614 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[No. 165. 



strength between weak and actually saturated will 

 have the required effect. The same with the 

 hyposulphite of soda; any strength that can by 

 any possibility be called tolerably strong answering 

 the purpose. 



I. W. seems to think that spoiling a dozen or 

 twenty pictures is a lamentable result, and of all 

 things to be avoided. He is, I presume, no photo- 

 grapher, or he would know that in an art depend- 

 ing so much upon manipulatory skill, a few failures 

 now and then are most valuable, as they generally 

 indicate their own remedy, and thus aiford more 

 information and experience than could be obtained 

 from years of unvarying success. 



Want of simplicity is, I am sure, the last accu- 

 sation that should be brought against my process ; 

 but as I. W. imagines (and perhaps justly) that 

 some parts might be still more simplified, if he 

 would turn his attention to it, and give your sub- 

 scribers the benefit of his experience, none would 

 be more ready than myself to adopt any improve- 

 ments which should turn out to be such. 



WiLMAM CbOOKES. 

 Hammersmith. 



dSitftXieS ta i^innr €iuttitg. 



Death-place of Spinoza (Vol. vi., p. 510.). — 

 !Mr. Alfred Paget asks, " He (Spinoza) died 

 (where?) in 1677." I find, In a note to Bayle's 

 account of Spinoza, the following extract from the 

 preface to his Posthumous Works : 



" Urbetn Amstelaedamum, in qua natus, et educatus 

 fuit, deseruit, atque primo Renoburgum, deinde Voor- 

 burgum, et tandem Hagam Comitis habitatura con- 

 cessit, ubi etiam IX Kalend. Martii anno supra mille- 

 simum et sexcentesimum septuagesirao septimo ex pthisi 

 hanc vitam reliquit, postquam annum aetatis quadra- 

 gesimum quartum excessisset." 



This passage is translated as follows in the same 

 note in Bayle : 



" He left the city of Amsterdam, where he was born, 

 and educated, and, after having often changed his resi- 

 dence, went at last to live at the Hague, where he died 

 of a consumption in February, 1677, in the forty-fifth 

 year of his age." — Bayle, edit. Des Maizeaux, 1738, 

 vol, V. pp. 204-5. 



John Bruce. 



Bruder, in his preface to his Works, says that 

 Spinoza died at the Hague, in the house of the 

 celebrated painter Henry Van der Spyck, where 

 he I'esided from the year 1671, and that he was 

 buried in the new church there on the 25th Fe- 

 bruary, 1677. R. J. Allen. 



Mitigation of Capital Punishment to a Forger 

 (Vol. vi., p. 229.). — At the time these circum- 

 stances occurred I was a resident at Mr. Fawcett's, 

 and hand you the particulars as I then heard, 

 and which have been corroborated by vai'ious 



communications since. Soon after Mr. Fawcett 

 published his Essay on Anger, a clergyman preach- 

 ing before George III. made a quotation from it, 

 which caused his majesty to inquire about the 

 book. He was informed that it was written by a 

 dissenting minister in Yorkshire, named Fawcett, 

 who received a letter from one of the king's at- 

 tendants — whose name, or rather title, I have 

 forgotten — intimating that his majesty wished to 

 have a copy, which of course was forwarded. 

 Another letter followed, saying the king was much 

 pleased with it, and would be glad to render the 

 author any service he could ; so the matter rested, 

 until the conviction of a young man for forging a 

 51. country (Yorkshire) bank note. He was the 

 son of a highly respected member of Mr. Fawcett's 

 congregation, who felt strongly for his friend ; and 

 though he had not much hope of success, ventured 

 to write to the king begging the life of the con- 

 vict, which was granted. I had a slight acquaint- 

 ance with a near relation of the young man, 

 which was accidentally renewed more than thirty 

 years after, and met a grandson of Mr. Fawcett at 

 his house, who was also Baptist minister. 



The circumstance was mentioned twice in a life 

 of George III., published immediately after his 

 death. Whdnside. 



Watch Oaks (Vol. vi., p. 486.). — There is an 

 old oak, called " The Watch Oak," on rising 

 ground, at Battle, Sussex, which is said to be so 

 named as marking the post occupied by a de- 

 tachment of Harold's army on the watch for the 

 approach of the Normans. E. M. 



Hastings. 



" Betwixt the Stirrup and the Ground " (Vol. vi., 

 p. 509.). — The couplet quoted by Clericus (D.) 

 is thus given amongst epitaphs in Camden's Re- 

 mains (6th edition, 387.), with the following in- 

 troduction by that venerable antiquary, in which 

 the harsh judgment of the world is quietly ex- 

 posed : 



" A gentleman falling off his horse, brake his neck, 

 which suddain hap gave occasion of much speech of his 

 former life, and some in this judging world judged the 

 worst. In which respect a good friend made this good 

 epitaph, remembering that of St. Augustine, ' Miseri- 

 cordia Domini inter pontem et fontem : ' 

 ' My friend judge not me, 

 Thou seest I judge not thee ; 

 Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, 

 Mercy I askt, mercy I found.'" 



The last two lines are quoted by Johnson (see 

 Croker's edition of Boswell, vol. v. p. 92.), where 

 he charitably observes that we are " not to judge 

 determlnately of the state in which a man leaves 

 this life ; he may in a moment have repented 

 effectually, and it is possible may have been ac- 

 cepted of God." The epitaph was probably often 



