12 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 192. 



to Maginn, must have been the work of other 

 authors, a circumstance which I had been already 

 led to suspect from the frequent local allusions to 

 Scotland in general, and to Edinburgh in par- 

 ticular, which could have scarcely proceeded from 

 the pen of a native of Cork, who had then never 

 visited Scotland. Since Dr. Moir's own death, it 

 appears that the Eve of St. Jerry, and the Rhyme 

 of the Auncient Waggonere, have been claimed for 

 iim, as well as some other similar pieces ; and I 

 believe that the series of JBoxiana, which also ap- 

 peared under the name of the renowned ensign 

 and adjutant, was written by Professor Wilson. 

 Maginn's contributions were at first under various 

 •signatures, and some time elapsed before he made 

 use of the' nom de guerre of Morgan Odoherty, 

 which eventually became so identified with him. 



J. S. Warden. 

 Paternoster Row. 



(Vol. vii., p. 578.) 



I am sorry to intrude upon your valuable space 

 again in reference to this little word, but the in- 

 quiry of Mr. Rye (p. 578.), and other reasons, 

 render it desirable. The truth is that Mr. 

 Keightlet, Mr. Rye, and myself, are more or 

 less mistaken. 1. Mr. Keighteey, in his quo- 

 tation from Fairfax's Tasso (Mr. Singer's ac- 

 curate reprint, 1817), has his in both lines. 2. Mr. 

 Rye, in understanding me to refer to any trans- 

 lation proper ; unless Sternhold and Hopkins are 

 to be considered as having produced one. 3. My- 

 self, in supposing the old metrical version in the 

 Book of Common Prayer originally had the word 

 its. I copied from the Oxford edition In fol. of 

 1770; but a 4to. edition, " printed by lohn Daye, 

 dwelling over Aldersgate, anno 1574," does not 

 exhibit the word in the places specified ; we have 

 instead her in both places. 



Hitherto, then, the oldest examples of the use 

 of this word have been adduced from Shakspeare. 

 These are to be found in the first folio, but are in 

 each case printed with the apostrophe after the 

 t^ — it's. Tliis method of writing the word, how- 

 ever, soon disappeared, for in a treatise of Pemble's, 

 printed 1635 (the author died in 1623), it appears 

 as we write it now : 



" If faith alone by its own virtue and force." — Works, 

 fol. p. 171. 



I have not observed the fact remarked, that be- 

 sides the use of his, her, hereof, thereof, of it, and 

 the, it was customary to employ the unchanged 

 word it for the possessive case. I will give an 

 example or two. In the Genevan version, at 

 Rom. viii. 20., we read " Not of it owne wille." 

 This passage is thus quoted in 1611 and in 1622, 

 but in a later edition of the same work, 1656, its 



is substituted for it. I have a note of one other 

 instance from Perkins on Rev. ii. 28. (ed. 1606) : 

 " For as the sunne in the spring time quickeneth 

 by it warme beames." 



In conclusion, may I request that if any genuine 

 instance of the use of this word its, is observed by 

 any of your many contributors, they will commu- 

 nicate the fact to you ? At present we can only 

 go back to Shakspeare, in his Winter''s Tale and 

 Henry VIII. B. H. C. 



FAMILY OF MILTON S WIDOW. 



(Vol. vii., p. 596.) 



As your correspondent Cranmore has long been 

 a deserter from the ranks of " N. & Q.," I may 

 perhaps, without presumption, for once " stand in 

 his shoes," and reply to the challenge addressed to 

 him by V. M. 



Much obscurity has all along prevailed among 

 the many biographers of Milton, in reference to 

 the family of Elizabeth MinshuU, his third wife, 

 and eventually, for more than fifty years, his 

 widow. Philips, Warton, Todd, and numerous 

 others, state her to have been " the daughter of 

 Mr. Minshull, of Cheshire," — a very vague asser- 

 tion when we consider that there were at least 

 three or four different families of that name then 

 existing in the county. Pennant, who delighted 

 in particularities, sometimes even at the expense 

 of historical fact, tells us, for the first time, in 1782, 

 that she was the daughter of Mr. (or Sir) Edward 

 Minshull, of Stoke, near Nantwich, and that she 

 died at the latter town in March, 1726, at an ad- 

 vanced age. Mr. Ormerod, again, whose splendid 

 History of Cheshire will be the standard authority 

 of the county for ages after he himself is carried 

 to his fathers, has unfortunately adopted the same 

 conclusion, and so given a colour, as it were, to 

 this erroneous statement of our Cambrian anti- 

 quary. The Rev. Benjamin Mardon's paper, 

 printed in the Journal of the British Archaological 

 Association for 1849, is another and more recent 

 instance of the way in which such errors as this 

 may become perpetuated. Another Avriter (Palmer) 

 conjectures her to have been the daughter of Min- 

 shull of Manchester; but this also has been proved 

 to be entirely destitute of foundation. 



The truth of the matter is (and I am indebted 

 to Mr. Fitchett Marsh's clear and succinct disser- 

 tation in the Miscellany of the Chetham Society 

 for the Information), the poet's widow was 

 daughter of Mr. Randle Minshull, of Wistaston, 

 in the county of Chester, whose great-great- 

 grandfather, a younger son of Minshull of Min- 

 shull, settled on a small estate there In the reign 

 of Queen Elizabeth, and so founded the house ot 

 Minshull of Wistaston. Milton was introduced 

 to his Cheshire wife by his friend Dr. Paget ; and 



