196 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 227. 



Brewster — and I have ever since believed that 

 such materials did exist. 



We are assured by Mr. Edmund Turnor, in the 

 preface to his History of Grantham, printed in 

 1806, which work is quoted in the prospectus, 

 that the manuscripts at Hurstbourne Park then 

 chiefly consisted of some pocket-books and memo- 

 randums of sir Isaac Newton, and " the information 

 obtained by Mr. Conduitt for the purpose of 

 writing his life." Moreover, the collections of 

 Mr. Conduitt are repeatedly quoted in that work 

 as distinct from the memoirs which were sent to 

 M. de Fontenelle. 



I shall give another anecdote in refutation of 

 the statement made in the prospectus, albeit a 

 superfluity. In 1730 the author of The Seasons 

 republished his Poem to the memory of sir Isaac 

 Newton, with the addition of the lines which fol- 

 low, and which prove that he was aware of the 

 task on which Mr. Conduitt was then occupied. 

 The lines, it should be observed, have been omit- 

 ted in all the editions printed since 1738. 



" This, Conduitt, from thy rural hours we hope; 

 As through the pleasing shade, where nature pours 

 Her every sweet, in studious ease you walk ; 

 The social passions smiling at thy heart, 

 That glows with all the recollected sage." 



The pleasing shade indicates the grounds of 

 Cranbury-lodge, in Hampshire, the seat of Mr. 

 Conduitt — whose guest the poet seems previously 

 to have been. 



Some inedited particulars of the life of Mr. 

 Conduitt, drawn from various sources, I reserve 

 for another occasion. Bolton Coknet. 



&Hmt fiatti. 



The Music in Middleton's Tragi- Comedy of the 

 "Witch" — Joseph Ritson, in a letter addressed 

 to J. C. Walker (July, 1797), printed in Picker- 

 ing's edition of Ritson' s Letters (vol. ii. p. 156.) 

 has the following passage : — 



" It may be to your purpose, at the same time, to 

 know that the songs in Middleton's Witch, which ap- 

 pear also to have been introduced in Macbeth, begin- 

 ning, ' Hecate, Hecate, come away,' and ' Black spirits 

 and white,' have (as I am informed) been lately dis- 

 covered in MS. with the complete harmony, as per- 

 formed at the original representation of these plays. 

 You will find the words in a note to the late editions 

 of Shakspeare ; and I shall, probably, one of these 

 days, obtain a sight of the musick." 



The MS. here mentioned was in the collection 

 of the late Mr. J. Stafford Smith, one of the 

 Organists of the Chapel Royal. At the sale of 

 this gentleman's valuable library it passed, with 

 many other treasures of a similar nature, into my 

 possession, where it now remains. 



Edward F. Rimbaujlt. 



Mr. Macaulay and Sir Archibald Alison in error. 

 — Plow was it that Mr. Macaulay, in two editions- 

 of his History, placed the execution of Lord Rus- 

 sell on Tower Hill ? Did it not take place in 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields ? And why does Sir A. Ali- 

 son, in the volume of his History just published, 

 speak of the children of Catherine of Arragon ? 

 and likewise inform us that Locke was expelled 

 from Cambridge ? Was he not expelled from the 

 University of Oxford ? Abhba. 



"Paid down upon the nail." — The origin of this 

 phrase is thus stated in the Recollections of 

 O'Keefe the dramatist : 



" An ample piazza under the Exchange [in Lime- 

 rick] was a thoroughfare : in the centre stood a pillar 

 about four feet high, and upon it a circular plate of 

 copper about three feet in diameter : this was called 

 the nail, and on it was paid the earnest for any com- 

 mercial bargains made ; which was the origin of the 

 saying, ' Paid down upon the nail.' " 

 But perhaps the custom, of which Mr. O'Keefe 

 speaks, was common to other ancient towns ? 



Abhba. 



Corpidence a Crime. — Mr. Bruce has written, 

 in his Classic and Historic Portraits, that the 

 ancient Spartan paid as much attention to the 

 rearing of men as the cattle dealers in modern 

 England do to the breeding of cattle. They took 

 charge of firmness and looseness of men's flesh ; 

 and regulated the degree of fatness to which it 

 was lawful, in a free state, for any citizen to ex- 

 tend his body. Those who dared to grow too fat, 

 or too soft for military exercise and the service of 

 Sparta, were soundly whipped. In one particular 

 instance, that of Nauclis, the son of Polytus, the 

 offender was brought before the Ephori, and a 

 meeting of the whole people of Sparta, at which 

 his unlawful fatness was publicly exposed ; and 

 he was threatened with perpetual banishment if 

 he did not bring his body within the regular 

 Spartan compass, and give up his culpable mode 

 of living ; which was declared to be more worthy 

 of an Ionian than a son of Lacedajmon. W. W. 



Curious Tender. — 



" If any young clergyman, somewhat agreeable in 

 person, and who has a small fortune independent, can 

 be well recommended as to strictness of morals and 

 good temper, firmly attached to the present happy 

 establishment, and is willing to engage in the matri- 

 monial estate with an agreeable young lady in whose 

 power it is immediately to bestow a living of nearly 

 1007. per annum, in a very pleasant situation, with a 

 good prospect of preferment, — any person whom this 

 may suit may leave a line at the bar of the Union 

 Coffee House in the Strand, directed to Z. Z., within 

 three days of this advertisement. The utmost secrecy 

 and honour may be depended upon." — London Chro- 

 nicle, March, 1758. 



E. H. A. 



