Qnd §, No 13., Mar, 29. 56. ] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
263 
year been paying addresses to a number of ladies. 
There was in the house at least a sackful of love- 
letters ; some, which I regret I did not copy, from 
the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, afterwards 
Mrs. Godwin. R. CarrurHers. 
Inverness. 
A Query about Elephants (2° S. i. 115.) —I 
cannot say what poets have reproduced this fallacy 
since Sir T. Browne’s exposure of it; I only know 
that Southey was not one of them. In the Curse 
of Kehama, the elephant no sooner spies the 
lovely Kailyal, than quite naturally, 
“ Reverent he kneels.” — Book xu. stanza xi. 
Sir T. Browne was not the first to expose this 
vulgar error, as J. E. T. seems to think. In the 
voyages of Cada Mosto, the Venetian, first pub- 
lished in 1509, and reprinted in 1613, an enter- 
taining narrative, which when it first appeared 
was probably as much read as the Pseudodozia 
itself, is the following passage. I quote from the 
translation in Kerr’s Collection of Voyages and 
Travels, vol. ii. p. 233. : 
“ Before my voyage to Africa I had been told that the 
elephant could not bend its knee, and slept standing; 
but this is an egregious falsehood, for the bending of their 
knees can be plainly perceived when they walk, and they 
certainly lie down and rise again like other animals.” 
It is remarkable that this traveller, while he cor- 
rects one error, commits another not less palpable 
regarding the same animal. He says: 
“ Of the large teeth, or rather tusks, each elephant has 
two in the lower jaw, the points of which turn down, 
whereas those of the wild boar are turned up.” 
This mistake as to the position of the elephant’s 
tusks seems to have been almost as prevalent, and 
as obstinately maintained, as the error before no- 
ticed. It was referred to and corrected in the 
yoyage to Guinea of Captain John Lok in 1554, 
printed in Hakluyt. Yet, if we may judge from 
a passage in a recent publication, this false opinion 
has continued to the present time. In the “ His- 
tory of Maritime and Inland Discovery,” in 
Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopedia (by Mr. Cooley, I 
believe), the writer, giving an account of Lok’s 
voyage, says : 
“Among the objects of curiosity found or expected 
along this strange coast, the elephant seems to have ex- 
cited the most interest in the English traders. They 
brought with them the head ofone . . . .” “Yetit 
may be doubted whether the author of the narrative (who 
was also the pilot of the voyage) ever saw an elephant, 
since he thinks fit to inform us that, ‘The great teeth or 
tusks grow on the upper jaw downward, and not in the 
lower jaw upwards, as the painters and arras-workers 
represent them.’ ” — Vol. ii. p. 225. ; 
On reading this ohe feels tempted to ask whether 
Mr. Cooley “ ever saw an elephant.” F, 
The Champneys Arms (2° §. i. 133.) — The 
families in Devonshire which bore arms of similar 
character to those described, viz. a lion rampant 
within a border engrailed, were the following : 
Champneys — for which see the Visitation of 
1620, Pole’s Collections for Devon, Lysons, Rob- 
son, Burke, the Guildhall at Exeter, and an in- 
scription in Yarnescombe church. 
Harpur — for which see the same Visitation, 
Robson, Burke, and the impalement on a monu- 
ment in Ilfracombe church, where there are several 
inscriptions to the family of Bowen. 
Pomeroy or Pomeray — for which the authori- 
ties in print and otherwise are too numerous to be 
here cited. J.D.S. 
Systems of Short-hand (2°45 §. i. 152.) — There 
is rather a curious work, entitled — 
“Polygraphy, or Short Hand made easy to the Meanest 
Capacity: being an universal Character fitted to all 
Languages, which may be learned by this Book without 
the Help of a Master. By the Inventor, Aulay Macau- 
lay. 18mo. London: 1756.” 
It is well worthy of the notice of your corre- 
spondent. PiGaSs 
Edinburgh. 
The Two-headed Eagle (2°98. i. 197.) — W. 
S. W. has read my Note incorrectly if he supposes 
I stated that ‘such an eagle was the ensign of the 
ancient kings of Persia and Babylon” (p. 197.). 
My words were “ The device of the eagle was the 
ensign of the ancient kings of Persia and of 
Babylon,” (p. 138.) CrYReEP. 
Bodies of the Excommunicated incapable of Cor- 
ruption (274 8. 1. 194.) — Dr. Cowel in his Law 
Dictionary or Interpreter (folio 1727), after giving 
Panormitan’s definition of excommunication, and 
the old form of an excommunication, says : 
“ By the ecclesiastical laws an excommunicated person 
was not to be buried, but the body was usually flung into 
a pit, or covered with a heap of stones, which was called 
Imblocare corpus. Hoveden, pp. 773. 796. 801. 810.; Or- 
dericus Vitalis, lib. xiii.p. 908. And it was a common 
opinion that though the body was exposed to the weather, 
yet it never perished, but remained whole, as a terrible 
example to all posterity. Jat. Paris, p. 464.” 
W. iH. W. T. 
Somerset House. 
The Tithe Impropriators of Benefices in Ca- 
pitular Patronage (2°78. i.173.) —IL think that 
the Rry. C. H. Davis will find the most accurate 
information on this subject in Table No, IV. ap- 
pended to the Report of the Commissioners ap- 
pointed by His Majesty to inquire into the Ecclesias- 
tical Revenues of England and Wales. London: 
1835. Folio, ‘This work contains in upwards of 
1000 pages an immense amount of information 
nicely arranged in a tabular form, to which the 
Clergy List and other books are greatly indebted. 
W. HU. W. Tithe-ridge. 
