4.PRIL 16. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



383 



merit is commemorated in the Rev. John Dun- 

 <jombe's poem of the Feminead. A. Z. 



[The scene, a gentleman's country house. The 

 ■dramatis personcB : Dycarbas, the unhappy father ; Ly- 

 ■eander and Polonius, sons of Dycarbas, in love with 

 Terentia ; Eustathius, nephew of Dycarbas, and hus- 

 band of Emilia ; Leonardo, cousin of Eustathius ; 

 Paulus, servant of Dycarbas ; Plynus, servant to Eus- 

 tathius ; Timnus, servant to Polonius ; Emilia, daugh- 

 ter of Dycarbas; Terentia, a young lady under the 

 .;guardianship of Dycarbas j Claudia, servant to Te- 

 ^rentia.] 



Meaning of " The Litten" or '' Litton" — This 

 name is given to a small piece of land, now pasture, 

 inclosed within the moat of the ancient manor of 

 Marwell, formerly Merewelle, in Hants, once the 

 property of the see of Winchester. It does not 

 appear to have been ever covered by buildings. 

 What is the meaning or derivation of the term ? 

 Does the name exist in any other place, as applied 

 to a piece of land situated as the above-described 

 piece ? I have spelt it as pronounced by the 

 bailiflf of the farm. W. H. G. 



Winchester. 



[Junius and Ray derive it from the Anglo-Saxon 

 lictun, ccemiterium, a burying-place. Our correspond- 

 ent, however, will find its etymology discussed in the 

 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixxviii. pp. 216. 303. and 

 .319.] 



St. James' Market House. — In a biography of 

 Hichard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, about 

 1671 : 



" Mr. Baxter came up to London, and was one of 

 ;the Tuesday lecturers at Pinner's Hall, and a Friday 

 lecturer at Fetter Lane ; but on Sundays he for some 

 time preached only occasionally, and afterwards more 

 •statedly in St. James's Market House." 



Where was the Market House situate ? P. T. 



[Cunningham, in his Handbook of London, under the 

 iiead of St. James' Market, Jermyn Street, St. James', 

 tells us that " here, in a room over the Market House, 

 preached Richard Baxter, the celebrated Noncon- 

 formist. On the occasion of his first Sermon, the 

 main beam of the building cracked beneath the weight 

 of the congregation." We recollect the old market 

 ■*nd Market House, which must have stood on the 

 ground now occupied by Waterloo Place,] 



GRUB STREET JOtJRNAI,. 



(Vol. vii., pp. 108. 268.) 

 Reginensis has been referred by F. R. A. to 

 Drake's Essays for an account of this journal. 

 Drake's account is, however, very incorrect. The 

 <jfrub Street Journal did not terminate, as he states, 

 on the 24th August, 1732, but was continued in 

 the original folio size to the 29 th Dec, 1737 ; the 



last No. being 418., instead of 138., as he incor- 

 rectly gives it. He appears to have supposed 

 that the r2mo. abridgment in two volumes con- 

 tained all the essays in the paper ; whereas it did 

 not comprise more than a third of them. He 

 mentions as the principal writers Dr. Richard 

 Russel and Dr. John Martyn. Budgell, however, 

 in The Bee (February, 1733) says, "The person 

 thought to be at the head of the paper is Mr. R — 1 

 (Russel), anonjuring clergyman, Mr.P — e(Pope), 

 and some other gentlemen." Whether Pope wrote 

 in it or not, it seems to have been used as a vehicle 

 by his friends for their attacks upon his foes, and 

 the war against the Dunces is carried on with great 

 wit and spirit in its pages. It is by far the most 

 entertaining of the old newspapers, and throws no 

 small light upon the literary history of the time. 

 I have a complete series of the joui-nal in folio, as 

 well as of the continuation, in a large 4to. form, 

 under the title of The Literary Courier of Gitib 

 Street, which commenced January 5, 1738, and 

 appears to have terminated at the 30th No., on the 

 27th July, 1738. I never saw another complete 

 copy. The Grub Street Journal would afford mate- 

 rials for many curious and amusing extracts. One 

 very entertaining part of it is the " Domestic 

 News," under which head it gives the various and 

 often contradictory accounts of the daily news- 

 papers, with a most humorous running com- 

 mentary. James Crosslet. 



STONE PILLAR WORSHIP. 



(Vol. v., p. 122.) 



Sir James Emerson Tennent, in his learned 

 and curious Note on stone worship in Ireland, 

 desires information as to the present existence of 

 worship of stone pillars in Orkney. When he 

 says it continued till a late period, I suppose he 

 must allude to the standing stone at Stenness, 

 perforated by a hole, with the sanctity attached 

 to promises confirmed by the junction of hands 

 through the hole, called the promise of Odin. 

 Dr. Daniel Wilson enters into this fully in Prte- 

 historic Annals of Scotland, pp. 99, 100, 101. It 

 has been told myself that if a lad and lass pro- 

 mised marriage with joined hands through the 

 hole, the promise was held to be binding. Whence 

 the sanctity attached to such a promise I could 

 not ascertain to be known, and I did not hear of 

 any other superstition connected with this stone, 

 which was destroyed in 1814. In the remote 

 island of North Ronaldshay is another standing 

 stone, perforated by a hole, but there is no super- 

 stition of this nature attached to it. At the Yule 

 time the inhabitants danced about it, and whea 

 there were yule dancings in neighbouring houses, 

 they began the dancing at the stone, and danced 

 from the stone all the road to what was called to 



