142 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 69. 



their church is based upon a pun, and that a very 

 sorry one. A. li. 



Sonnet {query by Milton?') (Vol. iii., p. 37.). — 

 May I inquire from your correspondent whether 

 he possesses the book, A Collection of Recente and 

 Witti/ Pieces by Several Eminente Hands, London, 

 1628, from which this sonnet is stated to be ex- 

 tracteil. The lines loolc suspiciously modern, and 

 I should, before njaking any further observations 

 upon them, be glad to be assured of their authen- 

 ticity through the medium of your pages. 



Jas. Ckossi-ey. 



Medal given to Howard. — Hepworth Dixon, in 

 his Life of Hoioard, mentions a Russian General 

 Bulgarhow, who was presented by his countrymen 

 with a gold medal, as "one who had deserved well 

 of his country." The General's reply stated that 

 his services to mankind reached his own country 

 only ; but there was a man whose extraordinary 

 philanthropy took in all the world, — who had al- 

 ready, with infinite toil and peril, extended his 

 humanity to all nations, — and who was therefore 

 alone worthy of such a distinction; to him, his 

 master in benevolence, he should send the medal ! 

 And he did so. Can any of your readers inform 

 me who now possesses this medal, and where it is 

 to be found ? W. A. 



Withers' Devil at Sarum. — Where is Withers 

 Devil at Sarum, mentioned in lludibras, to be met 

 with ? It is not in any of his collected works that 

 I have seen. James AVaylen. 



Election of a Pope. — I have read somewhere 

 that some cardinals assembled in a water-closet 

 in order to elect a pope. Can any of your readers 

 rei'er me to any book where such a fact is men- 

 tioned ? T. 



Battle in Wiltshire. — A pamphlet dated (in IMS.) 

 Dec. 12. 1642, describes an engagement as taking 

 place in AViltshire between Rupert and Skippon. 

 If this be so, how comes it to pass that not only 

 the general histories are silent as to the event, but 

 that even the news|>a])ers omit it? We know that 

 Rupert was at the sack of Cirencester, in February, 

 1642-3; and Cirencester is on the borders of 

 AViltshire : but is tliere any authority for the first- 

 mentioned visit to this county, during the period 

 from the affair at Brentford to the taking of 

 Cirencester ? James Waylen. 



Colonel Fell. — Can you inform me who are the 

 representatives or descendants of Lieut. -Coloinel 

 Robert Edward Fell, of St. Martin's in the Fields, 

 London, where he was living in the year 1770? 

 He was the great-grandson of Thomas Fell, of 

 Swarthmore Hall, co. Lancaster, Esq., Chancellor 

 of the Duchy of Lancaster during the Common- 

 wealth, whose widow married George Fox, founder 

 of the Quakers. De H. 



Tennysoris " In Memoriam." — Perhaps some of 

 your readers may be able to explain the reference 

 in the following verse, the first in this beautiful 

 series of poems : 



" I htld it truth, with him who sings 

 To one clear harp in divers tones. 

 That men may rise on stepping-stones 

 Of their dead selves to higher things." 

 The following stanza, also in the poem num- 

 bered 87., much needs interpretation : 



" Or cooled within the glooming wave, — 

 And last, returning from afer, 

 Sefore the crimsun-circted star 

 Had fallen into her father's grave" 



W. B. H. 



Manchester. 



Magnum Sedile. — Can any of your correspon- 

 dents throw light on the singular arched recesses, 

 sometimes (though rarely) to be found on the 

 south side of chancels, west of the sedilia. The 

 name of magnum sedile has been given to them, I 

 know not on what authority ; but if they were 

 intended to be used as stalls of dignity for special 

 occasions, they would hardly have been made so 

 wide and low as they are generally found. A good 

 example occurs at Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire, — 

 certainly not monumental; and another (but more 

 like a tomb) at Merton, near Oxford, engr.aved in 

 the Glossary of Architecture. Why should 'they 

 not have been intended for the holy sepulchre at 

 Easter? as I am not aware that these were ne- 

 cessarily restricted to the north side. Is there 

 any instance of a recess of this kind on the south 

 side, and an Easter sepulchre on the north, in the 

 same church ? C. R. M. 



Ace of Diamonds — the Earl of Cork. — In ad- 

 dition to the soub?-iquets bestowed upon the nine 

 of diamonds of " the Curse of Scotland," and that 

 of " the Grace Card," given to the six of hearts 

 (Vol. i., pp. 90. 1 19.), there is yet another, attached 

 to the ace of diamonds, which is everywhere in 

 Ireland denominated " the Earl of Cork," the origin 

 of which I should be glad to know. E. S. T. 



Closing of Booms on account of Death. — In the 

 Spectator, No. 110., July, 1711, one of Addison's 

 papers on Sir Roger de Coverley, the following 

 passage occurs : 



" My friend, Sir Roger, has often told me with a 

 good deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate 

 he found three parts of his house altogether useless ; 

 frhat the ,best room in it had the reputation of being 

 haunted, and by that means was locked up ; that 

 noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he 

 could not get a servant to enter it after eight o'clock at 

 night; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed 

 up, because there went a story in the family that a 

 butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his 

 mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the 

 rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, 



