May 12. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



375 



a chalice and patten, broken and much injured 

 by the gravedigger's spade, but still retaining a 

 chaste and beautiful proportion. The metal was 

 some kind of pewter, but quite flexible and cor- 

 roded. I hope some archseological artist may be 

 able to preserve a sketch of it. Simon Ward. 



Duration of a Visit (Vol. xi., p. 121.). — The 

 same thought is expressed in the following lines, 

 quoted by Tabourot in his Bigarriires et Touches 

 du Seigneur Des Accords, and described by him, 

 with his usual tone of badinage, as an inscription 

 over the mantelpiece of an "honourable" mo- 

 nastery : 



" Post triduum mulier fastidit, et hospes et imber ; 

 Quod si plus maneat, quatriduanus eat." 



Henry H. Beeen. 



St. Lucia. 



Bonny Clabber (Vol. v., p. 318.). — The fol- 

 lowing reference to this drink may be recorded in 

 "N. &Q.:" 



" I remember Erpenius, in his notes upon Locman's 

 Fables (whom I take to be the same person with ^sop), 

 gives us an admirable receipt for making the Sowre Milk, 

 that is, the bonny clabber of the Arabians." — King's Art 

 of Cookery, Int. Letter, p. 14. 



M. N. S. 



Plat/ Ticket by Hogarth (Vol. xi., p. 303.). — 

 Joe Miller's benefit took place on April 25, 1717. 

 In the Family Joe Miller, Lond. 1848, is a fac- 

 simile of the ticket, which, by the bye, is said to 

 have given rise to the expression "That's the 

 ticket." Thompson Cooper. 



Cambridge. 



Serpent Worship (Vol. viii., p. 39.). — In the 

 books quoted by Eirionnach, he does not men- 

 tion the following work, a copy of which has just 

 come into my possession : 



« The Ophion ; or, the Theology of the Serpent and the 

 Unity of God. Comprehending the Customs of the most 

 ancient People, who were instructed to apply the sagacity 

 of the Serpent to the Fall of Man. With critical Remarks 

 on Dr. Adam Clarke's Annotations on that Subject in the 

 Book of Genesis. ' In this work it is shown, from the 

 original language, that, in every age of the Jewish and 

 Christian Churches, a monkey was never understood to be 

 the agent employed to bring about the Fall of Man.' By 

 John Bellamy, author of 'Biblical Criticisms,' in the 

 •Classical, Biblical, and Oriental Journal.' Hatchard, 

 London, 1811." 



CUTHBERT BeDE, B.A. 



Bells heard by the Drowned (Vol. xi., p. 65.). — 

 I met an old man some twenty years ago who 

 described the sensations he felt at drowning, and 

 ■was with difficulty restored. He had the ringing 

 of bells in his ears, which increased as conscious- 

 ness was becoming less, and he felt as if " all the 

 bells of Heaven were ringing him into Paradise ! " 

 — " the most soothing sensation." I know the lo- 

 cality where the circumstance occurred, and there 



is no bell within a circuit of more than six miles, 

 but one old cracked church bell. Simon Ward, 



Petrified Wheat (Vol. xi., p. 283.). — Under 

 this suspicious title we have a little bundle of 

 queries, including the names of persons and 

 places, with some of which I am not ashamed to 

 confess my non-familiarity ; but to the alleged 

 fact, the discovery of petrified wheat, — In what 

 form was it ? In the ear, or in the grain ? If the 

 former, it was no doubt similar to those vegetable 

 spilles which are common in the carboniferous 

 shales of all countries ; if the latter, the likelihood 

 of mistake is still greater. How often have we 

 seen certain forms of the sulphate of barytes ex- 

 hibited as petrified oats ! Once more, what geo- 

 logist has seen and certified the reality of this so- 

 called " petrified wheat ? " Has any specimen of 

 the fossil reached this country? The sight of 

 such a rarity would, I suspect, startle a geologist, 

 and prompt even more recondite queries than 

 those propounded by W. W. It is an amusing 

 coincidence, that almost at the same moment that 

 botanists are discussing the probable identity of 

 our common wheat with a well-known grass, a 

 traveller is said to have discovered the grain in a 

 condition indicative of immeasurable antiquity. 

 With one of these " evidences " in each hand, a 

 statue of Ceres would present at least a new sym- 

 bolical significance. Let any query relative to 

 the bearing of a discovery of petrified wheat on 

 ancient tradition rest on the recognised existence 

 of such fossil in some accredited geological work. 



D. 



Aisnesce (Vol. xi., p. 325.). — In reply to your 

 correspondent Karl's inquiry, I have to inform 

 him that the word above named, or, as it is termed, 

 " einecia," or " esnecy," is derived from the French 

 " aisne," signifying " eldership," and it means 

 simply " a private prerogative allowed to the 

 eldest coparcener, where an estate is descended to 

 daughters for want of heir male, to chuse first 

 after the Inheritance is divided." 



Jus esnecice is Jus primo-geniturce ; and the 

 word occurs in the Statute of Ireland made at 

 Westminster on 9th February, 1229, and 14th 

 year of Henry III.'s reign ; the title of which is 

 as follows : " Hoav lands holden by Knight service 

 descending to coparceners within age shall be 

 divided." It is now obsolete, and the original, I 

 believe, is among the Cotton MSS. 



I have since searched some old dictionaries, 

 from which I find that " Aisnesse " is an old 

 French law term, and signifies "the inheritance 

 of the first-born." So says Boyer. In Bailey's 

 English Dictionary, ed. 1721, 1 find that the word 

 is thus defined : 



"Esnecy [Aisnesse, Fr.], the right of choosing first in 

 a divided inheritance which belongs to the eldest co- 

 partner." 



