2"<» S. IX. Mas 12. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



367 



gentleman before alluded to, " upon very easy- 

 terms," together with full power to sue for the 

 same. 



Will some correspondent tell me if this was 

 ever enforced, or give any information on the 

 subject? G. W. M. 



["The gentleman whose name was privately mentioned 

 to Mr. Jones of London " seems to have been a greater 

 man than Lord Chesterfield, for whereas that distin- 

 guished Peer only took away " eleven days " from the 

 Calendar and his country, Mr. Jones's friend appears to 

 have added a whole regnal year to the reign of Edward I. 

 Was the gentleman " whose name was privately men- 

 tioned to the chairman," and who had " purchased upon 

 very easy terms " " the rights of the Crown to all future 

 penalties," Mr. Smith of London ? Mr. Smith of London 

 is the gentleman, we believe, to whom the rights of the 

 Crown are generally sold. The advertisement is either a 

 hoax, or probably a sly hit very well understood by the 

 men of Birmingham at the time of its publication.] 



Old Etchings. — A set of old etchings, sub- 

 ject historical, bears the monogram t v t, the 

 v interlaced with the other letters. To what 

 artist can these engravings be ascribed ? I have 

 heard the name, but it has escaped me. Are 

 original engravings by Rembrandt often to be 

 met with in the market ? C. Le Poer Kennedy. 



Koff. 



[The monogram is that of Theodore van Thulden, one 

 of the most distinguished disciples of the school of Ru- 

 bens. He died in 1676, aged sixty-nine.] 



J. F. Bryant. — There is a volume of Poems, 

 by J. F. Bryant, 8vo. 1787, containing his Auto- 

 biography. Can you give me any information 

 regarding him ? X. 



[John Frederick Bryant was born in Market Street, 

 Westminster, 22nd Nov. 1753, and bred a tobacco-pipe 

 maker. In 1787, by the liberality of Sir Archibald 

 Maodonald, he set up as stationer and printseller at No. 

 35. Long Acre, London ; but not succeeding, obtained a 

 place in the Excise, which his ill health obliged him to 

 give up. He died in March, 1791. The principal por- 

 tion of his Autobiography has been reprinted by Dr. 

 Southey in John Jones's Attempts in Verse, pp. 135 — 162., 

 cd. 1831. Bryant's volume of collected Verses probably 

 contains all his pieces considered worthy of publication.! 



Crypt under Gerrahd's Hall. — I have a 

 beautiful woodcut of this discovery, but no par- 

 ticulars. Will any of the readers of " N. & Q." 

 be pleased to say if they have learnt any history 

 of it? J. W. 



[An account and description of Gerrard's Hall is given 

 in Wilkinson's Ijona\mi Illustrata, i. 100. ; and in Beau- 

 foy's London Tradesmen's Tokens, p. 22. edit. 1855, with 

 plate. In 1852, at the request of the proprietors of the 

 Crystal Palace, the stones of the Crypt were all num- 

 bered and forwarded to Sydenham for re-erection on the 

 grounds attached to the palace; but after remaining 

 there for some time, the materials were used for building 

 the present water-towers. Thus all traces of this ve- 

 nerable relic of antiquity is now lost to the public. An 

 exact model of it by Day is deposited in the Guildhall 

 Library.] 



Hell Fire Club. — Can you inform me where 

 I may find an account of " The Hell Fire Club ?" 

 a club which existed, I believe,' in Horace Wal- 

 pole's time, and belonged to either Berkshire or 

 Buckinghamshire. John Maurice. 



[There was published in 1721, a pamphlet entitled T/ie 

 Hell Fire Chcb, kept by a Society of Blasphemers. A Satyr, 

 most humbly inscribed to the fit. Hon. Thomas Baron 

 Macclesfield, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. 

 With the King's Order in Council for suppressing Im- 

 morality and Prophaneness. 8vo. It only condemns in 

 general terms the diabolical profaneness, immorality, and 

 debauchery, of its meetings. There were three of thesa 

 impious associations in London, to which upwards of 

 forty persons of quality of both sexes belonged. They met 

 at Somerset House, at a house in Westminster, and at 

 another in Conduit Street, Hanover Square. They assumed 

 the names of the patriarchs, prophets, and martyrs, in 

 derision ; and ridiculed at their meetings the doctrine of 

 the Trinity, and the mysteries of the Christian religion. 

 See 7 Geo. L, 1721. But our correspondent's Query refers 

 probably to The Hell Fire Club, or Monks of Medmenham 

 Abbey, of which Sir F. Dashwood, Wilkes, Paul White- 

 head, &c. were among the most conspicuous members.] 



Cox's Mechanism. — In The New Foundling 

 Hospital for Wit, ii. 42., edit. 1784, we read, — 



" So when great Cox, at his mechanic call, 

 Bids orient pearls from golden dragons fall, 

 Each little dragonet, with brazen grin, 

 Gapes for the precious prize, and gulps it in. 

 Yet when we peep behind the magic scene, 

 One master-wheel directs the whole machine ; 

 The self-same pearls, in nice gradation, all, 

 Around one common centre, rise and fall, &c." 



W. Mason ? 



Who was Cox ? Where was his piece of me- 

 chanism exhibited, and what [became of it after 

 it had ceased to draw ? 



Was it taken to pieces, or does it still exist in 

 some cabinet of curiosities ? I fancy I remember 

 seeing something very like it, when I was a child, 

 at a country fair. W. D. 



[Mr. Cox was an ingenious jeweller residing in Shoe 

 Lane, Fleet Street, who obtained an Act of Parliament in 

 1773, to enable him to dispose of his Museum by way of 

 lottery. See his Descriptive Inventory of the several Ex- 

 quisite and Magnificent Pieces of Mechanism and Jewellery, 

 4to. 177-i. The lines quoted above appear to refer to piece 

 the twenty-third, described at p. 33. of his Inventory.'] 



fte«lte4. 



ALLEGED INTERPOLATIONS IN THE "TE 

 DEUM." 



(2 nd S. viii. 352.; ix. 31. 265.) 



I perceive that this question has been taken up 

 by two of your correspondents, Mr. Boys and 

 Mr. Jebb. I can assure the former that I never 

 saw anything offensive in the versicles, which had 

 proved offending to the critical sense of some un- 

 known person, whose local habitation and name I 

 was in hopes of discovering by the aid of " N. & 

 Q." The question appears to have been firs.t 



