Sept. 20. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



211 



beacb, aspe, and sallow : of these aspe and ash 

 wei-e accounted the best ; the one ibr target- 

 shootint;, the other for war. The author of The 

 Field Book says : 



" That ail airo«' n-eigliing from twenty to four-and- 

 tweiity penny src'iglits, made of yew, was cunsidered by 

 archers tlie best tliat could be used." 



David Stevens. 



Godalming. 



The metliod of tryinp; and proving a bow is 

 stated by Ascham to be thus : 



" By shooting it in the fields, and sinking it with 

 dead heavy shafts ; looking where it comes most, and 

 providing for that place betimes, lest it pinch and so 

 fret. Wlien the bow has thus been shot in, and appears 

 to contain good shooting wood, it must be t iken to a 

 skilful workman, to be cut shorter, scraped, and dressed 

 fitter, and made to come circnlarly round ; and it 

 should be whipped at the ends, lest it snap in sunder 

 or fret sooner than the archer is aware of." 



It is calculated that an arrow may be shot 110 

 yards for every SOlbs. weight of the bow. 



As regards the length of the old English bow, 

 the statute 5th of Edward IV. cap. 4., runs thus : 



" That evpry Englishman, and Irishmen that dwell 

 with Englishmen and speak English, that he between 

 sixteen and sixty in age, shall have an English bow of 

 his own length." 



Ascham recommended for men of average 

 strength arrows made of birch, hornbeam, oak, and 

 ash. 



The foregoing is extracted from a work entitled 

 The English Bowman, by T. Roberts, 1801. 



I'UILOSOPHUS. 



her decease, portraits of her mother and her father-in- 

 law, Mr. Baskerville, were purchased by Mr. Knott of 

 Birmingham. Some of Mr. Huston's family and friends 

 who are still living, consider this likeness of Mr. Bas- 

 kerville as a most excellent and faithful resemblance. 

 It was taken by one Miller, an artist of considerable 

 eminence in the latter part of liaskerville's time. The 

 inquiries of my friend i\Ir. Grafton, of Park Grove, 

 near Birmingham, at once brought this painting into 

 notice : and at his solicitation JMr. Knott kindly per- 

 mitted Mr. Raven of Birmingham, an artist of much 

 celebrity, to copy it for my use and the embellishment 

 of this work; to which, I tliink, the united talents of 

 Mr. Craig and Mr. Lee have done ample justice." 



The portrait faces p. 310. of Mr. Hansard's book, 

 and there may be found an account, though some- 

 what different, of the exhumation alluded to by 

 Mk. St. Johns (Vol. iv., p. 123.), which took place 

 in May, 1821. Cranmoke. 



In answer to an inquirer I beg respectfully to 

 state that the body of the eminent printer now 

 reposes, as it has lor some years, in the vaults of 

 Christ Church in our town. William Coknisu. 



New Street, Birmingham. 



BASKERVILLE TUE PRINTER. 



(Vol. iv., pp. 40. 123.) 



Hansard's Typograpliia, i. 8vo. 1825, Preface, 

 p. xii — xiii. : 



" Of the mure modern portraits something remains 

 to be said, and particularly of that of B;iskerville. It 

 has been hitherto supposed that no likeness is extant 

 of this first promoter of fine printing, and author of 

 various improvements in the I'ypographic Art, as well 

 as in the arts connected with it. At the time when I 

 was collecting information for that part of my work in 

 which Mr. Buskerville is jjarticularly mentioned (p. 310. 

 et seq.), I thouglit it a good opportunity to make in- 

 (]uiry at Birmingham whether any portrait or likeness 

 of him remained ; for a long time the inquiry was 

 constantly answered in the negative, but at last it oc- 

 curred to a friend to make a search among the family 

 of the late Mrs. Baskerville, and he was successful. 

 ^Ir. Baskerville married the widow of a Mr. Eaves; 

 licr maiden name was Huston; she had two children 

 by her former husband, a son and a daughter : the latter 

 married lier first cousin, i\Ir. Josiah Huston, fornurly 

 a respectable druggist at Birmingliam, and slie sur- 

 vived her husband. At the sale of some eff.cts after 



Mazer Wood and Sin-eaters (Vol. iii., pp. 239. 

 288.). — The following extract from Hone's Year 

 Book, p. 858., will add to the explanation fur- 

 nished by S. S. S., and will also give an instance 

 of the singular practices which prevailed among 

 our ancestors : — 



" Among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British 

 Museum are st.atements in Aubrey's own handwriting 

 to this purport. In the county of Hereford was an 

 old custom at funerals, to hire poor people, who were 

 to take upon them the sins ofthe party deceased. One 

 of them (he was a long, lean, ugly, lamentable, poor 

 rascal), I remember, lived in a cottage on Hosse high- 

 way. The manner was, that when the corpse was 

 brought out ofthe house, and laid on the bier, a loaf 

 of bread was brought out, and delivered to the sin 

 cater, over the corpse, as also a mazard hotel of maple, 

 full of beer (which he was to drink up), and sixpence 

 in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him, 

 ipso ficto, all the sins of the defunct, and freed him or 

 her from walking after they were dead." 



Perhaps some of your readers may be able to 

 throw some light on this curious practice of sin- 

 eating, or on the existence of regular sin-eaters. 



E. n. B. 



Demerary. 



[Mr. Ellis, in his edition of Brande's Popular Anti- 

 quities, vol. ii. p. 155. 4to. has given a curious passage 

 from the Lansdowne AISS. concerning a sin-eater who 

 lived in Herefordshire, which has been quoted in tho 

 Gentleman's Mat/mine, vol. xcii. pt. 1. p. 2'i2.] 



"/I Posie of other Men's Flowers" (Vol. iv., 

 pp.58. 125.), — If D. Q. should succeed in finding 



