478 



NOTES AND QUERIES. C2n<« s. Vi. 154., Dec. u. '58. 



Mortar, how formerly made : Cross Week. — 

 Among the numerous conjectures how the excel- 

 lent mortar of ancient buildings was made, I do 

 not think it has ever been suggested that articles 

 so expensive as beer and eggs entered largely into 

 the composition ; yet, from the following items in 

 an account for repairing the spire of Newark 

 church, such appears to have been the case : — 



" The -whole charges for pointinge the Steple to the 

 Battlements, donne and Begonne in Easter weke and 

 ended the weke before Crosse weke in the yere of our 

 Lord a Thousand five hundreth seventye-one, and in the 

 thirtenth yere of the Reign of our Sovereign Ladye 

 Queue Elizabeth, and in the time of M"" John Brignell, 

 their Alderman : — 



£ s.d. 

 " Item, one grette Rope for the Cradell pully - 15 

 Item, 6 Strike of Malte to make Worte to 



blende with the lyme and temper the same 7 2 

 Item, 7 quarter lyme - - - - -040 

 Item, three hundreth and a halfe eiggs, to 



temper the same lyme with - - - 4 8 

 Item, a load of Sand and Smithe come - - 1 C 

 Item, a Rope to draw up the Cradell with - 1 6 

 Item, for a Rope making - - - - 3 4 

 Item, paid to the Mason for Workmanship of 



the same Steple 40G 



Item, given him in rewarde bezydes his waiges 11 8 

 Item, for bruing the Malte - - - - 1 2 

 Item, paid to his laborer for 27 daises - - 13 G 

 Item, for Southeringe the wethercoke - - 3 4 



« Summa totalis £ 7 7 9." 



This account is published in The Midland Coun- 

 ties Historical Collector, vol. i. p. 263. Other ob- 

 servations arise out of this account. In the first 

 place it is evident that no scaffolding was used, 

 but only a cradle and ropes ; secondly, what is 

 meant by "Crosse week" ? which seems to have 

 occurred about five-and-thirty days after Easter 

 week, as the labourer was paid for twenty-seven 

 days' work which was begun in Easter week and 

 finished the week before Cross week. 



Eden Warwick. 



" Church of the People : English Episcopate." 

 — I took up the August No. of this work the other 

 day at a friend's house, and was surprised to find 

 so many mistakes in the only two pages upon 

 which I had time to make remarks, 255. and 256., 

 relating to the sees of Gloucester and Ripon. 

 Under the former it is stated that Bishop Hunt- 

 ingford was translated to Hereford, July 5, 1805 ; 

 the year should have been 1815. Bishop Bethel's 

 translations are inverted : he yn&ni first to Exeter, 

 and afterwards to Bangor (where he now is), and 

 not to Bangor and Exeter. 



Bishop Monk's death, June 6, 1856, should 

 have been mentioned, otherwise the cause of va- 

 cancy in the see at that time does not appear. 

 Bishop Baring is made Rector of All Souls, Lang- 

 ham Place, in the year 1 147. 



But at Ripon the inaccuracies are greater, and 

 not so apparent. Under the account of Bishop 



Longley, which occupies three lines, there are as 

 many mistakes. His name is spelt Langley; he 

 is stated to have taken his D.D. degree April 30, 

 1839, instead of in 1829 ; his translation to Dur- 

 ham is dated November 18, 1855, instead of No- 

 vember 21, 1856. Bishop Bickersteth's consecra- 

 tion is made to follow the same error ; it took 

 place Jan. 18, 1857, and not in 1856. 



The worthy editor of this new list of the Eng- 

 lish Episcopate should really be more particular ; 

 indeed, unless his work be more correct than 

 those on the same subject which have preceded 

 it, I scarcely imagine that it is at all needed, 

 more especially if inaccuracies are to be multi- 

 plied. Patoncb. 



^xxtxiti. 



MATERIALS OP FOXE S BOOK OF MAHTYRS. 



It is stated in the Biographia Britannica, in regard 

 to the formation of that great work. The Acts and 

 Monuments of the Church, commonly called Foxe's 

 Book of Martyrs, that Dr. Grindal " advised Mr. 

 Fox at first only to print separately the acts of 

 some particular men, of whom any sure and au- 

 thentic memoirs came to hand, till materials for a 

 more complete History of the Martyrs and their 

 persecutions and sufferings could be obtained. 

 In pursuance of this advice Mr. Fox published at 

 Basil diverse histories of the English Bishops and 

 Divines in single pieces, soon after their respec- 

 tive sufferings and martyrdom." The first part 

 of this statement is authenticated by Grindal's 

 letters to Foxe, which are included in the arch- 

 bishop's Works printed for the Parker Society, 

 and the whole is derived from Strype's Life of 

 Grindal, pp. 17. 21. ; but what were the " diverse 

 histories in single pieces " that Strype states Foxe 

 "at sundry times" to have published at Basle? 

 Anything relating to Cranmer, or Ridley, or 

 Hooper, or Philpot ? I suspect that Strype pre- 

 sumed that such publications were issued, because 

 Grindal's letters show that they were contem- 

 plated ; but that he had no proof of their existence. 

 Should any such productions now exist they 

 would be curious, not only in a literary point of 

 view, but as historical documents which should be 

 compared with the same matters as afterwards 

 incorporated in Foxe's Actes and Monuments. 



John Godgh Nichols. 



Inscription on a Statue of Homer. — An inscrip- 

 tion on a statue of Homer runs thus : — 



" Impia res meliori inter sese mala." 



Can any one of your readers tell me the sense 

 of the words, and what they have to do with Ho- 



