348 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 233. 



suggest, winch -will greatly facilitate literary re- 

 searches. J- 



Life-belts. — Suppose that each person on board 

 the Tayleur had been supplied with a life-belt, how 

 many hundreds of lives would have been saved ? 

 And when it is considered that such belts can be 

 made for less than half-a-crown each, what reason 

 can there be that government should not require 

 them to be carried, at least in emigrant vessels, if 

 passengers are so ignorant and stupid as not 

 -voluntarily to provide them for themselves ? 



Thinks I to Myself. 



Turkey and Russia — The Eastern Question 

 (Vol. ix., p. 244.). — The past history of these 

 rival states presents more than one parallel pas- 

 sage like the following, extracted from Watkins's 

 Travels through Switzerland, Italy, the Greek 

 Islands, to Constantinople, SfC. (2nd edit., two vols. 

 8vo. 1794) : 



" The Turks have been, and indeed deserve to be, 

 praised for the manner in which they declared war 

 against the Russians. They sent by Mr. Bulgakoff, 

 her Imperial Majesty's minister ut the Porte, to 

 demand the restitution of the Crimea, which had been 



extorted from them by the merciless despot of R a, 



(sic) when too much distressed by a rebellion in 

 E^ypt to protect it. On his return without an answer 

 they put him in the Seven Towers, and commenced 

 hostilities. They hate the Russians ; and to show it 

 the more, frequently call a Frank Moscoff. To the 

 English they are more partial than to any other 

 Christian nation, from a tradition that Mahomet was 

 prevented by death from converting our ancestors to 

 .his faith."— Vol. ii. pp. 276-7. 



J. Macray. 



Oxford. 



"Verbatim et literatim.'''' — As this phrase often 

 finds insertion, even in the pages of " N. & Q.," it 

 may be well to call attention to the fact that there 

 is no such adverb as literatim in the Latin lan- 

 guage. There is the adverb literate, which means 

 after the manner of a literate man, learnedly ; but 

 to express the idea intended by the coined word 

 literatim, I think we must use the form ad literam — 

 " Verbatim et ad literam" L. H. J. Tonna. 



4&uzviz3. 



PRINTS OF LONDON BEFORE THE GREAT FIRE. 



In addition to the Tower, there was in Crom- 

 well's time the fortification of Baynard's Castle, near 

 Blackfriars, and the city gates were also fortifica- 

 tions on a small scale ; they were rebuilt (St. 

 John's, Clerkenwell, excepted, which was spared) 

 after the Great Fire, and were taken down some- 

 where about 1760. Can any of your readers tell 

 me whether there is any series of prints extant of 



the most remarkable buildings which were de- 

 stroyed by the fire ? There are some few maps, 

 and a print or two interspersed here and there, in 

 the British Museum ; but is there any regular 

 series of plates ? We know that Inigo Jones 

 built a Grecian portico on to the east end of the 

 Gothic cathedral of old St. Paul's, surmounted with 

 statues of Charles I., &c. ; that the Puritans de- 

 stroyed a beautiful conduit at the top of Cheap- 

 side ; that Sir Thomas Gresham's Exchange was- 

 standing. But among the many city halls burnt 

 down, were there any fine specimens of architec- 

 ture, any churches worthy of note ? And as 

 Guildhall was not entirely consumed, what parts 

 of the present edifice belong to the olden time ? 



You are doubtless aware that the fire did not 

 extend to St. Giles's Cripplegate, and that at the- 

 back of the church are remains of the old city 

 walls. Ardelio. 



BATTLE OF OTTERBTJRN. 



On what authority does Mr. Tytler (History 

 of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 45 — 53.), in his other- 

 wise very fair account of this celebrated battle, 

 assert that the Earl of Douglas was a younger 

 man than Hotspur ? I have no doubt that he 

 found it so recorded somewhere, and willingly 

 believed that his countrymen had prevailed, 

 not only over superior numbers of the enemy, 

 but also over greater experience on the part 

 of the hostile general ; but a little more inves- 

 tigation would have shown him that the differ- 

 ence of age lay the other way. Henry Percy, by 

 his own account (in the Scrope and Grosvenor 

 Controversy), was born in 1366, and was therefore 

 twenty-two when the battle was fought. I do not 

 know that there is any direct evidence to Dou- 

 glas's age, but the following considerations appear 

 to me decisive as to his being much older than his 

 rival. 



1. Froissart's visit to Scotland was undoubtedly 

 prior to 1366 (although the exact date is not 

 given), and during his stay of fifteen days at 

 Dalkeith, he saw much of the youthful heir of that 

 castle, the future hero of Otterburn, and describes 

 him as a "promising youth." 



2. Hotspur, in his deposition above mentioned, 

 says that he first bore arms at the siege of Ber- 

 wick in 1378 ; but his antagonist must have com- 

 menced his military career long before, as Froissart 

 mentions him as knighted on the occasion of the 

 battle fought a few days after the surrender of 

 that place, between Sir Archibald Douglas and 

 Sir Thomas Musgrave ; none but kings' sons were 

 knighted in childhood in those days, or without 

 undergoing a long previous probation in the in- 

 ferior grades of chivalry. 



3. An early and constant family (if not general) 

 tradition asserts that Douglas had a natural son 



