230 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No, 73. 



vants wlio wish to be liired goins into the inrtrket- 

 jjluce of Carlisle, or as they call it "Carel," with 

 a straw ia their mouths. It is fast passing away, 

 aiiul now, instead of keeping the straw constantly 

 in the mouth, they merely put it in a few seconds 

 if they see any one looking at tliem. Andersion, in 

 his Cunlterland Bulluds, alludes to the custom : — 

 " At Caicl I stuid wi' a stiau i' my mouth, 

 The weyves com roun me in clusters: 

 'Wliat weage xlus te ax, canny lad?' says yen." 



II.W. D. 



Librafy of the Church of Westmi-nster (Vol. iii , 

 p. 152.). — The statement here quoted from the 

 De/ices de la Grundc Bretugue is scarcely likely 

 to be .correct. We all know how prone foreigners 

 are to misapprehension, and thereibre how unsafe 

 it is to trust to their observations. In tJiis case, 

 may not tlie description of the Bihliotheque Ptib- 

 Itque, which was open night and morning, dui'ing 

 the sittings of the couitsof justice, have originated 

 merely from the rows of booksellers' stalls in 

 AVestmiuster-hall ? J. G. N. 



The Ten Commandments (Vol. iii., p. ICG.). — 

 Waterland (vol. vi. p. 242., 2nd edition, Oxford, 

 1843) gives a copy of the Decalogue takeiJ from 

 an old MS. In this the lirst two commandments 

 are embodied in one. Leighton, in his Exposition 

 of the Ten Commandments, when speaking on the 

 point of the manner of dividing them, refers in a 

 vague mauner to Josephus and Philo. 11. V. 



Sitting crosslegged to avei't Evil (Vol. ii., p. 407.). 

 — Bi owne says ; — 



" To sot crossBloj:fg'd, or with our lingers pectinated 

 or shut together, is accounted bad, and friends will 

 perswade us from it. 'J'he same conceit religiously 

 possessed tlie ancients, as is observable from Pliny : 

 ' I'oplites alternis geiiibus imponeve nefas olim ; ' and 

 also from Athciiams, that it was an old venelleious prac- 

 tice." — Vulff- Err., lib. v. cap. xxi. §9. 



AcilE. 



George Steevens (Vol. iii., p. 119.). — A. Z. 

 wishes to kwow whether a memoir of George Stee- 

 vens, the Shakspenrian commentator, was evei- 

 •published, and what has become of the manu- 

 6cri|)ts. 



I believe the late Sir James Allen Park wrote 

 his life, but whether lor public or private circula- 

 tion I cannot tell. 



The late George Steevens Lad a relative, a Mrs. 

 Collinson, and daughters who lived with him at 

 Hampstead, and with him when he died, in Jan. 

 1800. Miss Collinson married a Mr. Pyecroft, 

 whose death, I think, is in the Gentleman s Jllaga- 

 zine for this month: perhaps the Pyecroft family 

 may give information respecting the manuscripts. 



" The house he lived in at Hampstead, called the 

 Upper Flask, was formerly a place of public enter- 

 tainment near the summit of Hampstead Hill. Here 

 Kichardson sends his Clarissa in one of her escapes 



from Lovelace. Here, too, the celebratcti Kit-Cat 



Club used to meet in the summer months; aiul liere, 

 after it became a private abode, tlie no les.s celebrated 

 George Steevens lived and died." — Vjjde I'aik's 

 Hampstead., pp. 250. 35'i. 



I jnst ree<;)Ilect Mr. Steevens, who was vepy 

 kind to us, as children. My mother, who is aa 

 octogenarian, rejuembers bim well, and says he 

 alwa3's took a nosegay, tied to the top of his cane, 

 every day to Sir Joseph Banks. 



Julia R. Bockett. 



Southcote LoJg.e, near Heading. 



The Wmsteo(d hursted, Sfc- (Vol. ii., p. 505.). — 

 The general effect of melancholy : dige&tion is 

 imperal'ectly performed, and mehuicholy patients 

 generally complain of being "blown up." Bod- 

 v.ae's "blowing uj)," on the contrary, is the inere 

 effect of the generation of gases in a dead body, 

 well illustrated by a floating dead dog on the 

 river side, or the bursting of a leaden coffin. 



Ii. W. D. 



JLove^s Lahovrs Lost (Vol. iii., p. 1C3.). — Your 

 correspondent has very neatly and ably made oui 

 how the names of the ladies ought to have been 

 placed ; but the error is the poet's, not tlie printer's. 

 It is impossible lo conceive how, in printing or tran- 

 scribing, such a mistake should arise; tlie names 

 ai'e quite unlike, and sever.d liniis distant from 

 one another. Such Ibrgetfulness is not very un- 

 common in ])oets, especially those of the quickest 

 and liveliest spirit. It is the old mistake of 

 Benlley and other commentators, to think that 

 whatever is wrong must be spurious. These, too, 

 we must recollect, are fictitious characters. 



C. W. B. 



dHt^rcIIniic0ttS. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC. 



Agreeing « ith Mr. Lower, that they who desire to 

 know the truth as to the earlier periods of our national 

 history, will do wisely to .search lor it among the mists 

 and shadows of antiquity, and rather collect it for 

 themselves out of the monkish chronicles than accept 

 the statements of po])ular historiographers, we receive 

 with great satisfaction the addition to our present list 

 of translations of such chronicles, which Mr. Lower has 

 given us ni Tlie CItrotiicle of Battel Abhei/ from 1066 to 

 \ 1 76, nou; Jint trauslultd, with Nu/es, and an Abbtriiet 

 of the subsequent History of tlie Estnblishment. 'IJie 

 original Chronicle, which is preserved among the Cot- 

 tonian MSS., though known to antiquaries and his- 

 torians, was never committeil to the jjress until the 

 year 1846, when it was printed by the Aiiglia Christiana 

 Society from a transcript made by the late Mr. Pttrie. 

 Mr. Lower's translation has been made from that edi- 

 tion ; and though undertaken by him as an illustration 

 of local history, will be found well deserving the pe- 

 rusal of the general reader, not only from the light it 

 throws upon the Norman invasion and upon the his- 



