280 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'"i S. V. lia, April 3. '58. 



fiearching the chambers of Mr. Hollis, Mr. Selden, 

 and Sir John Elliot {Grenv. Corresp., iii. clxxv.). 



These instances, it may be said, do not amount 

 to proof, but they are strong points of circum- 

 stantial evidence. 



Your correspondent speaks of Dr. Busby, and 

 " what he calls parallel passages.'' Now the Doc- 

 tor's grand object was to prove that De Lolme 

 was Junius ; and in that theory he was unques- 

 tionably wrong, although there is a mysterious 

 connexion between De Lolme and Junius, to 

 which I may revert at some future time ; but on 

 the occasion in question, Dr. Busby wished also 

 to establish that the pamphlet entitled Another 

 Letter to Almon was also by Junius, — and there 

 I believe him to have been quite right. He seems 

 to have known nothing about the " Candor" pam- 

 phlets. 



I would ask how else could the Doctor have 

 attempted to test the truth of his conjecture than 

 by these " parallel passages," which form a very 

 important part of internal evidence ; and where 

 such passages are selected and applied with judg- 

 ment and discretion, have very considerable weight 

 in the decision of these questions ; and the evi- 

 dence founded upon them cannot be destroyed, 

 unless, indeed, it can be shown that the same 

 words, thoughts, and phrases have been used in 

 the same way by other writers. 



I have little doubt that your correspondent is 

 not only well acquainted with an anonymous 

 pamphlet, published by Almon in 1768, and en- 

 titled A Letter to the Duke of Grafton, on the pre- 

 sent Situation of Public Affairs; but that he will 

 probably admit that it bears the strongest marks 

 of having been written by the author of Junius ; 

 and there can be no other means than those I have 

 described, as the material of internal evidence, 

 from coming to any conclusion on the point of its 

 authenticity. 



And the same argument holds with regard to 

 other productions of the author, which I may 

 speak of upon another occasion. 



WiiiMAM James Smith. 



CHILDREN NUBTURED BY WOLVES. 



(2°'i S. v. 153.) 



Le Loyer, an old writer on Demonology, re- 

 lates a story of a child nurtured by wolves 

 remarkably similar to those which have been re- 

 cently brought from the kingdom of Oude. This 

 account is, that in the reign of the Emperor Louis 

 of Bavaria (1313-47), a child was taken in a 

 forest of Hesse who walked on his hands and 

 feet, and in this manner was able to run faster 

 than any wild animal. After a time they suc- 

 ceeded in taming him, and he was taught to walk 

 upright by tying bis hands to sticks. He related 



that, at the age of about three years, he had been 

 carried away by wolves, which had removed him 

 to their den, without doing him any harm. The 

 wolves shared their food with him, and lay round 

 him in winter in order to protect him from the 

 cold. They forced him to walk and run like 

 themselves, on his hands and feet ; and he became 

 so perfect in this mode of progression, that there 

 was no wolf in the forest which could run faster, 

 or leap a ditch better, than he could. This boy 

 was presented to Prince .Henry, Landgrave of 

 Hesse, and he often said that he would have pre- 

 ferred to remain with the wolves, so far had his 

 life in the woods become a second nature. {His- 

 toire de Spectres, ^c. p. 140.) Concerning this 

 writer, see Bayle, Diet, art. "Loyer." He was 

 born in 1540, and died in 1634, at the age of 

 ninety-four. 



This narrative has a close resemblance to the 

 Indian stories recited in former numbers of " N. 

 & Q.," and is liable to the same suspicions as to 

 its veracity. A child of three years old carried 

 off by wolves would not retain a clear recollection 

 of the event. It is inconceivable that any prac- 

 tice should enable a boy to run upon all-fours as 

 fast as a wolf. The formation of the human body 

 excludes the possibility of such a performance. 

 Even if the wolves who carried off the child were 

 disposed to spare its life, and, what is still more 

 marvellous, to feed it, and to supply its want of 

 clothes by their warmth in winter, yet the other 

 wolves in the same forest would not be likely to 

 be equally humane and tender. The story seems 

 to represent the boy as the general friend and 

 associate of the wolves in the forest. In winter, 

 moreover, when the ground is covered with snow, 

 wolves become ravenous, and wander to great 

 distances from their usual haunts in search of 

 food. What happened to the wolf-boy at such a 

 season as this ? Altogether the story is irrecon- 

 cileable with either human or lupine nature. 



It should be added that the time when Le 

 Loyer wrote was removed by more than two cen- 

 turies from the occurrence of the event described. 



Marvellous tales of this kind received no proper 

 investigation in the fourteenth or even in the 

 sixteenth century ; but the Indian stories, being 

 recent, might, when the tranquillity of Oude is 

 restored, be sifted by some scientific naturalist. 



L. 



EARLY LISTS OF THE ARMY. 

 (2"'> S. V. 191.) 



I have had a similar desire with your correspon- 

 dent to discover early lists of the officers of the 

 English army ; and although I will not say alto- 

 gether ineffectually, yet for the most part with 

 much defectiveness in result. The first attempts 

 of the kind, and those lamentably imperfect, I 



