394 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 263. 



Tke Lord of Vryhouveri s Legacies (Vol. x., 

 p. 307.). — During my residence in London be- 

 tween 1790 and 1800, I well remember an anec- 

 dote in circulation respecting this personage. He 

 lodged in Windmill Street, Piccadilly, or some 

 obscure place in that neighbourhood. Among the 

 few acquaintances who visited him was the late 

 General Arabin. After the baron's decease, his 

 landlady, in sweeping out his apartment, found a 



{>iece of an old newspaper, on which was written a 

 egacy to herself, of small amount in comparison 

 with one he had bequeathed of 20,000?. to General 

 Arabin. The landlady prudently placed the do- 

 cument in the hands of the general, who had the 

 means of substantiating the legacies by proving 

 the handwriting of the testator, in which he suc- 

 ceeded ; and doubtless this singular document is 

 now deposited in the muniment rooms of Doctors' 

 Commons. J. M. G. 



Worcester. 



Brass in Boxford Church (Vol. x., p. 306.). — 

 W. T. T. is informed that "Natus Septima 22 " is 

 an abbreviation of " Natus Septimanas 22," and 

 means " aged 22 weeks," in accordance with a 

 well-known idiom of the Latin language ; so that 

 the figures 22, instead of making the inscription 

 unintelligible, are absolutely necessary to com- 

 plete the sense. J. Eastwood. 



Corbridge, Northumberland. 



Great Events from little Causes (Vol. x., 

 pp. 202. 294.). — Of all cases, says Dr. South, in 

 which little casualties produce great and strange 

 effects, the chief is in war, upon the issues of 

 •which hangs the fortune of states and kingdoms ; 

 and Caesar, he adds, tells us the power of chance 

 in the third book of his Commentaries " De Bello 

 Civili:" 



"Fortuna quae plurimum potest, cum in aliis rebus, 

 tmn prfficipue in bello, in parvis momentis magnus rerum 

 mutationes eflScit." 



Dr. South produces several instances from ancient 

 history, with reference to Alexander, Romulus, 

 Hannibal, &c. ; and, in regard to later times, ad- 

 verts to the success which, in very high proba- 

 bility of reason, might have attended the king's 

 forces during the parliamentary wars, had it not 

 sometimes been at an even cast, whether they 

 should march this way or that. See his sermon 

 preached at Westminster Abbey, Feb. 22, 1684- 

 85, on " All contingencies under the direction of 

 God's Providence." N. L. T. 



Perhaps there never was an example more pat 

 than that quoted by Franklin in Poor Richard's 

 Almanac (printed at Philadelphia, 1758) : 



"And again he adviseth to circumspection and care 

 even in the smallest matters, because sometimes 'A little 

 neglect may breed great mischief,' adding, ' For want of 

 3 nail the shoe was lost j for want of a shoe the horse 



was lost ; and for want of a horse the rider was lost ; ' 

 being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for want of 

 care about a horse-shoe nail." 



As also to the fine illustration of St. James 

 (chap. iii. v. 5.) in respect to the government of 

 the tongue, " Behold how great a matter a little 

 fire kindleth." G. N. 



Confusion of Authors (Vol. viii., p. 637.). — - 

 Mr. Warden points out an error in Riley's 

 Hoveden, where "a well-known passage from 

 Horace is ascribed to Juvenal." Not having 

 access to the book, I. do not know what that pas- 

 sage is ; but a precisely similar mistake is made 

 by an accomplished scholar, the late Mr. Barham, 

 in the Ingoldsby Legends : 

 " We must all be aware, Nature's prone to rebel, as 



Old Juvenal tells us, ' Naturam expellas, 



Tamen usque recurrat,' 



There's no making her rat ! " 



Read "old Horace informs us ;" and see Hor.^ 

 Ep. I. 10. 24. : 



" Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurref." 



W. T. M. 

 Hong Kong. 



Burial in unconsecrated Places (Vol. x., p. 233.). 

 — I recently heard of a person who owned much 

 property at Restalrig, near Edinburgh, ordering 

 by his will that he should be interred in a potato 

 field,) fifty feet\below the surface, and that be 

 should be conveyed to this singular place of burial 

 in a cart drawn by four horses, and attended by 

 his domestics only. These injunctions, I believe, 

 were strictly adhered to. I also heard that he 

 left a large sum to erect a monument, but I am 

 not aware that this request has yet been complied 

 with. „ Arch. Weib. 



I had occasion lately to make some inquiry 

 into the history of my family, when I discovered 

 that, some two centuries ago, they were in the 

 habit of burying their dead in their own orchard, 

 at Dunham in Cheshire; and though the estate 

 has passed from the family considerably more than 

 half a century ago, it is called Neild's Orchard to 

 this day. The last of the name who possessed the 

 estate in question, was James Neild, the philan- 

 thropist, of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, who, like 

 Howard, devoted a great portion of his life to 

 visiting prisons, and ameliorating the condition of 

 the inmates. See his work on Prisons, published 

 in 1812. On the death of his mother in 1786, he 

 sold the estate at Dunham, and the purchaser, 

 not having much regard for the repose of the 

 dead, removed the gravestones, dug up the or- 

 chard, and scattered the bones about. They were 

 carefully collected by another of the name, re- 

 siding in the neighbourhood, who reburied them 

 in hil own garden, and reverently placed the 

 gravestones over them, where they now remain. 



