500 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 186. 



St. PauTs Epistles to Seneca. — It has frequently 

 been affirmed that Seneca became, in the last 

 year of his life, a convert to Christianity — his 

 canonisation by St. Jerome is undoubted ; and 

 there was stated to be a MS. of the above epistle 

 in Merton College. May I ask any of your con- 

 tributors whether this MS. has ever been printed ? 



J. M. S. 



Hull. 



Meaning of '■'•folowed^ — Inside the cover of 

 an old Bible and Prayer-Book, bound in one 

 quarto, Robert Barker, 1611, is the following in- 

 scription : 



"July eight I was much folowed when I lay in bed 

 alone att Mistris Whitmore's house, wee haveing agreed 

 too bee married nextt daye. 



" God, even our own God, shal bless us. This in- 

 couriged mee too hope for God's favour and blessing 

 through Christ. 



" Christppher Curwen and Hannah Whitmore was 

 married att Lambe's Chapel, near Criplegate, July 

 ninth, 1712." 



An entry of his marriage with his first wife, 

 Elizabeth Sutton, 1704, is on the cover at the 

 beginning of the book. 



Can any one of your correspondents enlighten 

 me as to the meaning of the -word, folowed ? The 

 letters are legibly written, and there can be no 

 mistake about any of them. Is it an expression 

 derived from the Puritans ? H. C. K. 



Rectory, Hereford. 



Roman Catholic Registei's. — Can any of your 

 correspondents inform me where I can find the 

 registers of births, marriages, and burials of Roman 

 Catholic families living in Berks and Oxon in the 

 reigns of Charles I. and II. ? A. Pt. 



St. Alban's Day. — At p. 340. of the Chronicles 

 of London Bridge, it is stated that Cardinal Fisher 

 was executed on St. Alban's day, June 22, 1535. 

 How is it that in our present calendar St. Alban's 

 day is not June 22, but June 17 ? On looking 

 back I see Sir W. C. Tbevelyan, in your first 

 volume, inquired the reason of this change, but I 

 do not find any reply to his Query. E. H. A. 



Meigham, the London Printer. — J. A. S. is de- 

 sirous of obtaining information regarding a printer 

 in London, of the name of Meigham, about 1745-8, 

 or to be directed where to search for such. 

 Meigham conversed, or corresponded, about Ca- 

 tholicity with Dr. Hay, the then vicar-apostolic of 

 the Eastern District of Scotland. 



Adamsoniana. — Is anything known of the family 

 of Michel Adamson, or Michael Adamson, the 

 eminent naturalist and voyager to Senegal, who, 

 though born in France, is said to have been of 

 Scottish extraction ? 



Where is the following poem to be met with ? 



" Ode in Collegium Bengalense, preemio dignata 

 quod alumnis collegiorum Aberdonensium proposuit 

 vir reverendus C. Buchanan, Coll. Bengalensis Prse- 

 fectus Vicarius. Auctore Alexandro Adamson, A.M., 

 Coll. Marisch. Aberd. alumno." 



Allow me to repeat a Query which was inserted 

 in Vol. ii., p. 297., asking for any information re- 

 specting J. Adamson, the author of a rare tract on. 

 Edward II.'s reign, published in 1732, in defence 

 of the Walpole administration from the attacks of 

 the Craftsman. 



Who was John Adamson, author of Fanny of 

 Caernarvon, or the War of the Roses, an historical 

 romance, of which a French translation was pub' 

 lished in 1809 at Paris, in 2 vols. 12mo.? E. H. A. 



Canker or Brier Rose. — Can any of your cor- 

 respondents tell me why the brier or dog-rose 

 was anciently called the canker f The brier is 

 particularly free from the disease so called, and 

 the name does not appear to have been used in 

 disparagement. In Shakspeare's beautiful Son- 

 net LIV. are the lines : 



" The canker -blooms have full as deep a dye, 

 As the perfumed tincture of the roses." 



In Ki7ig Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 3., Hotspur says : 



" Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, 

 Or fill up chronicles in times to come. 

 That men of your nobility and power, 

 Did 'gage them both in an unjust behalf, 

 (As both of you, God pardon it ! have done) 

 To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose. 

 And plant this thorn, this canker Bolingbroke." 



And again, Don John, in Much Ado about 

 Nothing, Act I. Sc. 3. : 



" I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in 

 the grave." 



Anon. 



" Short red, god red." — In Roger of Wendover's 

 Chronicle, Bohn's edition, vol. i. p. 345., is a story 

 how Walchere, Bishop of Durham, was slain in 

 his county court, a.d. 1075, by the suitors on the 

 instigation of one who cried out in his native 

 tongue : " Schort red, god red, slea ye the bischop." 



Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather 

 (vol. i. p. 85.), tells the same story of a Bishop of 

 Caithness who was burned for enforcing tithes 

 in the reign of Alexander II. of Scotland (about 

 1220). 



What authoi'ity is there for the latter story ? 

 Did Sir Walter confound the two bishops, or did 

 he add the circumstance for the amusement of 

 Hugh Littlejohn ? Was this the formula usually 

 adopted on such occasions ? How came the Caith- 

 ness people to speak such good Saxon ? G. 



Overseers of Wills. — I have copies of several 

 wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in 



