2'"i S. VI. 151., Nov. 20. 58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



411 



Woodhonse Family of Aymstrey and Aramston 

 {King's Caple), Herefordshire. — Note from Gen- 

 heman's Mag., Aug. 1792: — John Woodhouse 

 died at Yatton Court ; he left a brother and two 

 or three sons. The name of his brother, who was 

 a baiTister-at-law (as he himself was for more than 

 thirty years, and particularly engaged in the Lon- 

 don Hospital affairs). A pedigree of the whole or 

 any part of his family, would much oblige. 



J. F. C. 



Spynie Palace. — Can any of your readers give 

 me any particulars regarding Spynie Palace, in 

 Morayshire ? The derivation of the name Spynie, 

 and also of Lossie, the name of the river which 

 runs past Elgin ? I am also desirous of informa- 

 tion as to the founding and founders of the palace. 

 Whether it was originally founded by the Celts or 

 Picts ? and if so, what the evidences ? Whether 

 there was a village on the southern shore of the 

 Loch ? and if so, what the character of the houses, 

 and when did it fall into decay ? and whether the 

 Danes had a settlement there ? 



There is a belief in the neighbourhood that 

 Queen Mary slept a night in the palace. Is there 

 any ground for such belief? And, generally, 

 where can I find the best description of, and the 

 most minute details regarding this ancient strong- 

 hold of the MoriSs ? Albyn. 



Edinburgh. 



^^ Ancient Devotional Poetry." — About twelve 

 years ago an interesting volume with this title 

 was published by the Religious Tract Society, 

 being the reprint of a small vellum manuscript of 

 the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. It stood 

 No. 186. in the Sale Catalogue of Mr. Bright's 

 MSS. ; and at the period above named was in the 

 possession of the late George Stokes, Esq., who 

 sought the assistance of various literary gentle- 

 men to ascertain the name of the author or au- 

 thors of the short poems which formed the collec- 

 tion. No one, however, at that time could suggest 

 this, or recognise the poems as having before ap- 

 peared in print. Have the researches of the last 

 few years thrown any light upon this subject ? 



S. M. S. 



Was there an Irish Alphabet ante St. Patrick ? — 

 This is an interesting question, which probably 

 some of the Irish readers of " N. & Q." will an- 

 swer. 



The Ogham character, which is of very great 

 antiquity, may afford a presumption that another 

 system of letters coexisted with it; or it may 

 itself have developed into another system of 

 greater facility and expansion : and the Roman 

 cursive band, which is the alphabet used in all 

 existing Jrish MSS. (as it is in the Anglo- 

 Saxon MSS.), may, for ail that is known, have 

 been introduced into Ireland through its conti- 

 nental relations ante St. Patrick. 



Mr. Webb, in his Antiquities of Ireland (p. 104.), 

 observes : — 



" The old Irish character may have been superseded 

 through the influence of the clergy, to whom that used 

 by the Romans would have been more acceptable. But 

 the general use of these foreign elements is no sufficient 

 proof that characters peculiar to the Irish never existed." 



Irish poems and records of great antiquity are 

 averred to exist, — in fact, their contents are pub- 

 lished, as we know. But their authenticity and 

 their date are conditioned upon the existence of a 

 contemporaneous alphabet that would fix and 

 detain their evanescence. For a perpetuation of 

 such compositions ex ore is simply impossible, and 

 the assertion is ridiculous. 



It is, however, highly probable, a priori, that 

 such a native alphabet did exist ; and was the 

 means, as of fixing, so of transmitting, the events 

 of an early age, and the beautiful thoughts of its 

 poets. For none now contests that Ireland en- 

 joyed, even in its primasval period, a state of 

 native and unborrowed art and civilisation which 

 Rome never gave by reflection or contact, and 

 never enforced by her arms, but which was the 

 developed product of Ireland's own Indo-Ger- 

 manic traditions, brought by her from the original 

 seat (wheresoever that was) of the greatest of the 

 human families. H. C. C. 



Coote Family. — Blomefield says {Norfolk, 1739, 

 vol. i. fo. 163. n. i), "Mr. Martin of Palgrave hath 

 the most beautifull pedigree of this family that I 

 ever saw. Mr. Neve's Collections relating to it 

 are very large." Where, and how, may either of 

 these be seen ? I should like to see a reply to a 

 former Query respecting this family (P' S. xii. 

 185.). Ache. 



Coleridge on " Hooker's Definition of Law." — 

 " That which doth assign unto each thing the kind — 

 that wl.ich doth moderate the force and power — that 

 which doth appoint the form and measure of working — 

 the same we term law." — Ecd. Polity, b. i. c. 2. 



In the 3rd volume of Coleridge's Literary Re- 

 mains (p. 29.), this definition of law is censured, 

 and, I think, unjustly, as " asserting the antece- 

 dence of a thing to ' its kind,' — that is, to its essen- 

 tial characters." Coleridge afBrms that, " literally 

 and grammatically" interpreted. Hooker's words 

 affirm this. With all respect for this great critic on 

 the force and meaning of terms, and fully agree- 

 ing in all his subsequent argument — as to the 

 order in which the " creative idea" and the " phe- 

 nomenal product" lie to each other — I think that 

 he mistakes Hooker's words : that Hooker's mean- 

 ing is identical with his own, and that we owe a 

 very interesting note of Coleridge's to a piece of 

 ultra- cvitXc-A nicety on his part. May I refer 

 some of your acute readers to the passage in the 

 Literary Remains for their judgment and opinion? 



A. B. R. 

 Belmont. 



