110 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 249. 



Dublin and London, in octavo and duod.," but 

 one with the owl engraving, and for title The 

 Dunciad, with Notes variorum, and the Prolego- 

 mena of Scriblerus, written in the year 1727, 

 London, printed for Lawton Gilliver, in Fleet 

 Street, on the fly-leaf of which is the following 

 inscription in the handwriting of the hero : 



" Lewis Theobald to Mrs. Heywood, as a tes- 

 timony of his esteem, presents this book called The 

 Dunciad, and acquaints her that Mr. Pope, by the 

 profits of its publication, saved his library, wherein 

 unpawned much learned lumber lay." 



Perhaps some of the readers of " N. & Q.," or 

 the writer of the admirable articles on Pope which 

 have recently appeared in The Athenceum, may be 

 able to say how far this statement of Theobald is 

 correct. William J. Thoms. 



KOT ABIES. 



(Vol. X., p. 87.) 



The elaborate devices or marks used In old times 

 by notaries, to which allusion is made in this Query, 

 do not appear to have been investigated with suf- 

 ficient attention. Representations have been oc- 

 casionally, I believe, given with fac-similes of some 

 ancient documents ; and a few marks of this de- 

 scription, accompanying the signatures of notaries 

 public in Ireland, in the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries, have recently been published in the 

 Ulster Journal of Archceology, vol. ii. p. 32., by 

 Mr. Ferguson, who gives some extracts relating 

 to notaries, from the Epistle Dedicatory to 

 Prynne's fourth Institute. 



It has been stated that these marks were used 

 in lieu of seals, and that they originated in the 

 use of a stamp which the notary was accustomed 

 to dip in the ink, and to impress upon the parch- 

 ment, instead of affixing or appending an impres- 

 sion on wax. It would appear, however, that 

 notaries had seals, properly so called. They were 

 ordered to make use of seals, according to a decree 

 of the Council of Cologne, in 1310. The notaries 

 royal in France were accustomed to use seals 

 from the commencement of the fourteenth century. 



I am not aware that any examples of notarial 

 seals have been published, and no seal of this kind 

 used in England has fallen under my notice. I 

 have met with a few foreign matrices of the seals 

 of notaries, all of them, I believe, Italian. The 

 devices closely resemble the singular marks before 

 mentioned, with which all who have given atten- 

 tion to ancient documents are familiar. I have 

 recently met with the matrix of the seal of the 

 Order of Notaries of Faenza. The device is an 

 ink-pot, with a pen in it. 



If impressions of these seals would be accept- 

 able to A NoTAET, I shall have pleasure in for- 



warding them on receiving his address. I hope 

 that his Query may elicit information regarding 

 the origin of these singular marks, and the period 

 when their use was adopted in England. 



Albert Wat. 

 Eeigate. 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE AND BISHOP KEN. 



(Vol. viii., p. 10. ; Vol. ix., pp. 220. 258.) 



What your correspondent J. H. Maekland calls 

 " A Midnight Hymn," by Sir Thomas Browne, is 

 evidently " An Evening Hymn ;" and the coin- 

 cidence between that and Bishop Ken's well-known 

 hymn was pointed out by James Montgomery of 

 Sheffield, in his " Christian Poets" (12mo., 1827), 

 one of the volumes of Select Christian Authors., 

 published by Collins of Glasgow. As your corre- 

 spondent has not given the whole of Sir Thomas 

 Browne's lines, and as those he has given are not 

 in their proper order, I may perhaps crave space 

 for a complete transcript, with Montgomery's pre- 

 fatory remarks. Having named two of Sir Thos. 

 Browne's works, he proceeds, — 



" In the former \_Religio 3Iedici'] we find the following 

 Imes, curious in themselves, but more so as apparently 

 containing the general ideas of Bishop Ken's ' Evening 

 Hymn.' They are thus introduced, in the author's quaint 

 but impressive manner. Speaking of sleep, he says, ' It is 

 that death by which we may be said to die daily ; a death 

 which Adam died before his mortality ; a death whereby 

 we live a middle and moderating point between life and 

 death : in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without 

 my prayers, and a half adieu unto the world, and take my 

 farewell in 



' A Colloquy with God. 



' The night is come. Like to the day, 

 Depart not Thou, great God, away. 

 Let not my sins, black as the night, 

 Eclipse the lustre of Thy light. 

 Keep still in my horizon, for to me 

 The sun makes" not the day, but Thee. 



Thou, whose nature cannot sleep, 

 On my temples sentry keep. 

 Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, 

 Whose eyes are open while mine close. 

 Let no dreams my head infest, 

 But such as Jacob's temples blest. 

 While I do rest, my soul advance. 

 Make my sleep a holy trance, 

 That I may, my rest being wrought. 

 Awake unto some holy thought. 

 And with as active vigour run 

 My course, as doth the nimble sun. 



Sleep is a death. O ! make me try, 

 By sleeping, what it is to die ; 

 And as gently lay my head 

 On my grave as now my bed. 

 Howe'er I rest, great God, let me 

 Awake again, at last, with Thee ; 

 And, thus assur'd, behold, I lie 

 Securely, or to wake or die. 

 These are my drowsie days. In vain 

 I do now wake to sleep again. 



