436 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 110. 



" Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause 

 good or evil times, and which have much veneration, hut 

 no rest." — Bacon, Essai/ LiO., " Of Empire." 

 '* Kings are like stais — they rise and set — they have 

 The worship of the world, but no repose." 



Slielley, Hellas, 



The following are not exactly parallel, but being 

 "in pari materia," are sufficiently curious and 

 alike to mei'it annotation :, 



" But tlie common form [of urns] with necks was a 

 proper figure, making our last bed like our iirst: nor 

 much unlike the urns of our nativity, while we lay in 

 the nether part of the earth, and inward vault of our 

 microcosm." — Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, p. ^21. 

 (St. John's edit.) 



" The babe is at peace within the womb, 

 The corpse is at rest within the tomb. 

 We begin in wliat we end." — Shelley, Fragments. 



" The grave is as the womb of the earth." — Pearson 

 Qn the Creed, p. 1G2. 



Haert Leeoy Tempx-e. 



rOLK iOEE. 



Death Omen hij Bees. — It is not wonderful 

 tliat the remarkable instincts and intelligence of 

 the honey-bee, its domesticity, and the strong 

 affinity of its social habits to human institutions, 

 should make it the object of many superstitious 

 observances, and I think it probable that if en- 

 quiry be made of that class of people amongst 

 whom such branches of fi. Ik-lore are most fre- 

 quently found lingering, other prejudices re- 

 specting bees than those lately noticed by some of 

 your correspondents might be discovered. 



If the practice of making the bees acquainted 

 with the mortuary events of the family ever pre- 

 vailed in that part of Sussex from whence I write, 

 I think it must be worn out, for I have not heard 

 of it. But there is another superstition, also ap- 

 pertaining to raortNlity, which is very generally 

 received, and which is probably only one of a 

 series of such, and amongst which it is probable 

 the practice before-mentioned might once be 

 reckoned. Some years since the wife of a re- 

 spectable cottager in my neighbourhood died in 

 childbed. Calling on tlie widower soon after, I 

 found that although deeply de[)loring a loss which 

 left him several niotherloss cliildren, he spoke 

 calmly of the fatal termination of the poor woman's 

 illness, as an inevitable and foregone conclusion. 

 On being pressed for an explanation of these sen- 

 timents, I discovered that both him and his poor 

 wife bad been "warned" of the coming event by 

 her going into tlie garden a fortnight before her 

 confinement, and discovering that their bees, in 

 the act of swarming, liad made choice of a dead 

 hedge xtake for their scttliiig-pluce. This is ge- 

 nerally considered as an infaird)le sign of a death 

 in thefainili/, and in her situation it is no wonder 



that the poor woman sliould take the warning to 

 herself; affording, too, another example of how a 

 prediction may assist in working out its own ful- 

 filment. 



Seeing that another P-urveyor to your useful 

 P-ages has assumed the same signature as myself, 

 for the i'uture permit me, ibr contradistinction, to 

 be — 



" J. P. P.," but not " Cleek of this Paeish." 



TDE CAXTON COFFEE. 



Did Caxton ever print his name Caustok or 

 Cawston, or is it ever found so spelt '? He tells 

 us, in the preface or prologue to his RecuyeU of the 

 Historyes of Troye, " that I was born and learned 

 mine English in Kent, in the \\''eald." The only 

 locality in Kent which I can discover at all ap- 

 proximating in its name to Caxton, is Causton, a 

 manor in the parish of Iladlow, in the Weald of 

 Kent, lield of the honor of Clare. This manor 

 was, in the fourteenth century, possessed by the 

 family of "De Causton;" how and when it passed 

 from them I have been unable to ascertain with 

 certainty, possibly not long before the birth of 

 William Caxton. In 1436, Beatrice Bettenhani 

 entails it on the right heirs of her son, Thomas 

 Towne, by which entail it came into the family of 

 Watton of Addington Place, who owned it in 

 1446. The honor of Clare, and the forest, &c. of 

 South Frith, closely adjoining Causton, descended 

 through one of tlie co-heiresses of Gilbert de 

 Clare to Richard Duke of Yorlv, father of the 

 Duchess of Burgundy and Edward IV., whose 

 widow, Cicely, continued in possession till her 

 death. I name the owners of the manor of 

 Causton, and the chief lords of whom it was held, 

 as affording, ]ierhaps, some cine to identification, 

 should any of your correspondents be inclined to 

 take up the incpiiry. I need hardly add that the 

 difference between the two names of Causton and 

 Caxton is of little moment should other circum- 

 stances favour the chances that Causton in Hadlow 

 may claim the honour of having given birth to our 

 illustrious printer, or that he was descended from 

 the owners of that manor. L. B. L. 



Mental Almanac (Vol. iv., p. 203.). —The ad- 

 ditive number for this month of December, is 6. 

 Hence next Sundav is 1+6 = the 7th of De- 

 cember. Christmas Day will be 25, less 20, that 

 is 5, or Thursday. A. E. B. 



Corruptions recogni.ied as achnoivledged \Vo7-ds 

 (Vol. iv., p. 313.). — The fiist person who settled 

 in Honduras was the celebrated buccaneer Wallis, 

 in 1638, from whom the principal town and river 

 were named. The Spaniards called it Valis; and 



