42 NOTES AND QUERIES. 
ham Deanery, and Chancellor to the most Re- | of the Medici of Florence. They bore pills 
verend-Father in God, William Laud, Archbishop | on their shield (and those pills, as usual then 
of Canterbury, who commanded this uniformity alae ie Thasidn t th fitters i 
to be general throughout the kingdom. were guide ») in allusion to e pro essiona 
1638. This time of Lent being to be kept holy by | OT10 from whence they had derived the 
fasting aud abstinence from flesh, notwithstand- 
ing S* Roger Twisden, K™t and Baronett and 
Dame Isabella his wife, being both very sick and 
weake, in my judgement and opinion [are] to be 
tolerated for the eating of flesh. 
Francisc. Worratt, Vicar. 
A similar entry occurs for the three follow- 
ing years. 
1648. Upon the third of June the following Infants 
all born in the parish of Brenchley were bap- 
tized in this parish Church, by an order granted 
from Sir John Sedley, Knight and Baronett, Sir 
John Rayney, and Sir Isaac Sedley, Knights :— 
« Whereas complaints have often been made unto us 
by many of the principal inhabitants of the Parish of 
Brenchley, that they having desired Mr. Gilbert, mi- 
nister of the said Parish, to baptize their children, and 
according to the Directorie offered to present them 
before the Congregation, he hath neglected or refused 
so to do; whereby divers infants remain unbaptized, 
some of them above a year old, expressly contrary to 
the said Directorie. 
“We do therefore order that the parents of such 
children do bring them unto the Parish Church of East 
Peckham, where we desire that Mt Topping, minister 
of the said Parish, would baptize them according to 
the sayd Directorie, they acquainting him with the 
day they intend to bring them beforehand. 
« Dated ye 25t» of May 1648. 
« Joun SEDLEY. 
“ Joun Rayney. 
“Tsaac SEDLEY.” 
The last extract may illustrate the progress 
of Anabaptism, under the Parliamentary rule, 
and serves by way of curious sequel to the 
preceding excerpta. 
In a window of the same church I observed 
this inscription : —“ Here stoode the wicked 
fable of Mychael waying of [souls]. By the 
law of Qvene Elizabeth according to God[s] 
Word is taken away.” Clas: 
—— 
PAWNBROKERS THREE BALLS. 
My. Editor, — The Edinburgh Reviewer, 
cited by your correspondent Mr. W. J. Thoms, 
seems to have sought rather too far for the 
origin of a pawnbroker’s golden balls. 
He is right enough in referring their origin 
to the Italian bankers, generally called Lom- 
bards; but he has overlooked the fact that 
the greatest of those traders in money were 
the celebrated and eventually princely house 
name of Medici; and their agents in England 
and other countries put that armorial bearing 
over their doors as their sign, and the re- 
putation of that house induced others to put 
up the same sign. Bs WWn 
THE LIONS IN THE TOWER. 
Mr. Editor, — Some one of your readers 
may be interested in knowing that there was 
a royal menagerie in the Tower of London in 
the reign of Edward III. In the Issue Roll 
of the forty-fourth year of his reign, 1370, 
there are five entries of payments made to 
“ William de Garderobe, keeper of the king’s 
lions and leopards” there, at the rate of 6d. 
a day for his wages, and 6d. a day for each 
beast. — pp. 25. 216. 298. 388, 429. 
The number of “beasts” varied from four 
to seven. Two young lions are specially men- 
tioned; and “a lion lately sent by the Lord 
the Prince from Gascony to England to the 
Lord the King.” ®. 
[Our correspondent’s Nore is an addition to 
what Bayley has given us on this subject; who 
tells us, however, that as early as 1252, Henry II. 
sent to the Tower a white bear, which had been 
brought to him as a present from Norway, when 
the Sheriffs of London were commanded to pay 
four pence every day for its maintenance. | 
NOTES ON AUTHORS AND BOOKS, NO. l. 
THE “ BIBLIOGRAPHIE BIOGRAPHIQUE.” 
A lover of literature, and aspiring to promote 
its extension and improvement, I sometimes 
form projects for the adoption of others — 
sensible, be it also said, of the extent of my 
own engagements with certain learned so- 
cieties. 
One of these projects has been a tabular 
view of the literary biography of the British 
Islands. In the midst of my reflections on 
the plans of Blair, Priestley, Playfair, Ober- 
lin, Tytler, Jarry de Mancy, &c. I received a 
specimen of a Bibliographie biographique, by 
Edouard- Marie Oettinger, now in the press at 
Leipzic. 
As books multiply, the inexpediency of 
attempting general bibliography becomes more 
