  Polidus.—Can you tell me where the scene of the following play is laid, and the names of the dramatis personÆ?—Polidus, a Tragedy, by Moses Browne, 8vo. 1723. The author of this play, who was born in 1703, and died in 1787, was for some time the curate of the Rev. James Harvey, author of Meditations, and other works. Mr. Browne was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Olney, in Bucks, where the Rev. John Newton was his curate for several years. Glasgow. [Moses Browne was subsequently Chaplain of Morden College. The piscatory brotherhood are indebted to him for having revived Walton's Complete Angler, after it had lain dormant for upwards of eighty years; and this task, he tells us, was undertaken at the request of Dr. Samuel Johnson.—Ed.] St. Paul's Epistles to Seneca.—It has frequently been affirmed that Seneca became, in the last year of his life, a convert to Christianity—his canonisation by St. Jerome is undoubted and there was stated to be a MS. of the above epistle in Merton College. May I ask any of your contributors whether this MS. has ever been printed? Hull. Meaning of "folowed."—Inside the cover of an old Bible and Prayer-Book, bound in one quarto, Robert Barker, 1611, is the following inscription:
An entry of his marriage with his first wife, Elizabeth Sutton, 1704, is on the cover at the beginning of the book. Can any one of your correspondents enlighten me as to the meaning of the word folowed? The letters are legibly written, and there can be no mistake about any of them. Is it an expression derived from the Puritans? —— Rectory, Hereford. Roman Catholic Registers.—Can any of your correspondents inform me where I can find the registers of births, marriages, and burials of Roman Catholic families living in Berks and Oxon in the reigns of Charles I. and II.? St. Alban's Day.—At p. 340. of the Chronicles of London Bridge, it is stated that Cardinal Fisher was executed on St. Alban's day, June 22, 1535. How is it that in our present calendar St. Alban's day is not June 22, but June 17? On looking back I see Sir W.C. Trevelyan, in our first volume, inquired the reason of this change, but I do not find any reply to his Query. Meigham, the London Printer.—J.A.S. is desirous of obtaining information regarding a printer in London, of the name of Meigham, about 1745-8, or to be directed where to search for such. Meigham conversed, or corresponded, about Catholicity with Dr. Hay, the then vicar-apostolic of the Eastern District of Scotland. Adamsoniana.—Is anything known of the family of Michel Adamson, or Michael Adamson, the eminent naturalist and voyager to Senegal, who, though born in France, is said to have been of Scottish extraction? Where is the following poem to be met with?
Allow me to repeat a Query which was inserted in Vol. ii., p. 297., asking for any information respecting J. Adamson, the author of a rare tract on Edward II.'s reign, published in 1732, in defence of the Walpole administration from the attacks of the Craftsman. Who was John Adamson, author of Fanny of Caernarvon, or the War of the Roses, an historical romance, of which a French translation was published in 1809 at Paris, in 2 vols. 12mo.? Canker or Brier Rose.—Can any of your correspondents tell me why the brier or dog-rose was anciently called the canker? The brier is particularly free from the disease so called, and the name does not appear to have been used in disparagement. In Shakspeare's beautiful Sonnet LIV. are the lines: "The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses." In King Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 3., Hotspur says: "Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in times to come, That men of your nobility and power, Did 'gage them both in an unjust behalf, (As both of you, God pardon it! have done) To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose And plant this thorn, this canker Bolingbroke." And again, Don John, in Much Ado about Nothing, Act I. Sc. 3.:
"Short red, god red."—In Roger of Wendover's Chronicle, Bohn's edition, vol. i. p. 345., is a story how Walchere, Bishop of Durham, was slain in his county court, A.D. 1075, by the suitors on the instigation of one who cried out in his native tongue "Schort red, god red, slea ye the bischop." Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather (vol. i. p. 85.), tells the same story of a Bishop of Caithness who was burned for enforcing tithes in the reign of Alexander II. of Scotland (about 1220). What authority is there for the latter story? Did Sir Walter confound the two bishops, or did he add the circumstance for the amusement of Hugh Littlejohn? Was this the formula usually adopted on such occasions? How came the Caithness people to speak such good Saxon? Overseers of Wills.—I have copies of several wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in Lepel's Regiment.—Can your correspondent Mr. Arthur Hamilton inform me what is the regiment known in 1707 as Lepel's Regiment? It was a cavalry regiment, I believe. Vincent Family.—Can any of your correspondents give me any information respecting the descendants of Francis Vincent, grandson of Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix Pursuivant at Arms. His sister Elizabeth has, or had very lately, a representative in the person of Francis Offley Edmunds of Worsborough, Yorkshire; but nowhere have I been able to obtain any information respecting himself. If you could give any information on this subject, you would much oblige Passage in the First Part of Faust.— "Faust. Es Klopft? Herein! Wer will mich wieder plagen? Mephistopheles. Ich bin's. Faust. Herein! Mephis. Du musst es dreimal sagen. Faust. Herein denn! Mephis. So gefÄllst du mir." Why must he say it three times? Is this a superstition that can be traced in other countries than Germany? In Horace we have Diana thus addressed: "Ter vocata audis, adimisque letho, Diva triformis."—Lib. iii. Ode 22. But she is there the benign Diana, not Hecate. Are we to understand the passage to mean, that the number three has a magical influence in summoning spirits; or to teach that the power of evil is so overruled by a higher Power, that he cannot approach to begin his work of temptation and ruin unless he be, not once merely, or twice, but three times, called by the free will and act of the individual who is surrendering himself to his influence? The subject seems worthy of elucidation. Tor-Mohun. Lady Anne Gray.—Who was the "Lady Anne Gray," or "Lady Gray," who was one of the attendants on Queen Elizabeth when princess, and is mentioned first in Sir John Harrington's poem in praise of her ladies? Continental Brasses.—At a recent meeting of the ArchÆological Institute, Mr. Nesbitt exhibited rubbings of some fine brasses at Bamberg, Naumberg, Meissen, and Erfurt. Mr. Nesbitt would confer a favour on the readers of "N. & Q." by stating the names and dates of those sepulchral memorials, and the churches from which he obtained the rubbings, and thus aid in carrying out Mr. W. Sparrow Simpson's excellent suggestion for obtaining a complete list of monumental brasses on the Continent. Peter Beaver.—In the early part of the last century, a gentleman named Peter Beaver, whose daughter was married in 1739 to Latham Blacker, Esq., of Rathescar, lived in the old and fashionable town of Drogheda. Can any one inform me as to the year of his death, and whether he left a son? The name has disappeared in Drogheda. I would likewise be glad to know the origin of the name; and, if it be a corruption of Beauvoir, at what time, and for what reason, was it changed? The crest is the animal of the same name. Cremonas.—Can any of your numerous correspondents kindly supply me with a list of the earliest and the latest of the instruments of each of the famous cremona makers? Such a list would be a valuable contribution to "N. & Q." Mr. Dubourg's work on the Violin, excellent as it is in many respects, contains but a meagre account of the instrument itself, and is sadly deficient on the subject of my Query. May I ask him, and I have reason for so doing, on what authority he gives 1664 as the year of the birth of Antonius Stradivarius, in his last edition? Cranmer and Calvin.—In the Christian Observer for March 1827 (No. 303. p. 150.) it is stated that the late Rev. T. Brock, of Guernsey, had been assured by an eminent scholar of Geneva, afterwards a clergyman in our church, that he had met with, in a public library at Geneva, a printed correspondence in Latin between Archbishop Cranmer and Calvin, in which the latter forewarned the former, that though he perfectly understood the meaning of the baptismal service, yet "the time would come when" it "would be misconceived, and received as implying that baptism absolutely conveyed regeneration;" and that Cranmer replied, "that it is not possible such a construction can be put upon the passage, the church having sufficiently explained her meaning in the Articles and elsewhere." I have heard that search was made for these documents by M. D'AubignÉ and others, but without success; one of the reports being, that "the documents had been apparently cut out." Mr. Brock's informant, I hear, was a Rev. Marc De Joux, who afterwards became an Irvingite, left Guernsey, and went to the Mauritius, where it is believed he still resides. With the theological question I wish not here to meddle, or to express an opinion. But I should be glad if you will kindly permit me to inquire whether any of your readers can give any information as to the existence of the supposed "printed" correspondence |
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