Sept. 4. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



229 



they put between the eyelid and the eye a certain 

 black powder, made of a mineral brought from Fez, 

 and called alcahole," 



Bishop Lowth thus translates the Hebrew ori- 

 ginal of the Septuagint version of Ezeklel xxiii. 

 40. : " iffTiSCCov Tovs ocl>ea\ixovs ffv," " Thou didst 

 dress their eyes with al-kahal." 



Kraus (Kritisch- etymologisches medicinisches 

 Lexikoii) gives the same etymology of alcohol; 

 and adds the Arabic characters (j.^ — /Jl) 

 which are here copied. 



The transfer of the name of a substance thus 

 employed to heighten the charms of female beauty, 

 to a substance of so subtle a nature as the refined 

 spirit obtained by rectification, is easily conceiv- 

 able among an imaginative people, especially with 

 those of Eastern origin : hence alcohol, for spirits 

 of wine. 



Such, it occurs to me, is the etymology of 

 alcohol. W. B. Kesteven. 



Upper Holloway, 



burials in tjnconsecbated ground. 

 (Vol. V. passim; Vol. vi., p. 136.) 



I have met with several instances of this. In 

 the parish register of Mayfield there are entries of 

 four brothers named Beany, who were buried in a 

 field near their father's house, because they died 

 of the "plague." This was in the seventeenth 

 century. At Rotherfield, Sussex, a gentleman who 

 had some quarrel with his rector was buried in his 

 own garden, in order to avoid any association with 

 the object of his ill-will. This may have been 

 about the commencement of the present century ; 

 but at length his representatives, wishing to dispose 

 of the property, found the tomb an obstacle to its 

 sale, and the body was exhumed, and re-buried in 

 the churchyard. The singular instance mentioned 

 by your correspondent, of a body being deposited 

 upon the beams of a barn, reminds one of the 

 means of disposing of the dead resorted to by some 

 tribes of the American Indians, who bind their 

 deceased friends in matting and similar substances, 

 and then fasten them in a horizontal position across 

 the branches of a tree. In Banvard's panorama 

 of the Mississippi there were several representa- 

 tions of this singular method of "crossing the 

 sticks" M. A. Lower. 



Lewes. 



To the list we may add Dr. Solomon, of Liver- 

 pool, who acquired a fortune as the inventor of 

 the Balm of Gilead, and was buried in a field at 

 Mosley Hill, near that town, Agmond. 



Mitigation of Capital Furdshment to a Forger 

 (Vol. vi., p. 15.3.). — I am obliged by Mb. Gatty's 



answer to my Note. We have now cleared away 

 the two great incredibilities of the story, — the 

 judges' public attendance at divine worship at the 

 end of the assizes, and the convict escaping by 

 forging his own discharge. I will try to get at 

 the residue ; but few of my learned friends re- 

 member what happened on circuit thirty-five 

 years ago. I supposed the anecdote more recent, 

 not suspecting that " Baron G., notorious for his 

 unflinching obduracy," could be Baron Graham, 

 of whom, though I have no personal remem- 

 brance, I have always heard exactly tlie opposite 

 character. 



I am familiar with the other story of George IH. 

 pardoning a forger at the request of Mr. Fawcett, 

 and have endeavoured, fruitlessly, to trace it to 

 Its source. I cannot find the name of the forger, 

 the date of the conviction, or the Rev. Mr. Faw- 

 cett" s Commentary on the Bible ; but my search for 

 the last has not been sufficiently rigid to warrant 

 me in disputing its existence. If known to any 

 reader of " N. & Q.," I shall be obliged by a refer- 

 ence.* The art of bookselling, though far below 

 its present state, was not unknown in the days 

 when loyalty abounded, and pardons for forgery 

 were rai-e ; and I think this story would have been 

 at least as good an advertisement, as the apparition 

 of Mrs. Veale to Drelincourt on Death. 'I'here are 

 other versions ; one is of a Quaker at Weymouth, 

 but I do not remember how he gained the royal 

 favour. Another is of a clergyman of the Church 

 of England, who preached before the King so Avell 

 that his Majesty sent for him, and offered him 

 good preferment, ivhich he refused. Whether that, 

 or George III. reading a dissenter's commentary 

 on the Bible, be more doubtful, I cannot venture 

 to decide. AH may be true. 



I take some interest in inquiries of this sort ; 

 and, if favoured with any hints, I will make the 

 best use I can of them, by following the evidence 

 in every practicable direction. H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



Shaston (Vol. vi., p. 151.). — If ^Ib. Chadwick 

 will refer to Hutchius's History of Dorset, he will 



[* In An Account of the Life, Ministrij, and Writings 

 of the late Rev. John Fawcett, D.D.: Lond. 1818, 

 p. 271., it is stated that Mr. Fawcett presented a copy 

 of his Essay on Anger to George III., which "he 

 afterwards learned was graciously received and perused 

 with approbation. He was repeatedly induced, in 

 conjunction with others, to solicit the exercise of royal 

 clemency in mitigating the severity of that punishment 

 which the law denounces ; and it gladdened the sym- 

 pathetic feelings of his heart to know that tluse peti- 

 tions were not unavailing ; but the modesty of his 

 character made him often regret the publicity which 

 had been given to this subject." Mr. Fawcett was the 

 author of The Devotional Family Bible, 2 vols. : Lond. 

 1811, 4 to. See Watt's B.bUoih. Britan. — Ed.] 



