Mar. 16. 1850.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 321 | 
3rd. Are they common in other counties be- 
sides Suffolk ? 
Also: What is the origin of the Friday Streets 
so common in most villages in this neighbourhood ? 
. A SusscriBer AB INITIO. 
Guildhall, Framlingham, Suffolk, Feb. 6. 1850. 
Vox Populi— Monody on Sir John Moore. — 
Can any reader give me the origin of the saying 
“ Vox Populi, Vor Dei?” —and has any one of 
your correspondents ever heard of any doubts 
being raised as to the original author of the 
Monody upon Sir John Moore, which is now always 
assigned to the Rey. Dr. Wolfe? I saw it stated 
in an English paper, published in France some 
few years back, that Wolfe had taken them from 
a poem at the end of the Memoirs of Lally Totten- 
dal, the French governor of Pondicherry, in 1756, 
and subsequently executed in 1766. In the Paper 
I refer to, the French poem was given; and cer- 
tainly one of the two must be a translation of the 
other. I have not been able to get a copy of 
Tottendal’s Memoirs, or of the Paper I refer to, 
or I would not trouble you with this Query ; 
but perhaps some one can inform me which is the 
Merchant here, and which the Jew. Qusiror. 
Reg. Coll. London,, 
Use of Coffins. — How long has it been the 
custom to inter the dead in coffins? “In a table 
of Dutyes” dated 11th Dec. 1664, and preserved 
at Shoreditch Church, it is mentioned :— 
« For a buryall in the New Church Yard without a 
coffin,00 00 O08. 
“ For a buryall in y® Old Church Yard without a 
coffin seauen pence 00 OO O07. 
“ For the grave making and attendance of y® Vicar 
and Clarke on y® enterment of a corps uncoffined the 
churehwardens to pay the ordinary duteys (and no 
more) of this table.” 
H. E. 
Rococo. — Would any correspondent of “ Norxs 
AND Queries” give the history of this word, or 
indicate where it is to be found? or, if the history 
is not known, state when, and by whom, it appears 
to have been first used ? 
Oxford, 
Howlett the Engraver, —Can any of your 
readers furnish me with an account of the “ Pub- 
lications of Bartholomew Howlett,” who was an 
engraver of some note, and about forty-five or fifty 
ears ago resided in London? He was a native of 
zouth in Lincolnshire, and about forty-five years 
ago, being then resident (as appears from his book) 
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Black- 
friars’ Road, published by subscription a book 
containing a series of engravings, entitled “ Views 
in Lincolnshire.” L. L. L. 
The Bear, the Louse, and Religion. — I should 
be much obliged to any of your correspondents 
who will inform me where I can find The Bear, 
the Louse, and Religion: a fable. It commences — 
«“ A surly Bear, in college bred, 
Determin’d to attack Religion ; 
A Louse, who crawl’d from head to head, 
Defended her —as Hawk does pidgeon, 
Bruin Subscription discommended ; 
The Louse determin’d to support it M4 
I know no more. When was it written ? — 
upon what occasion? —who are meant by the 
Bear and the Louse ? GRIFFIN. 
Mar, 5. 1850. 
REPLIES. 
LETTER ATTRIBUTED TO SIR R. WALPOLE. 
There are many reasons, drawn from style and 
other internal evidence, which induce “ P.C.S. 8S.” 
to entertain strong doubts as to the authenticity 
of the Letter attributed to Sir Robert Walpole 
(and reprinted from Bankes) in No. 19. Among 
others, it seems very unlikely that a prime mi- 
nister, confidentially addressing his sovereign (and 
that sovereign George II.!) on a matter of the 
greatest import, would indulge in a poetical quota- 
tion. And it is remarkable that neither the 
quotation in question, nor any thing at all re- 
sembling it, in thought or expression, is to be 
found in any part of Fenton’s printed works. 
« P.C.S.S.” has carefully looked them over, in the 
editions of London, 1717, and of 1810 (Chalmer’s 
Collection, vol. x.), and he cannot discover a trace of 
it. He had at first imagined that it might be suc- 
cessfully sought for in Fenton’s admirable E/pistle to 
William Lamborde (the Kentish antiquary), where 
there is a remarkably fine passage respecting 
flattery and its influences; but nothing at all like 
the quotation cited in the ietter is to be found in 
that poem, which (par parenthése) seems to have 
met with much more neglect than it deserves. 
“P.C.S.S.” would further notice the great 
improbability that Walpole would have com- 
mitted himself im writing, even to his royal master, 
by such a display of perilous frankness, in treating 
of the private character and principles of his 
great rival. He must have been aware that the 
letter would, most probably, at the decease of the 
king (then advanced in life) have been found 
among his majesty’s papers, and, with them, have 
passed into the hands of his successor, by whom it 
would undoubtedly have been communicated to 
the very individual with whom it so hardly dealt. 
P.C.S.S. 
COLLEGE SALTING. 
The money collected at the Eton Montem, 
now wisely abolished, was called “salt.” In the 
