378 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 97., Nov. 7. '57. 



state of the law in England with regard to torture, 

 I fear there is little doubt that in France under 

 the Citizen King, this method of extracting evi- 

 dence was in use. The following occurs in The 

 Journal of Thomas Rallies, Esq., vol. iv. If it be 

 a mistake, as I hope it is, some of your correspon- 

 dents will probably set me and the public right in 

 the matter. 



" Sunday, 18. September, 1840. 



" Darmez, the regicide, is at the Conciergie treated with 

 eveiy possible indulgence ; nothing that he asks for is 

 refused him ; the chancellor and the grand referendary 

 visit him, and the people about him converse with him 

 and are attentive to his wishes. This is called the pro- 

 cess of kindness ; and if it fails to work upon the culprit, 

 and produces no discovery of his plot or accomplices, 

 recourse is then had to the process of reduction. He 

 receives little or no nutriment, is frequently bled, never 

 allowed to go to sleep, and his strength thus sapped away 

 b3' inches ; if in this exhausted state he shows no sign, they 

 make a third experiment with excitement. Wine and 

 spirituous liquors are administered, hon gre, mal gre ; he is 

 kept in a state of constant intoxication, in hopes that 

 his incoherent replies may give some clue to his secret 

 thoughts." 



K. P. D. E. 



Rental of London Houses (2"'^ S. iv. 29.) — In 

 connexion with this subject, and as farther illus- 

 trating the value of houses in the days of Queen 

 Anne, I may note that Charles Povey records 

 having let his property, the famous Belsize, at 

 Hampstead, to Count D'Aumont, the French Am- 

 bassador, for lOOOZ. for the period of his residence 

 in England. The term is, certainly, vague, but it 

 may be that D'Armont's embassy was a special 

 one, and consequently of restricted duration, in 

 which case the said sum might have represented 

 about the annual rental of the property : at all 

 events Povey considered he had made a good ar- 

 rangement ; for although his Protestant principles 

 induced him to refuse its ratification when he 

 found they would convert the chapel on the 

 premises into a Mass House, he was not inclined 

 to be the sufferer ; and this item of 1000/. sacri- 

 ficed by him " to keep the Romish Host out of the 

 Church of England," is included, with sundry 

 other claims rejected by the state, and preferred 

 against the public, in a curious begging book of 

 \xh &rL\Xi\Qdi English Inquisition, 8vo., 1718. 



J.O. 



'■'■Scrooly" (2"^ S. iv. 307. ante.) — It is import- 

 ant to correct a mistake into which H. W. S. 

 Taylok has fallen, respecting the " cradle of Mas- 

 sachusets." Sci-ooby, the interesting incunabula 

 in question, is not " in Norfolk," as the quotation 

 (whence taken ?) has it, but in Nottinghamshire, 

 near the conterminous junction of the counties of 

 York, Notts, and Lincoln. H. 



Anne, a Male Christian Name (2°'^ S. iv. 277.) 

 — Several years ago, I remember inspecting an 

 original deed, to which an Earl of Essex was a 



party, and in it he was called " Anne Holies Earl 

 of Essex," but I have no farther recollection of 

 the deed. This party would be, I presume, the 

 fourth earl, and I am reminded of the circum- 

 stance by my having observed to a gentleman 

 present at the examination, the singularity of a 

 male bearing a female name, when he promptly 

 replied, "Not at all singular, you see he was a 

 Miss Nancy in his day." Anon. 



York. 



All, or nearly all, the males of the family of de 

 Montmorency are christened " Anne," as those of 

 the Bourbons " Marie." — Vide LAlmxinach de 

 Ootha. C. C. B. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. 



The fifth volume of Cunningham's edition of The Let- 

 ters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, which has just 

 been issued, carries on Walpole's graphic and gossiping 

 History of England, Social and Political, for the seven 

 eventful years which intervened between 1766 and 1773, — 

 a period which embraces the elevation of Pitt to the 

 Earldom of Chatham, — the great constitutional struggle 

 in which Wilkes was so zealously engaged, — the publica- 

 tion of the celebrated Letters of Junius, the Bath Guide, 

 and the Heroic Epistle, — a period which saw the death of 

 Gray, of Charles Yorke, Lady Suffolk, Charles Towns- 

 hend, Mr. Grenville, — the marriages of the Dukes of 

 Gloucester and Cumberland, — Augustus Hervey's divorce 

 from Miss Chudleigh, her marriage with the Duke of 

 Kingston, and the Duke's death, — the completion of The 

 Mysterious Mother, — the publication of The Historic 

 Doubts, and Walpole's squabbles with the Society of An- 

 tiquaries, — and ten thousand other events of greater or 

 less importance, which it is delightful to hear Walpole 

 talk about on paper. No wonder, then, that the Letters 

 in the present volume seem, if possible, to 'be more rich 

 and more racy than ever. We should add that this new 

 volume is illustrated with portraits of Mrs. Damer, Mary 

 Lepel, Lady Hervey, John Duke of Argyle, and Lady 

 Ailesbury. 



Gustav Freytag's Soil und Hahen, the most popular 

 German novel of the age, has just found an able anony- 

 mous translator in L. C. C. ; an enthusiastic admirer in 

 the Chevalier Bunsen, who pronounces L. C C.'s trans- 

 lation " to be faithful in an eminent degree ; " " and taste- 

 ful publishers in Messrs. Constable," who have brought 

 out Debit and Credit, — who have brought it out in a form 

 calculated to please the lovers of well -printed volumes. 

 The work is, we have no doubt, destined to create a sen- 

 sation in this country — not only among the mere readers 

 of fictions, but among those interested in the great ques- 

 tions of social improvement. Its character is so well 

 described by its avowed advocate, the Chevalier Bunsen, 

 and the manner in which it is executed is in like manner 

 so boldly, but we admit so justlv stated, that we shall be 

 content to describe both in the Chevalier's own words : — 

 " First," as he says, " it reveals a state of the relations of 

 the higher and of the middle classes of society in the 

 eastern provinces of Prussia, and the adjacent German 

 and Sclavonic countries, which are evidently connected 

 with a general social movement proceeding from irresisti- 

 ble realities, and, in the^main, independent of local circum- 

 stances and of political events." And as to the manner in 

 which Gustav Freytag has carried out this good object, he 



