2-1 S. VI. 13G., Aug. 7. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



109 



gaged in an office of one of the highest depart- 

 ments of the state, and having occasionally to call 

 at other offices, until I became known, then the 

 stiffness was thawed somewhat !) 



While on the subject of the Knights of Kerry, 

 I may as well place on your indelible pages the 

 following epitaph on a former knight, the monu- 

 ment on which it is inscribed forming (says a 

 local publication) part of a rickstand for a neigh- 

 bouring squire ! Smith, in his History of the 

 County, p. 177., says, this was "a handsome monu- 

 ment of black marble, with the inscription in gold 

 letters." Sic transit gloria ! 



" Immodicis brevis est istas, 



et rara senectus. 



H. S. E. 



Johannes FitzGerald, Eques Kerriensis ; 



Ex antiqua stirpe Equituni Kerriensium 



Oriundus, 



Suavitate ingenii, et integritate morura 



Eximius. 



Erat in ore venustas, 



In pectore benevolentia. 



In verbis fides, 



Candidas, facilis, jucundus, 



Quot notos tot habuit amicos, 



Iniraicum certe neniinem. 



Talis quum esset. Febri correptus 



Immature obiit . 



A. D. 1741. 



Hoc monumentum 



Charissimi mariti memoriaj sacrum' 



Margaretta conjux, mcerens posuit." 



Where is the first sentence to be found ? 



Simon Ward. 



Minav &uerlti. 



Precedency and Colonial Laius. — In a work 

 entitled A View nf the Constitution of the British 

 Colonies in North America and the West Indies, by 

 Anthony Stokes, Chief Justice of Georgia, Lon- 

 don, 8vo., 1783, is a table of precedency, in p. 

 190., said to be " compared and adjusted from the 

 several Acts and Statutes made and provided in 

 England for the Settlement of the Precedency of 

 Men and Women in America, by Joseph Edmond- 

 son, Mowbray Herald." 



If any of your colonial jurists or antiquarian 

 readers can refer me to any authority for the pre- 

 cedency in question, and particularly the several 

 Acts and Statutes referred to, I should be much 

 obliged. Edmondson printed a small duodecimo 

 of engraved plates, entitled Precedency, but there 

 is no such thing in it as the table printed in Mr. 

 Stokes's work. G. 



Cathedral- Service Tradition. — 



1. Why did one Petty Canon at the Abbey this 

 morning (July 25, 1858, St. James's Day, 8th 

 Sunday after Trinity), read the wrong first lesson, 

 i.e. 1 Kings xiii., instead of Ecdesiasticus xxi. ? 



2. Why did the other Petty omit to read the 



collect commemorating the Sunday and the week 

 following, after the collect for the day, i.e. St. 

 James's Day, had been read ? 



3. What possible tradition can justify the use 

 of a lesson, proper to a day, when that day is 7iot so 

 much as commemorated at the service ? 



4. How, with any approach to common sense, 

 not to speak of right ritualism, can a Sunday col' 

 led be tised through a weeh, when it has not been 

 used, even by way of commemoration, on the first 

 day of that week, i.e. the Sunday, itself? 



5. What customary, or book of tradition, is 

 there to instruct the Potties in the otherwise un- 

 written canon of their duties ? 



6. Even if the collect of the Sunday is used 

 when saint's day and Sunday occur, as it always 

 ought to be, is it right arbitrarily to mix up the 

 lessons of Sunday and saint's day together, wan- 

 tonly choosing this, and as wantonly rejecting 

 that? 



7. Ought not the lessons to follow the cele- 

 bration, not the commemoration ? i. e. the saint's 

 day, not the Sunday ? 



8. If one lesson may be taken and the other, the 

 right lesson, left out, what is to hinder the Petty 

 Canon from choosing a Sunday epistle while the 

 greater gun gives voice to the gospel for the saint's 

 day ? Jacob, 



The Critic's Pruning -knife. — 

 " When critic science first was known. 



Somewhere upon the Muses' ground 

 The pruning- kuife of wit was thro^vn. 



Not that which Aristarchus fouud ; 

 That had a stout and longer blade : 



'Twould at one blow cut otf a limb. 

 This kuife was delicately made, 



Not to dismember, but to trim. 

 With a soft harmless edge at top ; 



'Twas made like our prize -fighters' swords. 

 Pages and chapters 'twould not lop, 



But cut off syllables aud words. 

 Well did it wear, and might have worn 



Still man}' an age, and ne'er the worse ; 

 Till Bentley's hand its edge did turn 



On Milton's adamantine verse. 

 Warburton seized the blunted tool, 



Fitter for oyster-opening drab. 

 For critic use 'twas now too dull, 



But though it would not cut, 'twould stab. 

 Then Shakspeare bled with everj- friend 



That loved the bard : he threatened further ; 

 And God knows what had been the end, 



Had not Tom Edwards cried out murther. 

 Afirighted at the fearful word, 



Awhile he hid the felon steel. 

 Now shows it Blason, lends it Hurd ; 



And see what Gray and Cowley feel." 



The preceding verses are transcribed from a 

 copy which seems to have been made about fifty 

 years ago. They are without the author's name ; 

 perhaps some of your correspondents can state by 

 whom they were composed, and whether they 

 have been already printed ? Edwards died in 

 1757 : the third edition of Lis work, entitled 



