64 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 65. 



■would be apt to take advantage of this circum- ! 

 stance, and give to bis painting the same kind of 

 effect the reality would have to an eye wandering 

 over it; thereby taking away the attention from 

 individual parts, and, as it were, forcing it to 

 judge of the general ellect, which general effect is, 

 perhaps, the main object in painting. 



Hence it follows that wherever, in any design, 

 separate portions are intendgd to arrest attention, 

 the outline should be more defined ; and, accord- 

 ingly, we may remark that Albert Durer, and 

 others like him, who were very careful of minutia?, 

 are also distinct and hard in their outlines, which 

 is also the case, for tlie most part, in the Dutch 

 school, and in architectural paintings, fruit-pieces, 

 &c. ; and we find that in proportion as the artist 

 discards the comparatively unworthy minute ac- 

 companiments of his subject, and aims at unity of 

 effect, so does he neglect sharpness of outline. 

 Which is the correct practice — distinctness, or in- 

 distinctness of outline — will be differently judged 

 by those who hold different opinions on painting 

 in general. While one person will maintain that 

 a picture, to be perfect, must be an exact copy of 

 nature, in short an artistic daguerreotype ; another 

 will hold almost the contrary; so that the subject 

 of outline must be matter of opinion still. How- 

 ever, the lover of general effect has this rational 

 ground of argument on liis side, viz., there is no 

 such thing as a strictly defined outline in nature, 

 even to an eye at rest ; while to one in motion, 

 which is perhaps the normal state, that outline is 

 rendered still more indistinct. H. C. K. 



Rectory, Hereford, Dec. 28. 1850. 



TEN CHILDREN AT A BIRTH. 



(Vol. ii., p. 4.39.) 



The curiosity excited by the perusal of my pre- 

 vious connnunication under the foregoing head, 

 and the interesting editorial note a])pended in 

 " Notes and Queries," induce me to continue 

 the attempt to verify one of the most reniiii-kable 

 instances of abnormal fecundity iu an individual 

 of the human species recorded in modern times. 

 The reader must judge of the following "circum- 

 stantial evidence : " — 



1. I have just seen widow Platts (formerly 

 Sarah Birch), a poor, fiit, decent woman, who 

 keeps a small greengrocer's shop, in West B.ar, 

 Sheffield. She says she was born in Spring Street 

 in the same town, on the 29th Sept. 1781 ; well 

 remembers wondering why she was so much looked 

 at when a girl : and her surprise, when afterwards 

 told by her mother, that she was one of ten chil- 

 dren born at the same time. Had often been told 

 that she was so small at birth, that she was readily 

 put into a quart measure ; and for some time, lay 



in a basket before the fire " wrapped in a flannel 

 like a newly hatched chicken." 



2. The improbability of finding any living gos- 

 sip who was present at the birth, must he obvious : 

 but I have conversed with old women who had 

 heard their mothers describe the occurrence from 

 personal knowledge. 



3. One ancient dame had no more doubt of 

 the fixct than the cause of it. Having apparently 

 heard and believed a monstrous tradition of a 

 multitudinous gestation extant in common "folk- 

 lore." "It was," said she, with all gravity, "the 

 etFect of a wish," intended to spite the father ; 

 who, having had two children by his wife, and an 

 interval of nine years elapsing before the porten- 

 tous pregnancy in question, did not desire, it 

 seems, any further increase to his family. 



4. The parents died, the daughter married, and 

 the "story of her birth" was forgotten : until the 

 publication of White's Sheffield Directory in 1833, 

 wlien, among other local memorabilia, the strange 

 announcement of " ten children at a birth," was 

 reproduced on the contemporary authority of the 

 Leeds Mercury. From that time Mrs. Platts has 

 been more or less an object of curiosit}'. 



5. The Directory paragraph is as follows : — 



"An instance of extraordinary fecunditt/ is recorded 

 in the Leeds Mercury of 1781, which says that Ann 

 [Sarah] Birch, of Sheffield, was, in that year, delivered 

 of ten children.'!! We, in our time, have heard of 

 Sheffield ladies liaving three children at a birth ; but 

 we know no other case, but tliat of the aforesaid 

 I\Irs. Birch, whicli countenances the fructiferous fame 

 which they have obtained in some circles." 



I have been unsuccessful in an effort to collate 

 the foregoing with the original newspaper para- 

 graph : but JMr. AV^hite, while he personally as- 

 sured me of the veracity of the transcript, also 

 pointed out to me an earlier version of the same 

 fact from the same source in the Annals of the 

 Clothing Districts, published about thirty years 

 since. 



6. In conformity with the suggestion (Notes 

 AND Queries, Vol. ii., p. 459.), I have examined 

 the Parish Register of Baptisms, but the entry is 

 as curt and formal as possible, viz. : — 



" Sarah, Dr. of Thos. and Sarah Birch, Cutler," 



under the date, Dec. 12. 1781. 



Taking all the foregoing circumstances into 

 account, there seems to me little ground for the 

 erection of any strong objection to the alleged 

 fact — extraordinary as it is — of ten children 

 having been brought forth at one time ; or, to the 

 hardly less interesting coincidence, that one of 

 them is still living. I cannot but add, that if the 

 contemporary noti(;e of this extraordinary birth in 

 the Leeds Mercuri/ of 1781 should not be admit- 

 ted as good evidence for the fact, it does, at least, 

 negative the presumptive value of any objection 



