344 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 51. 



It has already received the attention of our 

 Ordnance department, and has been tried at 

 Woolwich. The letter to which Jarltzbekg re- 

 fers, dated Berlin, Sept. 11., merely shows the 

 extreme ignorance of the writer on such subjects, 

 as the range he mentions has nothing whatever to 

 do with the principle or mechanism of the gun in 

 question. He ought also, before he expressed him- 

 self so strongly, to have known, that the extreme 

 range of an English percussion musket is nearer 

 one mile than 150 ym-ds (which latter distance, he 

 says, they do not exceed) ; and he would not have 

 been so astonished at tlie range of the Ziindnadel 

 guns being 800 yards, if he had seen, as I have, a 

 plain English two-grooved rifle range 1200 yards, 

 with a proper elevation for the distance, and a 

 conical projectile instead of a ball. 



The form and weight of the projectile fired from 

 a rifle, at a considerable elevation, say 25° to 30°, 

 with a sufiicient charge of gunpowder, is the cause 

 of the range and of the accuracy, and has nothing 

 whatever to do with the construction or means by 

 which it is fired, whether flint or percussion. The 

 discussion of this subject is probably unsuited to 

 your publication, or I could have considerably 

 enlarged this communication. I will, however, 

 simply add, that the Ziindnadel is very liable to 

 get out of order, much exposed to wet, and that it 

 does not in reality possess any of the wonderful 

 advantages that have been asci'ibed to it, except a 

 facility of loading, while clean, which is more than 

 counterbalanced by its defects. 



Henry Wilkinson. 



Tliomson of Esliolt (Vol. il., p. 268.). — Dr. 

 Whitaker tells lis (Ducatus, ii. 202.) that the dis- 

 solved priory of Essheholt was, in the 1st Edw. VI., 

 granted to Henry Thompson, Gent., one of the 

 king's gens cTarmes at Bologne. About a century 

 afterwards the estate passed to the more ancient 

 and distinguished Yorkshire family of Calverley, 

 by the marriage of the daughter and heir of 

 Henry Thompson, Esq., with Sir Walter Calverley. 

 If your 3orrespondent Jaytee consult Sims's 

 useful Index to the Pedigrees and Arms contained 

 in the Genealogical MSS. in the British Museum, 

 he will be referred to several pedigrees of the 

 family of Thomson of Esholt. Of numerous re- 

 spectable fixmilies of the name of Thompson seated 

 in the neighbourhood of York, the common an- 

 cestor seems to have been a James Thompson of 

 Thornton in Pickering Lythe, who flourished in 

 the reign of Elizabeth. (Vide Poulson's Holderness, 

 vol. ii. p. 63.) All these families bear the arms 

 described by your cori'espondent, but ivithout the 

 bend sinister. The crest they use is also nearly 

 the same, viz., an armed arm, embowcd, grasping 

 a broken tilting spear. 



No general collection of Yorkshire genealogies 

 has been published. Information as to the pedi- 



grees of Yorkshire families must be sought for in 

 the well-known topographical works of Thoresby, 

 Whitaker, Hunter, &c., or in the MS. collections 

 of Torre, Hopkinson, &c. A. 



In the Monasticon Ehoracense, by John Burton, 

 M. D., fob, York, 1778, under the head of " Esche- 

 wolde, Essold, Esscholt, or Esholt, in Ayredale in ! 

 the Deanry of the Ainsty," at pp.139, and 140., your 

 coiTCspondent Jaytee will find that the site of 

 this priory was granted, 1 Edward VI., 1547, to 

 Henry Thompson, one of the king's gens d'armes, 

 at Boleyn ; who, by Helen, daughter of Laurence 

 Townley, had a natural son called William, living 

 in 1585 ; who, assuming his father's surname, and 

 marrying Dorothy, daughter of Christopher An- 

 derson of Lostock in com. Lane, prothonotary, 

 became the ancestor of those families of the 

 Thompsons now living in and near York. He 

 may see also Burke's Landed Gentry, article 

 " Say of Tilney, co. Norfolk," in the supplement. 



Minars Boohs of Antiquities (Vol.i., p. 277.). — 

 A. N. inquires who is intended by Cusa in his 

 book De Docta Ignorantia, cap. vii., where he 

 quotes " Minar in his Books of Antiquities^ Upon 

 looking into the passage referred to, I remembered 

 the following observation by a learned writer now 

 living, which will doubtless guide your correspon- 

 dent to the author intended : — 



" On the subject of the imperfect views concerning 

 the Deity, entertained by the ancient philosophical 

 sects, I would especially refer to that most able and 

 elaborate investigation of them, Meiner's very inter- 

 esting tract, De Vero Deo." — (An Elementary Course 

 of Theological Lectures, delivered in Bristol College, 

 1831 — 1833, by the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, now the 

 Very Rev. the Dean of Llandaff. ) 



A. N. will not be surprised at Cusa using the 

 term " antiquitates " instead of " De Vero Deo," 

 if he will compare his e.xpressions on the same sub- 

 ject in his book De Venatione Sapientice, e. g.: — 



" Vides nunc seternum illud antiijuissimum in eo 

 campo (scilicet non aliud) dulcissima venatione qusri 

 posse. Attingis enim antiquissimum trinum et unum." 

 — Cap. xiv. 



T.J. 



Smole Money (Vol. ii., pp. 120. 174.).— Sir 

 Roger Twisden {Historical Vindication of the 

 Church of England, chap. iv. p. 77.) observes — 



" King Henry, 153|, took them (Peter's pence) so 

 absolutely away, as though Queen Mary repealed that 

 Act, and Paulus Quarlus dealt earnestly with her 

 agents in Rome for restoring the use of them, yet I 

 cannot find that they were ever gathered and sent 

 thither during her time ; but where some monasteries 

 did answer them to the Pope, and did therefore collect 

 the tax, that in process of time became, as by custom, 

 paid to that house ; which being after derived to the 

 crown, and from thence, by grant, to others, with as ample 



