Oct. 21. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



335 



with the Creed Itself, will be found in " N. & Q.," 

 Vol. v., pp. 523. 571. William Bates. 



Birmingham. 



" Mt/ mind to me a kingdom is " (Vol. i., pp. 302. 

 489.; Vol. vi., pp.555. 615. ; Vol. vil., p.511.).— 

 Tl)e substance of the above sentence occurs In 

 F. Quarles' School of the Heart, ode iv. st. 5. : 



" My mimUs my kingdom : why should I withstand 

 Or question that, Avhich I myself command." 



Apropos of this subject I would ask. Is the mag- 

 nificent compound, self-empire, a coinage of 

 Shelley's (Prom. Unb.) ? or was the word in cir- 

 culation before he used it ? 



C. MANsriELD Ingleby. 

 Birmingham. 



David Lindsay (Vol. x., p. 266.). — David 

 Lindsay, author of The Godly Man's Journey to 

 Heaven, was only related to the poet of the same 

 name through descent from a common ancestor, 

 who flourished during the first half of the four- 

 teenth century. He was a son of David Lindsay, 

 a brother of the House of Edzell, also minister 

 of Leith from 1560 downwards, and leader of the 

 moderate party in the Established Church of 

 Scotland during the minority and early years of 

 James VL, and who died Bishop of Ross in 1613. 

 The poet represented a younger branch of the 

 Lindsays of the Byres. L. 



Black Rat (Vol. ix., p. 209. ; Vol. x., p. 37.). — 

 A considerable number of black rats were cap- 

 tured and killed in the old houses of St. Giles's, 

 the llookery, &c., when they were taken down to 

 form the new streets about nine or ten years ago. 

 Those black rats, driven from the sewers by their 

 njore powerful rivals the brown or eastern rats 

 (Mus decumanus, most absurdly termed the Nor- 

 wegian and Hanoverian), had taken refuge in the 

 upper parts of those wretched old houses, and 

 there lived much in the same manner as mice. In 

 1845 I saw and noted as many as seventeen 

 specimens, living and dead, of the black rat {Mus 

 rattus), that had been taken in those old houses ; 

 and I have a distinct recollection of seeing several 

 more, of which I made no memorandum. At that 

 period there was an intelligent man, and not bad 

 naturalist for his station in life, who exhibited a 

 " Happy Family " opposite the National Gallery. 

 He generally had three or four black rats in his 

 cage, that had been caught in the locality I have 

 just mentioned. He Informed me that he had 

 long known that the black rat inhabited the upper 

 parts of the old houses in St. Giles's, and that 

 when applied to by naturalists for a specimen of 

 the animal, he took care to represent its exceeding 

 rarity, though by setting traps in those houses 

 he could catch one almost whenever he pleased. 

 He also stated that his usual price for a specimen 



used to be three guineas, and he bitterly lamented 

 the taking down of the Rookery, which not only 

 threw the black rat like a drug upon the market, 

 but also destroyed their ancient haunt. In fact, 

 he seemed to consider those old houses as a sort 

 of preserve for his most profitable game. I have 

 not seen a black rat since, but I have been in- 

 formed by an excellent authority that there are 

 still a number of black rats about the roofs, 

 garrets, and upper parts of many old houses in 

 London. W. Pinkeeton. 



Hammersmith. 



Voltaire and Henri Carion — Spirit-rapping 

 (Vol. X., p. 4.). — The lines " J'ai renie," &c., are 

 to be found upon an old print of Voltaire, pub- 

 lished in France many years ago. Anon. 



Stone Shot (Vol. x., p. 223.). — Some of the 

 guns of the Mary Rose, sunk a. ». 1545, were 

 loaded with stone shot. The marble balls used in 

 the cannon of the Dardanelles are well known ; 

 but the latest instance of the employment of this 

 material for military projectiles with which I am 

 acquainted, was at Rome, in the year 1835. 

 There I saw great numbers of cannon-balls made 

 of stone, lying on the walls of the Castle of St. 

 Angelo. They were, I believe, principally of 

 coarse marble ; and I was informed that the galley 

 slaves were employed in their manufacture. 



VV. J. Bernhabd Smith. 



Temple. 



" Nagging " (Vol. x., p. 29.). — This should be 

 spelt hnagging. " To knag, v. a. to tease, to worry, 

 with frequent recurrence to trifling points of dis- 

 pute, to annoy, to leer." See Dictionary of the 

 English Language for the best authorities from 

 Johnson to Webster, London, 8vo., 1836; Tuckey 

 & Co., Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. No 

 authorities, however, are quoted for the use of 

 the word in this work. F. S. T. 



KlaprotKs " China " (Vol. x., p. 266.). — In 

 some odd volumes of the Bxdletin du Nord which 

 I possess, published in Moscow, there is the fol- 

 lowing announcement in the Russian language : 



" Voyage to China across Mongrolia in 1820 and 1821, 

 by M. De Klaproth ; printed by supreme order, St. Pe- 

 tersburg, 1824, 3 vols, in 8vo., with maps and plates." 



In the work from which I have extracted this 

 title, I find some severe criticisms on Mr. Klap- 

 roth's work, and a long list of inaccuracies, by 

 Father Hyacinthe. William Jones. 



[This is not the work noticed by Mr. Macray, and 

 which was announced as preparing for publication in the 

 Gentleman's Magazine for ]Nov. 1823, p. 450., under the 

 title of " A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical De- 

 scription of the Empire of China and its Dependancies, 

 by Julius Klaproth."] 



