July 3. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



21 



manifest the abundance of the poet's obligations 

 to his predecessors. There is no question that 

 Milton "borrowed," and unscrupulously; but it 

 was not an Israelitish "borrowing" of the 

 Ejiyptians ; he returned the thoughts he had ap- 

 propriated with added lustre, or, to preserve the 

 image in its integrity, with compound interest. 

 As I remember, Leigh Hunt, when we were 

 speaking on this very subject, acknowledged in his 

 fanciful and humorous vein of language : — " Oh, 

 yes! Milton 'borrowed' other poets' thoughts, but 

 he did not 'borrow' as gipsies borrow children, 

 spoiling their features that they may not be re- 

 cognised. No, he returned them improved. Had 

 he*'' borrowed ' your coat, he would have restored 

 it, with a new nap upon it ! " Cowden Clabke. 



Plague Stones (Vol. v., p. 226.). — There was 

 some time ago, and I believe is still in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Dorchester, co. Dorset, one of these 

 rare stones ; it is situated on the east side of a 

 public road, not far from the first milestone from 

 Dorchester, on the London turnpike road; it 

 stands near a tree close to the hedge, a few feet 

 beyond the gate leading to Stinsford House,_on the 

 road just branched off to Moreton, &c. This stone 

 Las not been heretofore noticed, that I am aware 

 of, as a plague stone ; it has been commonly con- 

 sidered as a boundary stone, which its position 

 cannot warrant : it is circular in shape, and near 

 ■four feet high, having a round hollow of dishlike 

 shape excavated on the top of it, and no doubt of 

 the class above alluded to. It has been in the same 

 place beyond the memory of man. G. F. 



* Algernon Sidney (Vol. v., p. 318.).— Niebuhr, 

 when a youth of eighteen, made quite a hero of 

 Algernon Sidney ; 



" This day," said he, writing from Kiel, Dec, 6th, 

 .1794, " is the anniversary of Algernon Sidney's death 

 III years ago, and hence it is in my eyes a consecrated 

 "day, especially as I have just been studying his noble 

 life again. May God preserve me from a death like 

 his ; yet even with such a death the virtue and holiness 

 of his life would not be dearly purchased. And now 

 he is forgotten almost throughout the world, and per- 

 haps there are not fifty persons in all Gennany who 

 have taken the pains to inform themselves accurately 

 about his life and fortunes. Many may know his 

 name, many know him from his brilliant talents, but 

 Ihey formed the least part of his true greatness." 



In 1813, the late George Wilson Meadley, Esq., 

 of Bishopwearmouth, the biographer of Dr. Paley, 

 published Memoirs of Algernon Sidney. 



E. H. A. 



Edmund Bohun (Vol. v., pp. 539. 599.). — Mb. 

 Jlix has been inquiring about this writer. Has it 

 "been noticed that he was licenser of the press in 

 J 692? The book entitled — 



" Observations historical and genealogical, in which 

 the originals of the emperors, kings, electors, and other 



sovereign princes of Europe, with a series of their 

 births, matches, more remarkable actions, and deaths, 

 and also the augmentations, decreasings, and pretences 

 of each family, are drawn down to the year 1690. 

 Written in Latin by Anthony William Schowart, His- 

 tory-professor at Frankfort, and now made English ; 

 with some enlargements relating to England. 8vo. 

 1693. London." 



bears the " imprimatur " of Edmund Bohun, with 

 the date of "Decemb. 12, 1692 ;" and at the close 

 of the preface the translator states that, — 



«' In the Latin copy, amongst King James II.'s 

 children there is one mentioned and called The Prince 

 of Walts; but the late licenser, Mr. Bohun, having ex- 

 punged him, the translator could not, by the warrant 

 of the Latin original, presume to insert him." 



John Bbuce. 



Declaration of Two Thousand Clergymen (Vol. v., 

 p. 610.). — I do not think the names of the two 

 thousand clergymen that signed the declaration 

 supposed to call in question the Queen's Supre- 

 macy were ever published. The declaration is 

 too long for insertion in " N. & Q," but Rusxicus 

 will find it in the English Churchman, No. 400, 

 August 29, 1850, pp. 587, 588. G. A. T. 



i^t^wTlaufauS. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. 

 Those who, from knowing the active share always 

 taken by Mr. Wright in the proceedings of the Archaeo- 

 logical Association, and in the investigations carried 

 on under its auspices in various parts of the country, 

 and who, being aware that with such practical know- 

 ledge Mr. Wright combines a very general acquaintance 

 with the antiquarian literature of the Continent ge- 

 nerally, have consequently anticipated that his new 

 book — The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon : a His- 

 tory of the early Inhabitants of Britain, down to the 

 Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity: ilhts- 

 trated by the Ancient Remains brought to Light by 

 recent Research — would be a volume full of inform- 

 ation, pleasantly served up on that recondite sub- 

 ject — the primeval antiquities of this country — 

 will not be disappointed. The work has been under- 

 taken, as Mr, Wright informs us, for the purpose of 

 supplying a Manual of British Archaeology ; of render- 

 ing that science more popular ; and of calling the atten- 

 tion of Englishmen more generally to the past history 

 of their country : and, with this latter view more par- 

 ticularly, is plentifully studded with engravings of all 

 such objects as represent the classes or peculiar types 

 with which it is necessary the student should make 

 himself acquainted. Mr. Wright discards altogether 

 the svstem of archaeological periods which has been 

 adopted by the antiquaries of the North, and has treated 

 antiquarian objects simply according to the races to 

 which they belonged ; in fact, to use his own words, 

 " iias attempted to make archaeology walk hand in hand 

 with history." We do not agree with Mr. Wright in 

 this entire rejection of the systems which have been ad- 

 vanced by Worsaae, Thomsen, and others j but wa are 



