NOTES AND QUEEIES: 



A MEDIUM OF , INTER-COMMUNICATION 

 LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTiaUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. 



•• "Vnien found, make a note of." — Caftaik Cuttle. 



No. 174.] 



Saturday, February 26. 1853. 



f Price Fourpence. 



i Stamped Edition, 5<f. 



CONTENTS, 



Notes : — Page 



Mary Stuart's Chair, by Cuthbert Bede, B.A. - 4 197 



Inedited Letter of Warren Hastings - - - )98 



Mediaeval Emblems of the Passion, by Norris Deck - 199 



Bookselling in Calcutta - - - - - 199 



Foi-K Lore :— Subterranean Bells— Old Weather Pro- 

 verb — Primrosen — Harvest Home Song - - 200 

 Inedited Poem on Chaucer - - - - - 201 



Minor Noxns : — " Le Balafre" — Macpherson's " Ossian" 

 — Epitaph from Tichfield — "A horse! ahorse! my 

 kingdom for a horse ! " — Weight of American Revolu- 

 tionary Officers — The Patronymic "Mac" — Erro- 

 neous Forms of Speech— Hexameters from Udimore 

 Register— Dr. Johnson — Borrowed Thoughts — Sug- 

 gested Reprints - - - - - - 201 



Queries : — 



Rigby Correspondence ----- 203 



Heraldic Queries - - - - - - 203 



On a Passage in Acts xv. 23., by J. Sansom - - 204 



Minor Queries : — Belatucadrus — Surname of Allan — 

 Arms of Owen Glendower — Tenent and Tenet — "I 



hear a lion," &c " The Exercist Day " at Leicester — 



Ecclus. xlvi. 20. — Etymology of Burrow — Alexander 

 Adamson — Psalmanazar — Coleridge's " Christabel " 



Beaten to a Mummy — Hanover Rats — Pallant — 



Curious Fact in Natural Philosophy — Drying up of 

 the Red Sea— Joan d'Arc-Diary of Thomas Earl, &c. 205 



Minor Queries with Answers : — Game of the Whet- 

 stone— Meids—Haughmond Abbey, Salop — " As flies 

 to wanton boys"— Quotation wanted — Thomas Stan- 

 ley, Bishop of Man 208 



Replies : — 



Old Satchels - - - - - - 209 



Statue of St. Peter - - - - - - 210 



Lord Clarendon and the Tubwoman - - - 211 



Discovery of Planets, by Henry Walter - - - 211 



Story of Genoveva - - . - - -212 



Ancient Dutch Allegorical Picture, by Dr. J. H. Todd - 213 

 The " Percy Anecdotes," by John Timbs - - 214 



Ladv Nev ll"'s Music-book : Mode of reading the ancient 



Virginal Music, by Dr. E. F. Rimbault - .214 



Scarfs worn by Clergymen, by Rev. John Jebb - - 215 



Unanswered Queries regarding Shakspeare, by J. Payne 



Collier 216 



The Passamezzo Galliard, by Dr. E. F. Rimbault - 216 

 Photographic Notes and Queries:— The Albumen 

 Process — Queries on Mr. Weld Taylor's Process — 

 Difficulties in the Wax-paper Process — Mr. Archer's 

 Services to Photography— Mr. Weld Taylor's Iodizing 

 Process — Sir J. Newton's Process - - - 217 



Replies to Minor Queries: — a Race for Canterbury 

 — "The Birch: a Poem " — Curtseys and Bows — 

 — Deodorising Peat — Jacobite Toasts — Consecrators 

 of English Bishops — Chatham's Language, &c. - 219 



Miscellaneous : — 



Notes on Books, &c. ----- 224 



Books and Odd Volumes wanted - - - - 224 



Notices to Correspondents - - - . 224 



Advertisements - - - . - - 225 



V0L.VII. — No. 174. 



MARY STUABt's CHAIR. 



On the south side of the chancel of Conington 

 Church, Hunts., stands a handsome, massive, and 

 elaborately-carved oaken chair, which has been 

 traditionally known as the very seat from which 

 the unfortunate Mary Stuart rose to submit her 

 neck to the executioner. The chair was probably 

 brought from Fotheringay, and placed in Coning- 

 ton Church as a sacred relic, by Sir Robt. Cotton, 

 who built Conington Castle partly with the mate- 

 rials of Fotheringay, and who (according to Gough, 

 in his additions to Camden's Britannia, vol. ii., 

 "IcENi," ed. 1789) "brought from there tJie lohole 

 room where Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded." 

 By this, perhaps, is meant, the deeply-recessed 

 arcade that now forms the two exterior sides of 

 the ground-floor of Conington Castle ; which 

 arcade, doubtless, was on the interior walls of 

 Fotheringay, the windows being above it : the 

 principal window being supposed to be that which 

 now forms the staircase window of the Talbot Inn, 

 Oundle. Modern windows have been placed within 

 the eleven divisions of the arcade at Conington 

 Castle. 



In speaking of Conington Church, Gough says 

 (see Additions to Camden) that " Lord Coleraine 

 saw a chair of an Abbot of Peterborough in this 

 church, 1743," which must have been the chair 

 now under notice. The nature of its decorations 

 shows it to have been a chair used for religious 

 purposes ; and the six principal figures that adorn 

 it, are made to face at right angles with the chair ; 

 so that when it was placed on the south side of 

 the altar, the faces of the figures would be turned 

 towards the east. 



A full description of the chair may not be with- 

 out its interest to the readers of " N. & Q.," since 

 (as far as I am aware) it has never yet received 

 more than a passing notice from the historian ; 

 and if it indeed be a relic of Mary Stuart — as 

 there seems good reason to believe — it deserves 

 more attention (in these days of minute detail) 

 than it has hitherto obtained. 



The top of the chair is battlemented, and flanked 

 by the two side-pieces which terminate in jiediments 

 supporting figures. Both figures are seated on 



