Aug. 6. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



129 



not confined to Surrey. It is said to have been 

 introduced into England by Sir Kenelm Digby, 

 and was considered very nutritious and wholesome 

 for consumptive patients. About the end of the 

 last century I was in the habit of collecting a few 

 of the common garden snails from the fruit-trees, 

 and taking them every morning to a lady who was 

 in a delicate state of health ; she took them boiled 

 or stewed, or cooked in some manner with milk, 

 making a mucilaginous drink. E. H. 



I have somewhere read of the introduction of a 

 foreign bi'eed of snails into Cambridgeshire, I 

 forget the exact locality, for the table of the 

 monks who imported them ; but unfortunately it 

 was before I commenced making " notes " on the 

 subject, and I have not been able to recollect 

 where to find it. Seleucus. 



park 



INSCRIPTION NEAR CIRENCESTER. 



(Vol. viii., p. 76.) 



This inscription is not " in Earl Bathurst's 

 c," as your correspondent A. Smith says, but 

 13 in Oakley Woods, situated at some three or four 

 miles' distance from Cirencester, and being sepa- 

 rated and quite distinct from the park ; nor is the 

 inscrIj)tion correctly copied, lludder, in his new 

 History of Gloucestershire, 1779, says: 



" Concealed as it were in the ■wood stands Alfred's 

 Hall, a building that has the semblance of great an- 

 tiquity. Over the door opposite to the south entrance, 

 on the inside, is the following inscription in the Saxon 

 cliaracter and language [of which tliere follows a 

 copy]. Over the south door is the following Latin 

 translation : 



" * Foedus quod iElfredus & Gythrunus reges, 

 omncs Anylia sapientes, §• quicunq ; Angliam incolebant 

 orientalem, ferierunt ; & non solum de seipsis, verum 

 etiam de nati's suis, ac nondum in lucem editis, quot- 

 quot misericordia; divinEe aiit regi« veh'nt esse parti- 

 cipes jurejurando sanxerunt. 



'"Primo ditionis nostras fines ad T/iamesin eve- 

 huntiir, inde ad Learn usq; ad fontem ejus ; twm recta 

 ad Bedfordiam, °ac deniq; per Usara ad viam Vete- 

 lin^ianam.' " 



I copy from Rudder, with the stops and con- 

 tracted " et's," as they stand in his work ; though 

 I think the original has points between each word, 

 as marked by A. Smith. 



The omissions and mistakes of your correspon- 

 dent (which you will perceive are important) are 

 mai'ked in Italics above. 



lludder adds, — 



" Behind this building is a ruin with a stone on the 

 chimney-piece, on which, in ancient characters relieved 

 on the stone, is tliis inscription : 



*IN . MEM . ALFREDI . REG . RESTAVR . ANO . DO . 1085.' 



" It would have been inexcusable in the topographer 

 to have passed by so curious a place without notice ; 

 but the historian would have been equally culpable 



who should not have informed the reader that this 

 building is an excellent imitation of antiquity. The 

 name, the inscription, and the writing over the doors, 

 of the convention between the good king and his pagan 

 enemies, were probably all suggested by the similarity 

 o? Achelie, the ancient name of tliis place, io JEcglea, 

 where King .Alfred rested with his army the night 

 before he attacked the Danish camp at Ethandun, 

 and at length forced their leader Godrum, or Guthrum, 

 or Gormund, to make such convention." 



It Is many years since I saw the inscription, and 

 then I made no note of it ; but I have no doubt 

 that lludder has given it correctly, because when 

 I was a young man I was intimately acquainted 

 with him, who was then an aged person ; and a 

 curious circumstance that occurred between us, 

 and is still full In my memory. Impressed me with 

 the Idea of his great precision and exactness. 



I would remark on the explanation given by 

 Rudder, that the Iglea of Asser is supposed by 

 Camden, Gibson, Gough, and Sir Richard Colt 

 Hoare to be Clayhill, eastward of Warminster ; 

 and Ethandun to be Ellington, about three miles 

 eastward of Westbury, both in Wilts. 



Asser says that, " in the same year," the year of 

 the battle, " the army of the pagans, departing 

 from Chippenham, as had been promised, went to 

 Cirencester, where they remained one year." 



On the signal defeat of Guthrum, he gave hos- 

 tages to Alfred ; and it Is probable that, If any 

 treaty was made between them, it was made im- 

 mediately after the battle ; and not that Alfred 

 came from his fortress of JEthelingay to meet 

 Guthrum at Cirencester, where his army lay after 

 leaving Chippenham. 



If the treaty was made soon after the battle, it 

 might have been at Alfred's Hall near Cirences- 

 ter, especially if Hampton (Minchlnhampton in 

 Gloucestershire), which is only six miles from 

 Oakley Wood, be the real site of the great and 

 Important battle, as was, a few years since, very 

 plausibly argued by Mr. John Marks Moflatt, in a 

 paper inserted, with the signature " J. M. M.," in 

 Bray ley's Graphic and Historical Illustrator, p. 105. 

 et seq., 1834. 



The mention of Rudder's History brings to my 

 mind an inscription over the door of Westbury 

 Court, which I noticed when a boy at school, in 

 the village of Westbury In this county. This man- 

 sion was taken down during the minority of May- 

 nard Colchester, Esq., the present owner of the 

 estate. Rudder, in his account of that parish, has 

 preserved the inscription — 



N. M. M. H. E. p. N. C. 



He reads the first three letters "Deo Optimo 

 Maximo," and says the subsequent line contains 

 the initials of the following hexameter : 



" Nunc mea, mox hujus, et postea nescio cujus," 



