Nov. 11. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



395 



I copied the inscriptions on two of them, which 

 are as follow. On one, — 



« Elizabeth Neild, buried Dec, 5, 1670. Buried here 

 since two Daurs." 



On the other, — 



" Here lieth the body of John Neild, Bachelor, who de- 

 parted this life the 28th day of December, 1702, in the 

 71st year of his age, leaving the interest of 50/. to the 

 higliways of Dunham Massey for ever." . 



The above-named James Neild was the father 

 of John Camden Neild, who died about two years 

 ago, leaving an immense amount of property to 

 the Queen. H. I. N. 



Kensington. 



Apparent Magnitude (Vol. x., p. 243.). — The 

 difficulty is that the author says, or seems to say, 

 that though the sun and moon appear larger, they 

 have not a larger apparent magnitude. The word 

 apparent is here a technical term, which should 

 not have been used in connexion with its verb. 

 The apparent diameter of a heavenly body is the 

 angle under which it is seen, as distinguished from 

 its real diameter, which is of course a length. The 

 author means to say that though the sun and 

 moon seem larger to the unassisted eye, their 

 angular diameters, when measured, are not found 

 to be larger than usual. M. 



Motto of the Thompsons of Yorkshire (Vol. x., 

 p. 244.). — In reference to a Query by One of 

 TOUR Subscribers respecting the origin of the 

 Thompsons of Yorkshire, and their motto, " Je 

 veux de bonne guerre," I rather think he is la- 

 bouring under some misapprehension. There was 

 an ancient family of Thompson, of the county of 

 Lincoln, who had resided in that county for many 

 generations, and established the descent from 

 Richard Thompson of Laxton, or Claxton, in co. 

 York, who was usher to King Henry IV., and a 

 descendant of which family purchased the manor, 

 &c., of Thompson in Norfolk, and claimed his 

 earlier descent from one Thompson of Tyne- 

 mouth Castle in co. Northumberland, whose an- 

 cestors came from Thompson in Norfolk, but no 

 pedigree or proof was shown. But the arms of 

 that family are entirely different to those of 

 Yorkshire, viz. B. a lion pass. gard. or ; Crest, on 

 a mount vert, a lion ramp. or. 



The Yorkshire family to which your corre- 

 spondent refers claimed the descent from James 

 Thompson of Thornton, in Pickering Lithe, who 

 married Eleanor, daughter of James Philips of 

 Brignal, near Richmond, about 1505, and had by 

 her two sons, Richard and Henry, and two 

 daughters. 



The second son, Henry Thompson, was a mer- 

 chant in London ; but owing to the disputes be- 

 tween France and England, he, like many other 

 young men of spirit, took up arms, and joined the 



troops of Henry VIII., who afterwards besieged 

 and took Boulogne, and there so much distin- 

 guished himself as to attract the notice of the 

 king. 



Edward VI., in the first year of his reign, 

 A.D. 1559, granted the arms and crest, to this 

 Henry Thompson, which is still worn by his de- 

 scendants, as appears by Heraldical Visitations in 

 1584, &c. 



Neither the father, nor the elder brother, Ri- 

 chard Thompson, who was justice of the peace 

 temp. Elizabeth, ever wore arms. The motto to 

 which your correspondent refers was probably 

 chosen by some of the descendants of the same 

 Henry Thompson, in reference to his military 

 prowess at Boulogne, and perhaps that circum- 

 stance may give the explanation your correspon- 

 dent requires. Chabtbubit. 



Somersetshire Folk Lore (Voh ix., p. 536.). — 

 The custom of placing salt on the chest of a 

 corpse when laid out is not peculiar to Somerset- 

 shire, but of general practice, more especially in 

 Ireland. Mb. Douce alludes to it as being par- 

 ticularly retained in Leicestershire, and says that 

 the intention is to hinder air from getting into the 

 body and distending it, so as to occasion bursting 

 or inconvenience in closing the coffin. But Dr. 

 Campbell agrees in the remark of Moresin, that 

 salt not being liable to putrefaction, and pre- 

 serving things seasoned with it from decay, was 

 the emblem of eternity and immortality, and for 

 such reason anciently used in the manner above 

 mentioned. The superstitious, however, regard 

 it as the means of frightening away evil spirits, to 

 whom salt is considered by them abhorrent, as a 

 symbol of eternity, and as having been used by 

 divine commandment to all sacrifices. Herrick, 

 in his Hesperides, thus addresses Perilla : 



" Per. Dead when I am, first cast in salt, and brings 

 Part of the creame for that religious spring, &c. 

 Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep 

 Still in the cold and silent shades of sleep." 



N. L. T. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. 



Mr. Riddle, an accomplished scholar and sound church- 

 man, believing that there existed on the part of practical 

 men a want of competent and satisfactory information as 

 to the stealthy and gradual advances of Romish ag- 

 gression, and what were from time to time its ways and 

 methods of progress, its lets and hindrances, — and on 

 the part of politicians and men of business, a desire to be 

 put in possession of the plain facts of the papal historj', 

 narrated with clearness of style and the utmost possible 

 brevity, consistent with a perpetual reference to authori- 

 ties,— "has endeavoured, and that most successfully, to sup- 

 ply such want in his recently-published History of the Pa- 

 pacy to the Period of the Reformation. In these two vols., 



