2nd s. No 114., Mar. 6. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



193 



the metropolis, viz. at Bankside, Southwark ; Hockley- 

 in-the-Hole, Clerkenwell; and Mary-le-Bone Gardens. 

 Hence we find Mrs. Peachum in the Beggar's Opera thus 

 addressing Filch : " You should go to Hockley-in-the- 

 Hole and to Marybone, child, to learn valour." Pepys 

 appears to have been mightily pleased with these demo- 

 ralising exhibitions. " April 12, 1669. By water to the 

 Bear-Garden. Here we saw a prize fight between a 

 soldier and a country fellow^ one Warrell, who promised 

 the least in his looks, and performed the most of valour 

 in his boldness and evenness of mind, and smiles in all he 

 did, that ever I saw ; and we were all both deceived and 

 infinitely taken with him. He did soundly beat the sol- 

 dier, and cut him over the head. Thence back to White- 

 Hall, mightily pleased with this sight, and particularly 

 with this fellow, as a most extraordinary man for his 

 temper and evenness in fighting. Home, and after sitting 

 a while, thrumbing upon my viall, and singing, I to bed, 

 and left my wife to do something to a waistcoat and pet- 

 ticoat she is to wear tomorrow." See also his Diary, 

 May 27, and Sept. 9, 1667. " These exhibitions," says 

 Strutt, "were outrageous to humanity, and only fitted 

 for the amusement of ferocious minds; it is therefore 

 astonishing that they should have been frequented by 

 females ; for, who could imagine that the slicing of the 

 flesh from a man's cheek, the scarifying of his arms, or 

 laying the calves of his legs upon his heels, were spec- 

 tacles calculated to delight the fair sex, or sufficiently at- 

 tractive to command their presence." The manner of 

 performing a prize-combat, at the commencement of the 

 last century, is well described, and the practice justly re- 

 probated, in one of the papers of The Spectator (No. 436.) ; 

 but these exhibitions were not without trickery, as ap- 

 pears from another paper (No. 449.) in the same volume.] 



Cocks of Dumhleton, Gloucester. — Sir Richard 

 Cocks, Bart., was living in the year 1720. Infor- 

 mation is required of the year of bis death, and 

 when the baronetcy became extinct. J. J. 



LSir Richard Cocks, the second baronet, died in Octo- 

 ber, 1726 ; his successor in the title, the Rev. Sir Robert 

 Cocks, died Feb. 9, 1735-6 ; whose fourth son, Sir Robert 

 Cocks, dying without surviving issue on April 4, 1765, 

 •the baronetcy became extinct.] 



Monsieur Oufle, — Who is the author of the 

 following work? — 



" L'Histoire des Imaginations extravagantes de Mon- 

 sieur Oufle, caus^es par la lecture des Livres qui traitent 

 de la Magic, du Grimoire, des Demoniaques, &c. Am- 

 sterdam, 1710." 



It is a novel, written in imitation of Don 

 Quixote, and is profusely illustrated with en- 

 gravings. I believe it is extremely scarce. 



R. H. S. 



[This singular work is by Laurent Bordelon, a French 

 doctor in divinity, and dramatic author, born at Bourges 

 in 1653. He died at Paris in 1730, thus very truly 

 characterising his numerous works and himself: " I know 

 that I am a bad author, but, at all events, I am an honest 

 man." There is an English translation of this work, 

 entitled A History of the Religious Extravagancies of 

 Monsieur Oufle, &c. 8vo. 1711. See some account of the 

 author and his numerous works in JBiographie Univer' 

 selle; consult also « N. & Q.," 1'* S. ix. 57.] 



Battles in England.— In what book shall I find 

 an account of all the battles known to have been 



fought on English grounds, with description of the 

 localities ? W. D. C. 



[Haydn's Dictionary of Dates contains a list of the 

 principal memorable battles mentioned in British history. 

 Consult also The Calendar of Victory ; being a Record of 

 British Valour and Conquest by Sea and Land, com- 

 menced by Major Johns, and continued by Lieut. P. H. 

 Nicolas, 8vo. 1855 ; Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places, 

 Old Halls, Rattle- Fields, Sfc, 2 vols. 8vo., 1840-2 ; and 

 Mac Farlane's Great Battles of the British Army, 8vo., 

 1853. For a notice of the early English battles, see the 

 General Index toBohn's Six Old English Chronicles.'] 



Nibelungen Lied. — Can you inform me whether 

 the Nibelungen Lied has been published in Eng- 

 lish, and if so, by whom ? W. S. H. 



[A very spirited translation of the Nibelungen Lied, 

 by Mr. Lettsom, was published a few years since by 

 Messrs. Williams and Norgate.] 



SEBASTIAN CABOT. 

 (2°* S. V. 1. 154.) 



Mb. Petce has so misunderstood my communis 

 cation on the above subject, that I must correct 

 his mistake for the sake of your readers. The 

 " unpublished MS. of the Rev. Mr. Seyer" was a 

 manuscript note by himself, and not one of the 

 MS. Calendars to which Me. Pryce refers, and of 

 which his estimate, whether just or not, is there- 

 fore irrelevant. It does not appear from what 

 book Mr. Seyer had copied the marginal note of 

 R. Eden, but simply that it was " a work re- 

 specting Sebastian Cabot," which does not look 

 like a description of a MS. Calendar history of 

 Bristol. Be the book, however, what it might, 

 nothing turns upon this point, but simply on the 

 authenticity of a note signed R. Eden, who was, 

 or purported to be, a contemporary of Sebastian 

 Cabot, and who stated that Sebastian " told him 

 he was born in Bristow." I have no leisure to 

 hunt up R. Eden, but perhaps some member of 

 the Hakluyt Society may tell us who he was, or 

 something about him. 



Assuming that he was a real and reliable per- 

 sonage (and I have not the least suspicion to the 

 contrary) the question stands thus : While Sebas- 

 tian Cabot told Eden that he was born in Bristol, 

 he also (as we learn from Mr. E. Cheney's in- 

 teresting communication to the Philobiblon So- 

 ciety) told Gaspar Contarini, the Venetian Am- 

 bassador at the Court of Charles V., that he was 

 born at. Venice, and the inference is inevitable 

 that Sebastian Cabot was a liar. But which was 

 the false and which the true statement must be 

 solved by an analysis of motives. Being capable 

 of lying, in his statement to Contarini he had this 

 inducement to lie : he was a£ the time endeavour- 

 ing to prove to the Venetian his inclination to 



