—— 
Dec. 1. 1849.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
71 | 
raising or pushing up through the top the young 
prince to the view of the people, while Truth is 
opening the door and exposing the imposition. 
Similar representations of the Jesuit’s interference 
occur upon caricatures and satirical prints exe- 
cuted in Holland. Upon one, entitled “ Arlequin 
sur l’Hippogryphe, a la croisade Lojoliste,” the 
lobster, on which the Jesuit is mounted, earries a 
book in each claw; the young prince’s head is 
decorated with a windmill. All these intimate the 
influence of Father Petre upon the proceedings of 
James II. and of the Jesuits in general in the 
imposition, as was by many supposed, of the pre- 
tended prince. The imputation upon the legiti- 
macy of the young child was occasioned in a great 
degree, and almost justified, by the pilgrimages 
and superstitious fooleries of his grandmother, 
increased by his mother’s choosing St. Francis 
Xavier as one of her ecclesiastical patrons, and 
with her family attributing the birth of the prince 
to his miraculous interference. This may have 
provoked the opposers of popery to take every 
means of satirising the Jesuits; and the follow- 
ing circumstances related in the Life of Xavier 
probably suggested the idea of making the lobster 
one of the symbols of the superstitions and impo- 
sitions of the Jesuits, and a means of discrediting 
the birth of the prince by ridiculing the commu- 
nity by whose impositions they asserted the fraud 
to have been contrived and executed. 
The account is given by a Portuguese, called 
Fausto Rodriguez, who was a witness of the fact, 
has deposed it upon oath, and whose juridical 
testimony is in the process of the Saint’s canoni- 
zation. 
««¢ We were at sea,’says Rodriguez, ‘ Father Francis, 
John Raposa, and myself, when there arose a tempest 
which alarmed all the mariners. Then the Father 
drew from his bosom a little erucifix, which he always 
carried about him, and leaning over deck, intended to 
have dipt it into the sea; but the crucifix dropt out of 
his hand, and was carried off by the waves. This loss 
very sensibly afflicted him, and he concealed not his 
sorrow from us, The next morning we landed on the 
Island of Baranura; from the time when the crucifix 
was lost, to that of our landing, it was near twerty- 
four hours, during which we were in perpetual danger. 
Being on shore, Father Francis and I walked along by 
the sea-side, towards the town of Tamalo, and had 
already walked about 500 paces, when both of us be- 
held, arising out of the sea, a crab fish, which carried 
betwixt his claws the same erucifix raised on high. I 
saw the crab fish come directly to the Father, by whose 
side I was, and stopped before him. The Father, fall- 
ing on his knees, took his crucifix, after which the crab- 
fish returned into the sea. But the Father still con- 
tinuing in the same humble posture, hugging and 
kissing the crucifix, was half an hour praying with his 
hands across his breast, and myself joining with him in 
thanksgiving to God for so evident a miracle; after 
which we arose and continued on our way.’ ‘Thus you 
have the relation of Rodriguez.”— Dryden’s Life of 
St. Francis Xavier, book iii. 
Enpw. Hawkins. 
JOHN AUBREY. 
As the biographer and editor of that amiable 
and zealous antiquary Jonn Avusrey, I noticed 
with peculiar interest the statement of your corre- 
spondent, that the date of your first publication 
coincided with the anniversary of his birthday ; 
but, unhappily, the coincidence is imaginary. Your 
correspondent has, on that point, adopted a care- 
less reading of the first chapter of Aubrey’s Mis- 
cellanies, whereby the 8rd of November, the 
birthday of the Duke of York, afterwards James 
the Second, has been frequently stated as that of 
the antiquary himself. See my Memoir of Aubrey, 
4to. 1845, p. 123. In the same volume, p. 13., 
will be found an engraving of the horoscope of 
his nativity, from a sketch in his own hand. So 
far as his authority is of any value, that curious 
sketch proves incontestably that “ the Native” was 
born at 14 minutes and 49 seconds past 17 o'clock 
(astronomical time) on the 11th of March, 1625-6 ; 
that is, at 14 minutes and 49 seconds past 5 o’clock 
A.M. on the 12th of March, instead of the 3rd of 
November. 
Few things can be more mortifying to a bio- 
grapher, or an antiquary, than the perpetuation 
of an error which he has successfully laboured to 
correct. It is an evil, however, to which he is 
often subjected, and which your valuable publi- 
cation will go far to remedy. In the present case 
it is, doubtless, to be ascribed to the peculiar nature 
of my Memoir of Aubrey, of which but a limited 
number of copies were printed for the Wiltshire 
Topographical Society. The time and labour 
which I bestowed upon the work, the interesting 
character of its contents, and the approbation of 
able and impartial public critics, justify me in 
saying that it deserves a far more extensive cir- 
culation. 
After this allusion to John Aubrey, I think I 
cannot better evince my sympathy with your 
exertions than by requesting the insertion of a 
Query respecting one of his manuscripts. I allude 
to his Monumenta Britannica, in four folio vo- 
lumes — a dissertation on Avebury, Stonehenge, 
and other stone circles, barrows, and similar Dru- 
idical monuments — which has disappeared within 
the last thirty years. Fortunately a large portion 
of its contents has been preserved, in extracts 
made by Mr. Hutchins, the historian of Dorset- 
shire, and by the late Sir Riehard Colt Hoare, 
Bart.; but the manuscript certainly contained 
much more of great local interest, and some mat- 
ters which were worthy of publication. In the 
Memoir already mentioned, p. 87., the history of 
the manuscript down to the time of its disappear- 
