86 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 66. 



with silver and double gilt, with a foot underneath it to 

 stand on, of silver and double gilt, which was never 

 used but on Maunday Thursday at night in the Frater 

 House, where the prior and the whole convent did 

 meet and keep their Maunday." (p. 68. ) 



I send tliis with reference to tlie mention of tlie 

 "Judas Bell" and " Judiis Candle" in your 2nd 

 Volume, p. 298. Echo. 



Esslieholt Priory. — Esholt Hall (now in the 

 possession of W. R. C. Stansfield, Esq.) is the 

 same as the ancient priory of Esslieholt, which was 

 under the abbot of Kirkstall. 



This priory fell, of course, with the smaller 

 houses, and was valued at 19/. 0«. 8^/. Kssheholt 

 remained in the crown till the first year of 

 Edward VI., nine years after the dissolution, when 

 it was granted to Henry Thompson, Gent., one of 

 the king's gens-d'arnies at Uoulogne. In this 

 family the priory of Esholt remained somewhat 

 more than a century, when it was transferred to 

 the neighbouring and more distinguished house of 

 Calverley by the marriage of Frances, daughter 

 and heiress of H. Thompson, Esq., with Sir Walter 

 Calverley. His son, Sir ^Valter Calverley, Eart., 

 built, on the site of the old priory, the house which 

 now stands. 



Over a door of one of the out-buildings is an 

 inscription in ancient letters, from which may be 



traced — " Aleisbet. Pudaci, p ," with a bird 



sitting on the last letter p. (Elizabeth Pudsay, 

 prioress). 



The builder of the present house died in 1749; 

 and, in 1755, his son of the same name sold the 

 manor-house and furniture to liobert Stansfield, 

 Esq., of Bradford ; from whom the present owner 

 is descended.* Cuas. W. SIabkham. 



Jan. 10. 1851. 



Crossing Riverx on Skins (Vol. iii., p. 3.). — Mr. 

 C. J\I. G., a near relative of mine, who lately 

 returned from naval service on the Indus, told me, 

 last year, that he had' often seen there naked 

 natives emph)yed in fishing. The man, with his 

 fishing-tackle, launches himself on the water, sus- 

 tained by a large hollow earthen vessel having a 

 round protuberant opening on one side. To this 

 opening the fisherman applies his abdomen, so as 

 to close the vessel against the influx of water; 

 and clinging to this air-filled buoy, floats about 

 quite unconcernedly, and plies his fishing-tackle 

 with great success. The analogy between this 

 Oriental buoy and the inflated skins mentioned by 

 Layard and by your correspondent Jakus Dousa, 

 is sufficiently remarkable to deserve a note. 



G. F. G. 



Edinburgh. 



Tlioresby's Histori/ of Leeds, 



Queries. 



BIBUOGRAPHTCAIi QUERIBa. 



(Continued from Vol. ii., p. 493.) 



(31.) P. H. F. (Vol. iii., pp. 24, 25.) has described 

 a 12mo., or rather an 8vo., copy of a Latin Psalter 

 in his possession, and he wishes to know whether 

 Montanus had any connexion with one of the 

 translations therein exhibited. The title-page of 

 your correspondent's volume will tell him pre- 

 cisely what the book contains. lie had better not 

 rely too much upon MS. remarks in any of his 

 treasures ; and when a bibliographical question is 

 being investigated, let Cyclopcedias by all means 

 not be disturbed from their shelves. AVould it 

 not be truly marvellous if a volume, printed by 

 Pobert Stejihens in 1556, could in that year have 

 presented, by prolepsis, to its precocious owner a 

 version which Bcncd. Arias Montanus did not 

 execute until 1571 ? But P. H. F.'s communica- 

 tion excites another qitery. He appears to set a 

 special value upon his Psalter because that the 

 verses are in it distinguished by cyphers; but 

 Pagnini's whole Bible, which I spoke of, came 

 thirty years before it, and we have still to go 

 nearly twenty years farther back in search of the 

 earliest example of the employment of Arabic 

 figures to mark the verses in the Book of Psalms. 

 The Quincuplex P.salterium, by Jacques le Fevre, 

 is a most beautiful book, perhaps the finest pro- 

 duction of the press of Henry Stephens the elder ; 

 and not only are the verses numbered in the copy 

 before me, which is of the improved "secunda 

 cmissio" in 1513, but the initial letters of them 

 arc in red. At signatiu-e A iiij. there is a very 

 handsome woodcut of the letter A., somewhat of a 

 different style, from the larger (not the Ascensian) 

 p., within the periphery of which St. Paul is re- 

 presented, and which is so well worthy of notice 

 in Le Fevre's edition of the Epistole diui Pmdi 

 Apostoli, Paris, 1517. The inquiry toward which 

 I have been travelling is this. When did Henry 

 Stephens first make use of the o])en Eatdoltian 

 letter on a dotted ground? (See Maitland's 

 Lambeth List, p. 328. Dibdin's Typog. Antiq. 

 vol. i., Prel. Disquis., p. xl.) 



(32.) Is there extant any collation of the various 

 exemplars of the Alpkabetum divini Amoris ? And 

 has an incontrovertible opinion been formed as to 

 the paternity of this tract ? For the common 

 error of ascribing it to Gerson is entirely inex- 

 cusable, as this Parisian chancellor is frequently 

 alleged therein. The third volume of his works, 

 set forth by Du Pin, in 170G, contains this " Trea- 

 tise of the Elevation of the Soul to God," and the 

 editor has left the blunder uncorrected in his 

 Ecde.s. Hist. iii. 53. Again, can it be aflirmed 

 that the folio impression of Louvain, (Panzer, ix. 

 243.), in which Gerson's name occurs, was as- 

 suredly anterior to the small black-letter and 



