Dec. 15. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



469 



drops of oil, and covered over with a kind of lining. 

 Here is tlie treasure ! ' cried Peter ; ' here is the source of 

 the miraculous tears!' He then made all present draw 

 near, that he might give more authenticity to his dis- 

 coverv, and to convince themselves of the artifice and 

 imposture that had been practised. To give them an idea 

 of this piece of mechanism, he told them that it was 

 natural for the congealed oil to continue without running 

 in a cool place till its fluidit}' was restored by heat ; that 

 he had shown them the holes cut at the corners of the 

 eyes, through which it filtered in the shape of tears, 

 which necessarily happened as often as the flame of the 

 tapers placed before the image was near enough to heat 

 the surrounding air." — Pp. 123-4. 



The Czar, directing them to inform the public of 

 the deception, said that he meant to deposit the 

 image in his cabinet of curiosities. Possibly it is 

 stilfpreserved at St. Petersburgh, and other pre- 

 tended tears may be traced to similar sources. 



R. J. A. 

 Oxford. 



Curious Titles of Books in former Times. — I 

 have on my table an excellent work, with the 

 following quaint title : 



" The Christian Sodality : or, Catholic Hive of Bees, 

 sucking the Hony of the Churches' Prayers from the Blos- 

 somes of the Word of God. blowne out of the Epistles and 

 Gospels of the Divine Service throughout the Yeare. 

 Collected by the Puny Bee of all the Hive, not worthy to 

 be named otherwise than by these Elements of his Name, 

 F. P. Printed in the Yeare of our Lord mdclii." 



J. A. 



l^orwich. 



Longevity of Incumherds. — A correspondent of 

 yours, who dates from Tetbury, lately gave some 

 particulars of the Rev. Potter Cole, who was vicar 

 of Havvkesbury, near that place, which he held 

 during a period of seventy-three years, and pro- 

 ceeds to ask, whether any reader of " N. & Q." 

 can point out any one who held a benefice for a 

 longer term ? A few days since, I happened to 

 light upon the note-book of a person who seemed 

 to have been in the habit of recording such ex- 

 traordinary things as came under his observation, 

 and I found an instance which seems to have 

 much exceeded that of your correspondent. By 

 the register of Keyham, or Keame, Leicestershire, 

 a Rev. Mr. Sampson was minister for ninety-two 

 years, viz. from 1563 till his death Auajust II, 

 1655 ; and the register of the parish is of his own 

 writing till near the time of his death, which it Is 

 supposed to have been at the age of 1 14years. Such 

 a case could not but excite my wonder, and as 

 I knew little respecting that county could have 

 escaped the indefatigable John Nichols, I referred 

 to his History and Antiquities of Leicestershire ; 

 and I find, at p. 980. of vol. iii., part ii., he 

 has devoted a great deal of space to copy the 

 parish register, and to the consideration of the 

 subject. The whole is much too long for your 

 columns, nor will it suffer abridgment ; but he 

 seems to conceive there must be some mistake In 

 No. 320.] 



the parish records. The case is, however, curious, 

 and some may conclude it is correct. IT, 



Petersham, Surrey. 



©ucrCciS. 



I.ETTjmS OF KING EDWARD VI. 



Altogether the letters of Edward VI. (of his own 

 Inditing) exceed 'sixty in number ; of the whole, 

 the most remarkable, viewed historically, Is one 

 which he wrote at the dictation of the Lord Ad- 

 miral Seymour, In order that the lord admiral's 

 marriage with the queen dowager might appear to 

 have originated in the wishes of the young king. 

 It will be found printed In Strype's Ecclesiastical 

 Memoi'ials, vol. il. book i. chap, xvl., In Mr. Hal- 

 liwell's Collection, vol. ii. p. 34., and In Miss 

 Strickland's Life of Queen Katharine Parr, I 

 trace the original through the possession of Strype, 

 of Thoresby, and of Thane, the author of British 

 Autography ; but I have not ascertained where it 

 is now, and shall feel obliged to any one who will 

 inform me. Mr. Ilalliwell and Miss Strickland 

 state that " It Is still preserved among the Cot- 

 tonian MSS.," but such is not the case. 



I have not yet learned where the two Latin 

 letters of the same writer, of which Mr. Ilalllwell 

 has published translations (vol. Ii. pp. 5. 9.) as 

 from " the Rawllnson MSS.," may be found in the 

 original, either autograph or transcript. They 

 are addressed to the Lady Mary from Hunsdon, 

 Jan. 11, 1545-6, and two to Queen Katharine 

 from the same place, May 12, 1546. May I again 

 solicit assistance in my search for them ? 



John Gough Nichols. 



ENCAUSTIC TILES FROM CHERTSEY. 



I am preparing for publication, in my work on 

 Tile Pavements, a selection from the fragments 

 found in Chertsey Abbey in the year 1853. These, 

 although In a very broken and Imperfect condi- 

 tion, are sufficient to show that this pavement, in 

 its original state, must have been one of the most 

 gorgeous in point of design, as It is one of the 

 most beautiful in point of execution, of any ex- 

 ample of the thirteenth century yet discovered. 



The arabesque scroll-work surrounding the me- 

 dallions in this very elaborate composition can 

 be easily traced from odd pieces of various tiles 

 bearing the same pattern ; but of the numerous 

 groups In the medallions themselves, but few are 

 In a perfect state, and of the many inscriptions by 

 which they were surrounded, only portions of 

 words have been discovered. These cannot be 

 brought into consecutive sentences, either In ex- 

 planation of particular subjects, or to throw light 



