590 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 243. 



and is a few miles from the northern coast of Ire- 

 land, appeared in print? The locality is most 

 interesting in many particulars, historical and 

 geological, and might therefore be made the sub- 

 ject of an instructive paper. A brief account was 

 inserted, I think, a few years ago in an English 

 periodical. Abhba. 



[An interesting and detailed account of this island, 

 which he calls Raghery, is given in Hamilton's Letters 

 concerning the Northern Coast of the County of Antrim, 

 1790, 8vo., pp. 13 — 33. Consult also Lewis's Topo- 

 graphical History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 501.] 



Parochial Registers. — When and where were 

 parochial registers first established ? The earliest 

 extant at the present day ? Abhba. 



[We fear our correspondent has not consulted that 

 useful and amusing work, Burn's History of Parish 

 Registers in England, also of the Registers of Scotland, 

 Ireland, the East and West Indies, the Fleet, King's 

 Bench, Mint, Chapel Royal, Sfc, 8vo. 1829, which con- 

 tains a curious collection of miscellaneous particulars 

 concerning them.] 



" Trevelyan," Sfc. — Who was the author of two 

 novels, published about twenty years ago, called 

 A Marriage in High Life and Trevelyan : the 

 latter the later of the two ? Uneda. 



Philadelphia. 



[These works are by the Hon. Caroline Lucy Scott, 

 at present residing at Petersham, in Surrey.] 



Grammar School of St. Mary de Crypt, Glouces- 

 ter. — Can you give me the name of the master of 

 the Grammar School of St. Mary de Crypt in 

 1728? Sigma (1). 



[Daniel Bond, B. A., was elected master March 25, 

 1 724, and was also vicar of Leigh. He died in 1750.] 



cranmer's martyrdom. 

 (Vol.ix., pp.392. 547.) 



I thank G. W. R. for his courteous remarks on 

 my note on Cranmer. Perhaps I have overstated 

 the effect of pain on the nervous system ; certainly 

 I was wrong in making a wider assertion than 

 was required by my case, which is, that no man 

 could hold his hand over unconfined flame till it 

 was " entirely consumed" or " burnt to a coal." 

 "Bruslee a feu de souphre" does not go so far as 

 that, nor is it said at what time of the burning 

 Ravaillac raised his head to look at his hand. 



J. H. has mistaken my intention. I have always 

 carefully avoided everything which tended to 

 religious or moral controversy in "N. & Q." I 

 treated Cranmer's case on physiological grounds 

 only. I did not look for " cotemporaneous evi- 



dence against that usually received," any more 

 than I should for such evidence that St. Denis 

 did not walk from Paris to Montmartre with his 

 head in his hand. If either case is called a mira- 

 cle, I have nothing to say upon it here ; and for 

 the same reason that I avoid such discussion, I 

 add, that in not noticing J. H.'s opinions on 

 Cranmer, I must not be understood as assenting 

 to or differing from them. J. H. says : 



" It would surely be easy to produce facts of almost 

 every week from the evidence given in coroners' in- 

 quests, in which persons have had their limbs burnt 

 off — to say nothing of farther injury — without the 

 shock producing death." 



If favoured with one such fact, I will do my best 

 to inquire into it. None such has fallen within 

 my observation or reading. 



The heart remaining " entire and unconsumed 

 among the ashes," is a minor point. It does not 

 seem impossible to J. H., " in its plain and ob- 

 vious meaning." Do the words admit two mean- 

 ings ? Burnet says : 



" But it was no small matter of astonishment to find 

 his heart entire, and not consumed among the ashes; 

 which, though the reformed would not carry so far as 

 to make a miracle of it, and a clear proof that his heart 

 had continued true, though his hand had erred ; yet 

 they objected it to the Papists, that it was certainly 

 such a thing, that if it had fallen out in any of their 

 church, they had made it a miracle." — Vol. ii. p. 429. 



H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



Permit me to offer to H. B. C.'s consideration 

 the case of Mutius Scsevola, who, failing in his 

 attempt to kill Porsenna in his own camp, and 

 being taken before the king, thrust his right hand 

 into the fire, and held it there until burnt ; at the 

 same time declaring that he knew three hundred 

 men who would not flinch from doing the same 

 thing. To a certain extent, I am inclined to think 

 with Alfred Gattt (Vol. ix., p. 246.), " that an 

 exalted state of feeling may be attained;" which, 

 though it will not render the religious or political 

 martyr insensible to pain, it will yet nerve him to 

 go through his martyrdom without demonstration 

 of extreme suffering. 



This ability to endure pain may be accounted 

 for in either of the following ways : 



1. An exalted state of feeling ; instance Joan of 

 Arc. 



2. Fortitude ; instance Mutius Scsevola. 



3. Nervous insensibility ; which carries the 

 vanquished American Indian through the most 

 exquisite tortures, and enables him to fall asleep 

 on the least respite of his agony. 



Should these three be united in one individual, 

 it is needless to say that he could undergo any 

 bodily pain without a murmur. 



John P. Stilwell. 



