334 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Oct. 27. 1855. 



"by the late Dr. Mant, who had been Bishop of 

 JLillalloe and Killfenora before he was transhited 

 to the See of Down. I further stated that I had 

 heard the legend many years ago in the co. Clare, 

 from the same authority from whom I derived 

 nearly all the others published from time to time 

 in " N. & Q. ; " and, as a further proof of its being 

 a genuine co. Clare legend, I referred Y. S. M. 

 to one of the earlier volumes of the Christian 

 Examiner (the fourth, I think), where, under the 



head of " Legends of C , co. Clare," he will 



find this legend related in nearly the same words 

 (having been derived from the same authority), 

 by a gentleman who, compelled by ill health to 

 retire from active life, is member of a family 

 holding deservedly high stations in the Irish bar 

 and church ; and as the book referred to was pub- 

 lished many years before Mr. Lover had come 

 before the public eye, it is a pretty good proof 

 that two circumstances of somewhat similar nature 

 may have occurred in the " Troublous Times " to 

 which Ireland has been subject for so many 

 generations ; besides, my legend refers to the age 

 of Oliver Cromwell, and Mr. Lover's to the week 

 after the battle of the Boyne. Now, though I do 

 not feel bound to answer any anonymous cor- 

 respondent, yet as Y. S. M. is not anonymous to 

 me, I have given this explanation.* 



Pbancis Robebt Dayies. 

 Briikenan, Bavaria. 



Dr. George Halley, of York (Vol. x., p. 523.). 

 — In reference to the inquiry by this gentleman's 

 descendants, I may perhaps be permitted to ob- 

 serve that they appear to possess but imperfect 

 information respecting their own ancestor. Dr. 

 Halley became one of the vicars choral of York 

 Cathedral, not in 1682, but in 1676, and was 

 elected Succentor May 6, 1682. He was also 

 Rector of the parishes of Holy Trinity, Good- 

 ramgate, and St. Cuthbert, both in that city, as 

 well as a Prebendary of the collegiate church of 

 Ripon. Mrs. Mary Hesketli (whom the Doctor 

 called his sister, and appointed one of his trustees) 

 lived unmarried, and died (not buried) Oct. 27, 

 1718, as appears by a tablet to her memory in 

 St. Lawrence's Church in York. Miss Hesketh 

 was the sister of Sarah, Dr. Halley's second wife, 

 to whom he was married October 25, 1681. These 

 ladies were the daughters of the Rev. Cuthbert 

 Hesketh, who was the younger brother of Thomas 

 Hesketh, Esq., who married successively Miss 

 Bethell and Miss Condon. But the last-named 

 Thomas Hesketh was not (as the descendants 

 suppose) the father, but the grandfather of the 

 two coheiresses, who married into the Yarburgh 

 and NorclifTe families. The same error is, how- 



* The delay in the appearance of this article, which 

 was written in June last, is owing to an accident, for 

 which Mr. Da vies is not responsible. — Ed. «N. & Q." 



No. 313.] 



ever, committed in Burke's Landed Gentry. The 

 grandfather's tablet records that he had six sons 

 and one daughter by his first wife, five of ivhom 

 were not. The two surviving children (whom the 

 descendants must have believed to be the two co- 

 co-heiresses) were Thomas and Cuthbert; and 

 Thomas married Margaret, the daughter of John 

 Calverley, Esq., of Airyholme, not in the county 

 of Durham (as their tablet states), but in the 

 North Riding of Yorkshire, and this couple were 

 the parents of Mrs. Yarburgh and Mrs. Norcliffe. 

 Cuthbert never was married, and died at the 

 house of his step-mother, who had married again. 

 The son-in-law of Dr. Halley appears to have 

 also married into the Clarke family of Spaldington, 

 near Howden, in Yorkshire. W. S. C. 



York. 



Hcemony of Milton (Vol. ii., pp. 88. 141. 173. 

 410. ; Vol. vi., p. 275.). — Though with all modesty 

 I note this Query, after so many hands, may I 

 suggest that the haemony of Milton is the agri- 

 mony. It is found not only in Europe, but in 

 Virginia and Japan. The leaves are dark, hirsute 

 and edged with hairs, and it bears a golden flower. 

 The Greeks called it apyeft-wvi)., argemone, of which 

 word the name of this genus is a corruption. It 

 was called argemone, because It was believed to 

 be a cure for a disease in the eye, which they 

 called &py€fia, argema. So far the description of 

 this plant agrees with the lines in Comus. Also, 

 it would seem, by the mention of " Moly," that the 

 powers of haemony were the same, only stronger, 

 and Browne, In his Inner Temple Masque, p. 135., 

 uses moly for a charm for the eyes : 



" Thrice I charge thee by my wande, 

 Thrice with moly from my hande 

 Do I to touch Ulysses' eyes," &c. 



Also Porta, in his Natural Magick, 1658, names 

 agrimony as a sovereign remedy for enchantments 

 and wounds ; and in book vlli. p. 232., he quotes 

 Dioscorldes as saying that Christ's thorn, wild 

 hemp, and valerian, hung up in the house, are 

 amulets against witchcraft : now the wild hemp is 

 the hemp agrimony. Lastly, the word semonia 

 has been Indiscriminately applied to all Greece by 

 some writers, and the resemblance of this word to 

 the word which Milton employs, seems to me to 

 confirm the view which I have always taken of 

 this passage. Louisa Julia Norman. 



Lay Preachers : Mr. Tavei-ner (Vol. xll., 

 p. 214.). — Richard Taverner was educated at 

 Benet College, Cambridge, and Ch. Ch. Oxford ; 

 was M.A. in either university, and a member of 

 the Inner Temple, and became, in 1537, a clerk of 

 the signet. 



" In 1552, though a mere layman, he obtained a special 

 licence, subscribed by K. Edward VI., to preach in any 

 part of his dominions, and the more for this reason, be- 



