2"<i S. V. 119., Ai>iiiL 10. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



295 



"Diurnals of Charles I." — If the editor or any 

 correspondent of "N. & Q." could inform me 

 where the Diurnals of Charles /., of or about 

 August, 1645, are to be found, a great favour 

 would thereby be conferred. A careful, though 

 unsuccessful, search has been made in the Bod- 

 leian Library at Oxford, and also in the library 

 of the British Museum. Copies are, however, 

 supposed to be extant in private collections. 



OxONIENSIS. 



Ttoyal Serjeant Surgeons. — Can any reader of 

 your jniscellany inform me what is the stipend 

 combined with this office ? Looking over some 

 old papers, I find it stated at 595 marks, or 

 396/. 13s. 4d. per annum. The recent appoint- 

 ment of Mr. Lawrence has been in every respect 

 so perfectly judicious as to demonstrate the mo- 

 dern requirement in the phrase of " the best man 

 in the best place." Allow me to submit the fol- 

 lowing list of those surgeons who have held this 

 appointment during the last eighty years, which 

 may interest some of your readers : — Sir Caesar 

 Hawkins, Da. Middleton, Pennel Hawkins, Chas. 

 Hawkins, Sir David Dundas, Bt., Sir Everard 

 Home, Bt., Pat. Macgregor, Sir Astley P. Cooper, 

 Bt., Sir B. C. Brodie, Bt., Rob. Keate, B. Travers, 

 W. Lawrence. Of the above twelve who have held 

 the post, Sir David Dundas filled it for the longest 

 period (thirty-four years), viz. 1792 — 1826, and 

 Mr. Travers the shortest time. Amicus. 



The Devil and the Interlude of Dr. Fausius. — 

 In a curious Welsh work, entitled Giveledigaethan 

 y Bai'dd Cwsg, first published in 1703,^nd several 

 times reprinted, it is incidentally stated that the 

 Devil appeared in his proper person to play his 

 own part in the interlude of Dr. Fausius, acted at 

 Shrewsbury. What is the foundation for this story, 

 and where may I find farther details about it, if 

 alluded to by any other writer ? The supposed 

 fact, it is evident, was well known in the Prin- 

 cipality some century and a half ago ; but I can 

 discover no trace of it in any other Cambrian 

 author. The Rev. D. Silvan Evans, in his ex- 

 cellent annotated edition of this Welsh classic, has 

 no note upon the subject. Aeron. 



[There was long current a storj% that upon a certain 

 occasion Satan actually made one of the party in Mar- 

 lowe's Tragical History of the Life and Death of Dr. 

 Faustus, with consequences very fearful to those who had 

 assumed his shape. This strange tale is mentioned by 

 Prynne (Histrio-Mastix, 1633, fol. 556.), when writing 

 against plays and lovelocks : " The visible apparition of 

 y" Devil appeared on y* stage, at the Belsavage Play- 

 house in Queen Elizabeth's dayes, to the great amaze- 

 ment both of the actors and spectators, whiles they were 

 prophanely playing the History of Dr. Faustun (the truth 

 of which I have heard from many now alive, who well 

 remember it) ; there being some distracted with that 



fearefuU sight." This story seems to have originated in 

 an event recorded in The Blacke Book, by Middleton, 

 printed in 1604; "Then, another door (tp&nmg rere-ward, 

 there came puffing out of the next room a villainous 

 Leiftenant, without a band, as if he had been new cut 

 downe, like one at Wapping, with his cruell garters about 

 his necke, which filthily resembled two of Derrick's neck- 

 laces. Hee had a head of hayre like one of the Diuells in 

 Doctor Faustus, when the olde theater [the Rose] crackt, 

 and frighted the audience." The credulous Aubrey (_An- 

 tiq. of Surrey, i. 190.), probablj'^ alluding to this incident, 

 wished his readers to believe that the Devil was a prompter 

 to good works bj' making Edward Alleyn quit the stage, 

 and piously devote his wealth to the founding of God's 

 Gift College at Dulwich. He says, " The tradition was, 

 that Alleyn playing a daemon, with six others, in one of 

 Shakspeare's plays, he was, in the midst of the play, sur- 

 prised by an apparition of the Devil, which so worked 

 upon his fancy, that he made a vow, which he performed 

 at this place [Dulwich]." This story, as Mr. Collier re- 

 marks, is simply ridiculous : for " first of all, Alleyn had 

 left off playing before he appears to have entertained the 

 intention of devoting his influence to purposes of charity : 

 next, he would not have condescended to play such a 

 part as that of a daemon ; and, thirdly, we have no direct 

 evidence to establish that he ever played in any of Shak- 

 speare's plays, though there is little doubt he represented 

 the hero in dramas founded upon some of the same stories 

 or events." Bowman, the actor, related to William Oldys 

 a similar visitation during the reign of Charles II. which 

 occurred at the theatre in Dorset Gardens, where, in a 

 dance of Devils, one too many appeared. " Some comical 

 fellow among the comedians, having got into such a hor- 

 rid dress, as made him a much more infernal figure than 

 the rest, and so unexpectedly started up among them, 

 that they took him for the Devil indeed, were struck with 

 a kind of panic, which soon infected the audience, and 

 dispersed it in consternation. And after the like manner 

 (continues Oldys), may all the other apparitions of the 

 Devil on the stage be probably accounted for."] 



Freemasonry. — To what journal does De Quin- 

 cey refer in the following passage?- — 



" . . . . the whole bubble of freemasonry was shattered 

 in a paper which I myself threw into a London Journal 

 about the year 1823 or 1824. It was a paper in this 

 sense mine, that from me it had received form and ar- 

 rangement, but the materials belonged to a learned Ger- 

 man, von Buhle ; the same that edited the Bipont Aristotle 

 and wrote a history of Philosophy. No German has any 

 conception of style. I, therefore, did him the favour to 

 wash his dirty face, and make him presentable among 

 Christians, but the substance was drawn entirely from 

 this German book. It was there established that the 

 whole hoax of masonry had been invented in the year 

 1629, by one Andrea ; and the reason that my exposure 

 could have dropped out of remembrance is probably that 

 it never reached the public ear, partly because the journal 

 had a limited circulation, but much more because the 

 title of the paper was not so constructed as to indicate its 

 object, or to throw out any promises of gratification to 

 malice." — Studies of Secret Records, by Thomas d© Quin- 

 cey, 1858, p. 267. 



Has Buhle's work ever been translated ? or is 

 there any other notice of it in English besides 

 De Quincey's ? E. C. 



[De Quincey's paper, signed X. Y. Z., is entitled " His- 

 torico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin of the Rosicrucians 

 and the Free-Masons," and was published in The London 

 Magazine of Jan., Feb., March, and June, 1824, vol. ix. 



