438 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 158. 



of the sad event, and enlarging upon the raging 

 fury and agonising screams of the little boy, 

 which, she said, at length compelled the doctors 

 to order him to be suffocated between two feather 

 beds. Whether the strenuous denial of all this 

 nonsense by the writer was believed, may, perhaps, 

 be doubtful. 



The notice taken in the "N. & Q" of these 

 cases has induced the writer to make some recent 

 inquiries at Kensington about this case. After an 

 interval of forty-seven years, few persons compa- 

 ratively remember anything about it ; but one 

 gentleman remembers that his father was the 

 principal medical attendant, and he recollects dis- 

 tinctly the being told, when he went to school a 

 few years afterwards, that the child had been 

 suffocated between feather beds, a story which all 

 his schoolfellows appeared to believe. He has 

 also ascertained that at one time the belief in the 

 suffocation was extensive among the lower classes 

 at Kensington. At present the case is rarely 

 spoken of, but there is reason to fear that this 

 marvellous story is not altogether abandoned. 



I have repeatedly heard the late John Dunkin, 

 author of the Histories of Oxfordshire, Dartfbrd, 

 &c., relate that he knew of more than two hydro- 

 phobic patients in Oxfordshire being smothered. 

 My own godfather, towards the close of the last 

 century, after being bitten by a mad (or supposed 

 to be mad) dog, was sent from Kensington, Mid- 

 dlesex, to a place in Surrey to be dipped, because 

 a professed dipper resided there : although I have 

 often heard the name of this then celebrated lo- 

 cality, I am unable to remember it at the present 

 moment. The dippings, I believe, required to be 

 performed thrice. If the dog was mad the cure 

 was perfect, for the patient, a Mr. Foster, lived 

 many a long year afterwards. Alfred. 



In proof of the fact, that the practice of 

 smothering hydrophobic patients was certainly 

 carried on within living memory, I may cite the 

 experience of a clergyman, a friend of mine. A 

 good many years ago he was conversing with one 

 of his parishioners who had survived two or three 

 husbands, and having occasion to mention the par- 

 ticulars of their deaths, she said, " My first died in 

 such and such a manner, and my second we 

 smothered !" My friend was a little startled at so 

 quiet an avowal of murder ; but it appeared, on 

 examination, that he had been seized with hydro- 

 phobia, and his widow evidently considered that 

 he had met with the regular treatment for that 

 malady. H. W. 



EIKON BASILIKE. 



(YoLvi, p.361.) 



Perhaps it may assist the inquiries of Mr. 

 Tatlok if I send some particulars of an edition 

 of the " Eikon Basilike" which is in my possession. 

 It forms part of a duodecimo volume, entitled 

 Reliquia Sacrce Carolince, which contains, also, 

 many of the king's letters, his papers on church 

 government, an account of his trial and execution, 

 with several elegies, one of which is that by Mon- 

 trose, which is in MS. in Mr. Taylor's copy. It 

 is dated 1648, and professes to have been printed 

 abroad — " Hague, printed by Sam. Browne ; " yet 

 there can be no doubt, I conceive, that it proceeded 

 from an English press. The object of the work 

 itself, and various expressions in it, will suffjciently 

 account for the pretence of its being printed " be- 

 yond the seas," where " Sam. Browne " would be 

 out of the reach of the speaker's warrant. In the 

 " Eikon " is a print of Prince Charles, with the in- 

 scription " Natus Maij 29, An" 1630, aetatissuse 19." 

 The Greek line is not in the title-page, but at the 

 foot of a page which faces an emblematical engrav- 

 ing, and contains some Latin and English verses 

 explanatory of the emblems. In my copy the Greek 

 is incorrectly printed, having ediK-nae, This line 

 Mr. Taylor terms " the disputed motto," but I 

 am unhappily so ignorant of the controversy, 

 " Who wrote, &c. ? " that I do not know why the 

 line is disputed, nor who are meant by the x and 

 the K. The emblematical engraving itself, I 

 imagine, is well known, and it would seem was in 

 those days very popular with the royal party. 

 There is a large painting, precisely similar (if I 

 recollect aright) in St. Martin's Church, Leicester, 

 which is thus mentioned by Mr. Thompson in his 

 Handbook of that interesting old town : 



" Over the site of the altar, a picture of Charles I., 

 the work of an artist named Rowley, has long been 

 placed ; it was painted in 1686." 



The engraving and the painting it would seem, 

 then, were copies from some common original, as 

 the print is not later, I judge, than the date of the 

 book, viz. 1648. What and where is the original? 



S. S. S. 



TRAFALGAR. 



(Vol. vi., p. 362.) 



W. T. M. is assured that Trafalgar, with the ac- 

 cent on the last syllable, is the right pronunciation. 

 I know this from the lips of my deceased connexion, 

 the Rev. Dr. Scott, who was a learned linguist, and 

 the chaplain and friend of Lord Nelson, who died 

 in his arms. Dr. Scott met Mr. Canning at dinner 

 at Fife House, and was mysteriously informed by 

 that statesman, that he was about to publish a 

 poem on the great naval victory, some lines of 



