's Worthies, and Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. 544.] 



Seidell s Birth-place. — In the Appendix to The 

 Table Talk of John Selden, ivith Notes by David 

 Irving, LL.D.y 1856, is a letter signed Wm. 

 Hamper, bearing date December 17, 1818, in 

 which it is stated that Salvington was Selden's 

 birth-place ; and that there 



" the humble cottage of his father still remains unaltered. 

 The date of 1601 is upon it ; and on the lintel of the door, 

 withinside, is this inscription, rudely cut in capitals in- 

 termixed with small letters : 

 " ' Gratus, honeste, mihi, non claudar, inito, sedeque, 

 Fur, abeas : non sum facta soluta tibi.' " 



Does this house remain still unaltered ? How 

 is it known to have been the house of Selden's 

 father ? Has it been engraved, drawn, or photo- 

 graphed ? K. P, D. E. 



[In the Gentleman's Magazine for Sept. 1834, is an en- 

 graving of Selden's house at Salvington, accompanied 

 with an interesting account of it, and a fac-simile of the 

 verses. The writer says, " The house has the reputation 

 of having been that in which Selden was born : it must 

 be remarked, however, that the date, 1601, is carved on a 

 stone over the door ; and it may, therefore, have been re- 

 built at that time." Then follows a translation of this 

 smart epigram with the well-known initials J. G. N. : — 



" Welcome, if honest ! Glad such men to greet, 

 I will not close ; walk in, and take thy seat. 

 Tiftef, get thee gone ! 'gainst thee a stout defence, 

 I open not, but boldly bid thee hence ! "] 



Ecclesiastical Benefices in Ireland. — Where 

 may trustworthy information be found respecting 

 the value of ecclesiastical benefices in Ireland ? 

 Mr. (now Bp.) Knox has given much information 

 in his Ecclesiastical Index ; but in many cases, as 

 I know, the particulars are wide of the mark, 

 even with the deduction he directs the reader to 

 make. * Abhba. 



[Our correspondent will find the most perfect summary 

 of Irish ecclesiastical property given in the First (1833), 

 Second (1834), Third (1836), and Fourth (1837), "Re- 

 ports of His Majesty's Commissioners on Ecclesiastical 

 Revenue and Patronage in Ireland."] 



