104 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 249. 



Is, and where it is to be found ? I shall be glad 

 to know the title-page or author of the pamphlet 

 above mentioned. P- A. 



Brasses restored. — Can any of your correspon- 

 dents inform me of a way in which the ancient 

 brasses, which are to be found in some of the 

 country churches, may be rendered visible, and 

 the inscriptions made legible ? 



John Stanley, M.A, 



Sassanian Inscriptions. — In Buckingham's 

 Travels in Assyria, vol. i. p. 473., I find the fol- 

 lowing : 



« Between the second and third cave is a figure of a 

 Sassanian monarch on horseback, with a Roman prisoner 

 supplicating him in the act of kneeling. Behind this is 

 an inscription of at least one hundred lines in the Sassa- 

 nian character, which might easily be copied." 



Can any of your correspondents inform me 

 whether this inscription, apparently at Nakhsch- 

 i-Rustam, near Persepolis, has been copied, and 

 where it is to be found ? I am certain no inscrip- 

 tion of that length is to be found either in Porter 

 or Ouseley ; but not being able to consult either, 

 I cannot tell whether they mention it at all. The 

 Nakhsch-i-Rustam inscriptions in De Sacy are 

 very short. 



Have any better transcripts of the Sassanian 

 inscriptions at the Takht-i-Jemschid been pub- 

 lished than those given in Ouseley's Travels, 

 vol. ii. ? 



Coste and Flandin spent some time at Persepolis 

 in particular ; and, possibly, their large work on 

 Persia may answer my Queries. If so, I should 

 be much obliged by the references from any one 

 who can and will consult it. W. H. S. 



Greatest Happiness of the greatest Nwnber. — 

 Can any of your correspondents trace to its origin 

 the theory of " the greatest happiness of the 

 greatest number," which we are accustomed to 

 identify with the name of Jeremy Bentham ? 



It is laid down at the opening of the well- 

 known work of that truly great man Beccaria, 

 Dei Delitti e delle Pene, in these words, " La 

 massima felicita divisa nel maggior numero." Bec- 

 caria's Treatise was first published in the year 

 1764. Wm. Ewabt. 



University Club. 



Choke Damp. — "Wanted, the method of making 

 choke damp for putting out coal-pit fires : the pit 

 of a friend has unfortunately caught fire. 



Edwakd Hogg. 



Remarkable Prediction. — I cut the annexed 

 slip out of a recent number of the Staffordshire 

 Advertiser, as it has evident marks of modern 

 fabrication about it. Perhaps the Bristol Mirror 

 will reflect a little more light upon the old volume 

 of predictions, and let the world know who the 



gentleman referred to is ; or, at all events, give us 

 the full title of the book. 



'^Remarkable Prediction. — The following is taken from 

 an old volume of predictions, written in the fifteenth 

 centur}', and now in the possession of a gentleman resid- 

 ing at Chard, Somerset : 



' In twice two hundred years the Bear 

 The Crescent will assail ; 

 But if the Cock and Bull unite, 



The Bear will not prevaiL 

 In twice ten years again. 



Let Islam know and fear, 

 The Cross shall stand, 

 The Crescent wane, dissolve, and disappear.' 



Bristol Mirror." 



ElCHAED GeIEVE. 



Lichfield. 



The late Rev. James Plumptre. — I beg to ask 

 whether any reader of " N. & Q." can inform me 

 in whose hands are the papers of the clergyman 

 above named, who was formerly Vicar of Great 

 Gransden, Huntingdonshire, and the author of 

 various works ? My object in this inquiry is 

 purely literary. D. 



Leonard Welsted. — I persuade myself that 

 next to answering a question the best thing is to 

 ask one, all reasonable inquiry and search having 

 been previously made. On this self-approving 

 principle I proceed to trouble you. We have 

 acres of notes, old and new, to The Dunciad, and 

 are therefore pretty well informed about Welsted ; 

 but there is a reference to him in a note by Pope 

 on the Prologue to the Satires, wherein we are 

 told, "This man had the impudence to tell, in 

 print, that Mr. P. had occasioned a lady's death, 

 and to name a person he had never heard of." 

 Where was " Welsted's lie " circulated, and who 

 was the lady named ? W. L. 



Minor ahxxttieS Juttt) ^niintvi. 



Druids and Druidism. — Whoever will mention 

 the names of any books on Druidism or Druidical 

 remains will oblige me very much. What others 

 are there besides Toland and Higgins ? 



L. M. M. E. 



[Consult a valuable tractate, entitled ITie Patriarchal 

 Religion of Britain, or a Complete Manual of Ancient 

 British Druidism, by the Rev. D. James, 8vo., 1836 ; also 

 An Inquiry into the Patriarchal and Druidical Religion, 

 Temples, §-c., by the Rev. Wm. Cooke, 1754 ; Dr. James 

 Parsons' Remains of Japhet, 4to., 1767 ; Britannia after 

 the Romans, 4to., 1837 ; Identity of the Religions called 

 Druidical and Hebrew, demonstrated from the Nature and 

 Objects of their Worship, 12mo., 1829; Encyclopedia Bri- 

 tannica, under the words Bards and Druids. About the 

 year 1792, a short sketch of "Bardism," which was a 

 component part of Druidism, was given by the celebrated 

 Welsh philologist, William Owen, Esq. : it was embodied 

 in his Introduction to the Heroic Elegies of Llywarch Hen. 



