392 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 235. 



the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God ?" 

 — for shall not inherit. 



The printer of Miles Coverdale's Bible, which 

 was finished in 1535, and of which only two perfect 

 copies, I believe, are known to exist — one in the 

 British Museum, the other in the library of the 

 Earl of Jersey — deserves some commendation for 

 his accuracy. At the end of the New Testament 

 is the following solitary erratum : 



" A faute escaped in pryntyng the New Testament. 

 Upon the fourth leafe, the first syde in the sixth chapter 

 of S. Mathew, ' Seke ye first the kingdome of heaven,' 

 read, ' Seke ye first the kingdome of God.' " 



Abhba. 



IMPOSSIBILITIES OF HISTOKT. 



" That unworthy hand." 



I am not aware that the fact of Cranmer's hold- 

 ing his right hand in the flames till it was con- 

 sumed has been questioned. Fox says : 



" He stretched forth his right hand into the flames, 

 and there held it so stedfast that all the people might 

 see it burnt to a coal hefore his body was touched." — 

 P. 927.: ed. Milner, London, 1837, 8vo. 



Or, as the passage is given in the last edition, — 



" And when the wood was kindled, and the fire be- 

 gan to burn near him, he put his right hand into the 

 flame, which he held so stedfast and immovable (saving 

 that once with the same hand he wiped his face), that 

 all men might see his hand burned before his body was 

 touched." — Acts and Monuments, ed. 1839, vol. viii. 

 p. 90. 



Burnet is more circumstantial : 



«' When he came to the stake he prayed, and then 

 undressed himself : and being tied to it, as the fire was 

 kindling, he stretched forth his right hand towards 

 the flame, never moving it, save that once he wiped his 

 face with it, till it was burnt away, which was con- 

 sumed before the fire reached his body. He expressed 

 no disorder from the pain he was in ; sometimes say- 

 ing, • That unworthy hand ; ' and oft crying out, ' Lord 

 Jesus, receive my spirit.' He was soon after quite 

 burnt." — Hist, of the Reformation, vol. iii. p. 429., ed. 

 1825. 



Hume says : 



" He stretched out his hand, and, without betraying 

 either by his countenance or motions the least sign of 

 weakness, or even feeling, he held it in the flames till 

 it was entirely consumed." — Hume, vol. iv. p. 476. 



It is probable that Hume believed this, for 

 while Burnet slates positively as a fact, though 

 only inferentially as a miracle, that " the heart 

 was found entire and unconsumed among the 

 ashes," Hume says, " it was pretended that his 

 heart," &c. 



I am not about to discuss the character of Cran- 

 mer: a timid man might have been roused under 



such circumstances into attempting to do what it 

 is said he did. The laws of physiology and com- 

 bustion show that he could not have gone beyond 

 the attempt. If a furnace were so constructed, 

 that a man might hold his hand in the flame without 

 burning his body, the shock to the nervous system 

 would deprive him of all command over muscular 

 action before the skin could be " entirely con- 

 sumed." If the hand were chained over the fire, 

 the shock would produce death. 



In this case the fire was unconfined. Whoever 

 has seen the effect of flame in the open air, must 

 know that the vast quantity sufficient entirely to 

 consume a human hand, must have destroyed the 

 life of its owner ; though, from a peculiar dispo- 

 sition of the wood, the vital parts might have been 

 protected. 



The entire story is utterly impossible. May we, 

 guided by the words " as the fire was kindling," 

 believe that he then thrust his right hand into the 

 flame — a practice I believe not unusual with our 

 martyrs, and peculiarly suitable to him — and class 

 the " holding it till consumed" with the whole and 

 unconsumed heart ? 



I may observe that in the accounts of martyrdoms 

 little investigation was made as to what was pos- 

 sible. Burnet, describing Hoopers execution, 

 says, " one of his hands fell off before he died, with 

 the other he continued to knock on his breast 

 some time after." This, I have high medical 

 authority for saying, could not be. H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



UNREGISTERED PROVERBS. 



In Mr. Trench's charming little book on Pro- 

 verbs, 2nd ed., p. 31., he remarks : 



" There are not a few (proverbs), as I imagine, 

 which, living on the lips of men, have yet never found 

 their way into books, however worthy to have done so ; 

 either because the sphere in which they circulate has 

 continued always a narrow one, or that, the occasions 

 which call them out are very rare, or that they, having 

 only lately risen up, have not hitherto attracted the 

 attention of any one who cared to record them. It 

 would be well, if such as take an interest in the sub- 

 ject, and are sufficiently well versed in the proverbial 

 literature of their own country to recognise such un- 

 registered proverbs when they meet them, would secure 

 them from that perishing, which, so long as they 

 remain merely oral, might easily overtake them ; and 

 would make them at the same time, what all good pro- 

 verbs ought certuinly to be, the common heritage of 

 all." 



" Note. — The pages of the excellent Notes and 

 Queries would no doubt be open to receive such, and 

 in them they might be safely garnered up," &c. 



I trust this appeal of Mr. Trench's will be at 

 once responded to by both the editor and corre- 

 spondents of this periodical. With the former 



