Aug. 18. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



127 



ment ? Why did not this symbolism attach to 

 pulpits as well as to fonts ? They are commonly 

 sexagonal. Upminster. 



[The octagonal form is thus recommended in the fol- 

 lowing lines of St. Ambrose over the font of St. Tecla at 

 Milan, before it was adorned by more modem magni- 

 ficence : 



« Octachorum sanctos tempi um surrexit in usus. 

 Octagonus fons est, munere dignus eo. 

 Hoc numero decuit sacri baptismatis aulam 

 Surgere, quo populis vera sal us rediit 

 Luce resurgentis Christ), qui claustra resolvit 

 Mortis, et a tumulis suscitet exanimes." 



The last lines explain the appearance of Christ's resur- 

 rection on fonts. Gruter, p. 1166. ; Ciampini, pi. ii. 

 p. 22.] 



Sir Samuel Shepherd. — Is there any life or 

 memoir of the late Sir Samuel Shepherd, late 

 Solicitor and Attorney-General, and by whom ? 

 Is anything known of Mrs. Susannah (?) Shep- 

 herd, aunt of the above? lam told she was a 

 very highly talented scholar. All 1 can learn is, 

 that she was eighty years of age in or about 1810, 

 and possessed property in Upminster in Essex. 



Upminster. 



[A long biographical account of Sir Samuel Shepherd, 

 who died Nov. 3, 1840, will be found in the Law Maga- 

 zine, vol. XXV. pp. 289 — 310. In the Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine of February, 1810, p. 191., is a notice of the death of 

 Mrs. Shepheard of Kelvedon, Essex, relict of the late 

 Kev. George Shepheard, aged eighty-eight.] 



History e of Capt. Thomas Stukeley. — 



" The Famous Historye of the Life and Death of Cap- 

 taine Thomas Stukeley. With his marriage to Alderman 

 Curteis' Daughter, and valient ending of his life at the 

 Battaile of Alcazar. As it hath been acted. Printed for 

 Thomas Panyer, 1605, 4to., pp. 41." 



Above is the title of a play, in black-letter, of 

 which, after a good deal of trouble, I have been 

 unable to discover any mention whatever, Lowndes 

 excepted, who gives the title, but can only men- 

 tion one copy as having occurred for sale, namely, 

 Khodes's, 28Z. lO*. (presumed to be the one in 

 question). It is not in Baker's Biog. Dram,, nor 

 have I been able to trace any other copy in a 

 somewhat extensive series of sale-catalogues in 

 my possession. Perhaps some of your contribu- 

 tors may be able to render a little assistance as to 

 the authorship and plot upon which it is founded ? 



There is a Stukeley of notorious character men- 

 tioned by D'Israeli (^Curios. Lit.) in connexion 

 with Sir Walter Raleigh. Has this anything to 

 do with the " captaine " in question ? H. C. 



Paddington. 



[A copy of this play is in the British Museum, and 

 some account of the marvellous exploits of Thomas Stuke- 

 ley may be found in Fuller's Worthies, and Wood's Athena 

 (Bliss), vol. ii. col. 266. Fuller styles him " a bubble of 

 emptiness, and meteor of ostentation." He was killed at 

 the battle of Alcazar, August 4, 1578. There are four 

 versions of a ballad in black-letter among the Roxburgh 



No. 303.] 



Ballads in the British Museum, vol. ii. p. 60. ; vol. iii. 

 pp. 266. 516. and 528., entitled "The Life and Death of 

 Thomas Stukeley, an English Gallant in the Time of 

 Queen Elizabeth', who ended his Life in a Battel of the 

 Three Kings of Barbary." See it also in Evans's Collec- 

 tion, vol. iii. p. 148. The individual noticed by D'Israeli 

 in connexion with Sir Walter Raleigh was Sir Lewis 

 Stukele}', an elder brother of the famous Thomas.] 



"Homo naturce minister et interpres." — At p. 170» 

 of Phillips' Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-coast of 

 Yorkshire, the author quotes the phrase, " Homo 

 natura; minister et interpres," as Linnaeus'. Is 

 such the fact ; and if so, where is it to be found ? 

 Probably Linnseus used it as a quotation from 

 Bacon. C. Mansfield Inglebt^ 



[The phrase occurs in Bacon's Novum Organum, to- 

 wards the close of the prefatory chapter entitled "The 

 Distribution of the Work." " Homo enim naturae minister 

 et interpres tantum facit et intelligit, quantum de naturae- 

 ordine, opere vel mente observaverit : nee amplius acit, 

 aut potest."] 



SEtepltf^. 



" munchhausen's travels." 

 (Vol. xi., p. 485. ; Vol. xii., p. 55.) 

 A French writer, in La Revue Contemporainey 

 has recently claimed for France the credit of 

 having produced the original of Baron MUnch- 

 hausens Travels. The title of the French work 

 — the substance of which is said to be quite the 

 same with the Baron's drolleries, and clearly of 

 Norman and Gascon origin — is as follows : 



« La Nouvelle Fabrique des excellents traits de v^rit4 

 livre pour inciter les resveurs tristes et melancholiques a 

 vivre de plaisir, par Philippe D'Alcripe, Sieur de Neri en 

 Verbos." 



This work had become so scarce that no copy of 

 the first edition could be found to print from ; and 

 the new edition is copied from the reprint of 1732. 

 German critics demur to this imputed parentage 

 of tlieir great boaster ; and in reply to the sally of 

 the lively Frenchman, that the soil of the German, 

 mind is too heavy for the production of so light 

 and lively a composition, they retort by sayings 

 that although German literature at present wears- 

 a very morose and peevish aspect, it was not 

 always so; for that humorous literature once 

 flourished in Germany more than in any other 

 country of Europe ; as even an Edinburgh re- 

 viewer confessed, when he said (vol. xlvi. 1827) 

 that " four-fifths of all the popular mythology, 

 humour, and romance to be found in Europe in 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, proceeded 

 from Germany." Gervinus remarks that the pith 

 of the Baron's adventures is to be found in a book 

 very popular among the people, the fictitious 

 Travels of the Finkenritter (Herr Polycarp von 

 Kirlarissa), a work given to the world 200 years 



