2»'i S. NO 105., Jan. 2. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



15 



given a short pedigree of it, as settled at Plympton, 

 CO. Stissex. Or is the name quite extinct ? 



2. The family of De Beauvoir is stated first to 

 have settled here in one of the companions of the 

 Conqueror. The name, in the list of the Normans, 

 is Beavois, and he settled at Southampton ; and 

 about this Beavois are related, I think, several 

 legends, and if I am not mistaken his portrait 

 exists at the Bargate in that town. Is the con- 

 nexion between Beavois and De Beauvoir dis- 

 tinctly established, and how ? 



R.eferen(!e to works mentioning either of the 

 above, and any notes on the subject, will be valued 

 by me. J. Bbrtrand Payne. 



Adriaen van Utrecht, 1644. — Are the paintings 

 of this artist of value? Any particulars about 

 him will be acceptable to 



C. Mansfield Ingleby. 



Dr. James Meddus. — There is a Dr. Meddus, 

 one of the correspondents of Joseph Mede, but of 

 whom nothing more appears except his letters to 

 the author of the Clavis Apocalypiica. Can any 

 of your correspondents give information about 

 this Dr. Meddus ? His letters are in the year 

 1629, and he was a friend of Dr. Twisse ; but 

 what was he? Curiosus. 



[The following notices of Dr. Meddus are given in 

 Wood's Fasti, i. 340. (Bliss): "James Meddous, or Me- 

 dowes (Meddusius), Doctor of Divinity of the University 

 of Basil in Germany, and incorporated at Oxford, Julj' 6, 

 1610. He was a Cheshire man born, had formerly studied 

 arts and divinity in the University of Heidelberg, was 

 now chaplain to Peregrine, Lord Willoughby, and after- 

 wards to King James I. What he hath written (saj's 

 Wood) I cannot justly say: sure I am that he hath 

 translated from High Dutch into English A Sermon 

 preached before Frederick V., Prince Elector Palatine, and 

 the Princess Lady Elizabeth, by Abr. Scultetus, Chaplain 

 to his Highness, on Psalm cxlvii. 1 — 3., Lond. 1613. 8vo., 

 and perhaps other things, but such 1 have not yet seen." 

 To this passage Dr. Bliss has subjoined the following 

 note: "Rect. S. Gabr. Fenchurch, Lond. cone, per dom. 

 chanc. Egerton, 30 Sept. 1G03, Jacobo Meddus, S. T. P. 

 e coll. Magd. Oxon. ex commend. Tho. Chalener mil. 

 (^Tanner.) He was a great acquaintance of the learned 

 Joseph Mede, to whom he wrote many letters from Lon- 

 don, 1621-23, being a strenuous friend to foreign Pro- 

 testants. Several of his letters are among the Harleian 

 MSS. in the British Museum." In Lansdowne MS. 988. 

 fol. 197. is also a letter from James Meddus to Joseph 

 Mede, giving an account of the baptism of Prince Charles 

 at St. James's; affairs in Italy, &c., dated July 2, 1630.] 



" Simon the Cellarer" — Will you kindly in- 

 form me when the jovial song of " Simon the 

 Cellarer " was published, also who was the author 

 of the words and composer of the music ? 



A. L. W. 



[On the title-page of this song, published by Addison 

 and Hodson, about 1847, it is stated that the words are 

 by W. H. Bellamy, Esq., and the music by John L. Hat- 



ton. The idea of this ballad was probably suggested b}' 

 the clever drinking scene in Meyerbeer's Collection of 

 Songs.'] 



V<t^\iti» 



WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIPSY ? 



(2"<i S. iv. 465.) 



Mr. Simson of New York imagines that he is 

 the first to assert that the father of the immortal 

 John Bunyan was a gipsy, and that probably our 

 great dreamer followed his footsteps until he be- 

 came a miracle of mercy. In a note at the close 

 of his paper, he observes : — 



" It is very singular that even religious writers should 

 strive to make out that Bunyan was not a Gipsy." 



Mr. Simson had not seen the first complete 

 edition of Bunyan's Works, comprising his sixty 

 treatises, all accurately reprinted from editions 

 published in his lifetime, except those prepared 

 "by him for the press, and which were published 

 three years after his death. To this edition* I 

 prefixed a Memoir, where at p. ii. of vol. iii. is 

 the following account of Bunyan's birth and de- 

 scent : — 



" This poverty-stricken, ragged tinker was the son of 

 a mechanic at Elstow, near Bedford. So obscure was his 

 origin that even the Christian name of his father is 3'et 

 unknown. He was born in 1628, a year memorable as 

 that in which the Bill of Rights was passed. Then began 

 the struggle against that arbitrary power which was 

 overthrown in 1688, the year of Bunyan's death. Of his 

 parents, his infancy', and childhood, little is recorded. 

 All that we know is from his own account, and that prin- 

 cipally contained in his doctrine of the Law and Grace, 

 and in his extraordinary development of his spiritual life, 

 under the title of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. 

 His birth would have shed a lustre on the wealthiest 

 mansion, and have imparted additional grandeur to any 

 lordly palace. Had royal or noble gossips, and a splendid 

 entertainment, announced his christening, it might have 

 been pointed to with pride : but so obscure was his birth, 

 that it has not been discovered that he was christened at 

 all ; while the fact of his new birth, or baptismal regener- 

 ation by the Holy Ghost, is known over the whole world 

 to the vast extent that his writings have been circulated. 

 His pedigree is thus narrated by himself: — ' My descent 

 was of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father's 

 house being of that rank that is meanest and most de- 

 spised of all the families in the land.' Bunyan alludes to 

 this very pointedly in the preface to A Few Sighs from 

 Hell: — 'I am thine, if thou be not ashamed to own me, 

 because of my low and contemptible descent in the world.' 

 His poverty-stricken and abject parentage was so noto- 

 rious, that his pastor, John Burton, apologised for it in 

 his recommendation to The Gospel Truths Opened : — 'Be 

 not offended because Christ holds forth the glorious trea- 

 sure of the gospel to thee in a poor earthen vessel, by one 

 who hath neither the greatness nor the wisdom of this 

 world to commend him to th^.' And in his most admir- 

 able treatise on The Fear of God, Bunyan observes : ' The 

 poor Christian hath something to answer them that re- 

 proach him for his ignoble pedigree, and shortness of the 



* Three volumes imperial 8vo., printed by Blackie & 

 Sons, Glasgow, 1853. 



