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ST. PAUL'S CLOCK STRIKING THIRTEEN. (1st S. i. 198. 449.; 2nd S. vi. 490.) S. P. repeats a Query: Is the alleged fact mechanically possible? I apprehend it to be not only possible, but probable. I have never seen St. Paul's clock; but as far as I know, all turret clocks, as well as all chamber clocks which strike the hours, whether they are spring-clocks or clocks with weights, consist of what clockmakers call two parts. Those turret clocks which strike quarters are three part clocks; but the chamber clocks which strike the half-hours, as most French clocks do, are still only two part clocks. Most of your readers probably know little about clock-work; but they may have observed that all striking clocks have two spindles for winding; one of these is for the going part which turns the hands, and is connected with and regulated by the pendulum (or balance spring). Every time that the minutehand comes to 12, it raises a catch connected with the striking part (which has been standing still for the previous 60 minutes), and the striking work then makes as many strokes on the bell (or spring gong) as the space between the notch which the catch has left and the next notch allows.

When the catch falls into the next notch, it again stops the striking work till the minute reaches 12 again an hour afterwards. Now if the catch be stiff, so as not to fall into the notch, or the notch be worn so as not to hold it, the clock will strike on till the catch does hold, which may be after the next hour (striking two only together), or after any number of hours, or till the striking work is run down, which, when it happens in a fourteen-day clock, makes a considerable sensation: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12 =78, and 78 x 30=2340, the number of strokes in 15 times 24 hours. If a clock strike midnight and the succeeding hour together, there is 13 at once, and very simply: then, unless corrected, it would strike 2 at 1, 3 at 2, and so on. I have a clock at this moment that always strikes 7 (I think it is), and the following half-hour together at 7; then, at half-past 7, it strikes 8, and so on; but gets, of course, half an hour wrong in every 12 hours, one hour in every day. No doubt this is from the wear of one particular notch. If the story of St. Paul's clock be true, and it only happened once, it must have been from stiffness or some mechanical obstacles. I should apprehend that it is questionable how far St. Paul's clock can be heard at all at Windsor. I believe the great bell when tolled has been heard there.

I. P. O.

The mechanical possibility of a turret clock striking thirteen successive strokes would materially depend upon the particular construction of the striking work. Till within a comparatively recent period church clocks were constructed upon

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In 1823, when the French army, preparing to invade Spain, was collected at the foot of the Pyrenees, and called Le Cordon Sanitaire, a song with that title obtained considerable popularity. It was afterwards avowed by Beranger, and is to be found in the Brussels edition of his Works, iii. 44. Several English versions appeared. The lines cited by E. A. E. are from an imitation called Le Cordon Salutaire, which was in the newspapers, but I do not know where to find it. I offer the following copy, should no one send a better it is from memory only, and, I have no doubt, inaccurate:

"Le Cordon Salutaire.

"A parrot in the Place Vendôme,

Perched on the pillar, loudly cried, Come round me, brother Frenchmen, come, I've much to tell you wish to hide. "You're but a fluttering fickle set,

Good deeds when past you've soon forgot. Mark me, the way true fame to get, Is to be wise, and you are not. "You prate and make a boisterous route Of fame and conquests long gone by, And, when we come to find it out, 'Tis half reproach, and half a lie. "You gave your best friend twice the slip, And sent your worst one on the trot; The way a tyrant's wing to clip,

Is to be firm, and you are not! "Where are your Gallic eagles gone,

Which shadowed with extended wings
The sceptered pride of all, save one,
Of Europe's subjugated kings?
"The white cloth waving o'er my head —
For shame! Is this the thing you've got?
In justice to the mighty dead,

I wish you true,—and you are not!
"On Lodi's bridge with this white rag
Did youthful warriors lead the way?
On battle plain, or Alpine crag,
Waved it in view one well-fought day?
"Take it, and hide your deep disgrace,
For that at last is all you've got;
And leave it to a future race
To gain the freedom you dare not."
U. U. Club.

H. B. C.

STERNE PAPERS AND NOTES.

(2nd S. iv. 126.)

Among the MSS. belonging to the family of Turner of Kirkleatham, now possessed by Mrs. Newcomen, are two having reference to the Sternes. The first is an unpublished letter written in 1734 by L. Sterne's uncle, Jaques Sterne, LL.D., the prebendary of York, who was an active Whig; the other is a copy made by some amanuensis of the first seventeen chapters of the 4th volume (in the original edition) of Tristram Shandy, printed in 1761, with some additions by L. Sterne.

The letter is without date, but it relates to the electors for the county of York resident in the borough of Hedon in April, 1734, when Mr. Wm. Pulteney, who had been member for that borough from 1705, retired from its representation, and sat for Middlesex. The letter is addressed to Mr. Cholmley Turner of Kirkleatham, who had been elected for the county of York on the Whig interest on the death of Sir Arthur Kaye (new writ, 17th January, 1727), and who had been re-elected on the dissolution of 5th August of the same year. For the elections which followed the next dissolution, in 1734, the greatest exertions were made by the friends and opponents of Walpole, and a heavy and close contest took place for the county; which, after a poll of six days, ended in the return of Sir M. Stapylton, who polled 7896, and Mr. C. Turner, who polled 7879, against Sir R. Winn, who polled no less than 7699 (or within 180 of Mr. Turner), and Mr. E. Wortley Montagu, who polled 5898. Sir Francis Boynton, the 4th baronet, was recorder of Beverley; and, at this election of 1734, succeeded Mr. Pulteney as M.P. for Hedon, but died during the parliament on 16th September, 1739.

"ST,

"I have been with Mr. Poultney's Agent again this morning, and he has promis'd to engage as many of his friends as he can in your Interest; and I shal call upon Sr Francis Boynton to beg he wil streng(then) him. I beseech yt we may carry on this smoothly; for if we shew the least jealousy (for which, when matters are explained, I hope there is no occasion), it will have a bad effect. You may believe me, Sr, with the strongest Attachment that is possible for any man to be, 66 Yr most faithful "obedt Servant,

"Friday morning.

"To Cholmley Turner, Esqre.

"J. STERNE.

As the letter is undated, and there is a great similarity between the handwriting of the uncle and the nephew, even in the signature, this letter has been assumed to be an autograph of the author of Tristram Shandy; but he was at this time at Cambridge, having been admitted of Jesus College, 6th July, 1733; he matriculated 29th March, 1735, and in January, 1736, was admitted B.A.

Here I am able to add, from the original docu

ments in Mr. James Crosby's possession, that on 6th March, 1736, Sterne was ordained a deacon by Richard Reynolds, Bishop of Lincoln, to Buckden in Huntingdonshire, and was admitted to priest's orders at Chester by Samuel Peploe, bishop of that diocese, on the 20th August, 1738. These facts have not been before published.

The portion of Vol. IV. of Tristram Shandy appears to me to be in the same handwriting as the rules and minutes of the proceedings of a convivial club to which Sterne, Hall Stevenson, Panty Lascelles, Paddy Andrew (i. e. Andrew Irvine, the then sinecure master of Kirkleatham School), and other kindred spirits belonged these rules and minutes being still preserved at Skelton Castle. The amanuensis's copy of the first seventeen chapters of this 4th volume of Tristram Shandy begins "With all this learning upon noses," following the end of Slawkenbergius's Tale. The MS. has, however, two specimens of L. Sterne's own handwriting. The last paragraph of chapter vii. has been cancelled; and at the back is written, in Sterne's own hand, the apostrophe to Garrick :

"O Garrick! what a rich scene of this would thy exquisite powers make! And how gladly would I sit down and write such another, to avail myself of thy immortality, to secure my own behind it."

The words marked in Italics are omitted in the work as printed.

The conclusion of chapter xv. is also in Sterne's handwriting, but remember "La vraisemblance (as Bayle says in the affair of Liceti) n'est pas toujours du côté de la verité; and so much for sleep."

I may mention also that there is at Skelton Castle one of Nollekens' best marble busts of Sterne, copied no doubt in features from the celebrated terra cotta bust executed at Rome in 1766, but differing from the bust crowned with leaves; engraved, with the likeness of Lydia Sterne, in the general edition of Sterne's Works, published in 1793. The Skelton bust bears the date, Rome, 1768, the year of Sterne's death. Another copy, in marble, was at the Manchester exhibition from Mr. Labouchere's collections.

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viduals desire to know about, which are felt to be not of sufficient public interest to commit them to its pages.

Now in every district there is pretty sure to be some quiet observing man who knows the whereabouts of most points of interest therein, too reserved perhaps to print much, but who would readily take a walk or a drive to procure inform-. ation for a purely literary purpose. All I can say is, I have found many such by accident, and have been very often able to requite them in kind. An exact exchange in point of value need not be aimed at. I, for instance, should be glad to hear of some one in Worcester who would take half an hour's trouble for me,—and I, in return, would give or procure any local information connected with the county of Norfolk. I should add that I can read with facility court, record, or any blackletter hands; and, like most clergymen, have a competent knowledge of Latin. E. S. TAYLOR.

Will any antiquary at St. Albans exchange information at the Record Office there for like matter at the British Museum here? I enclose my card, so that you may kindly make the necessary interchange. M. D. [We shall be at all times glad to give insertion to proposals like the present, but we must request that our correspondents will in such cases add their addresses, so that communications may be made to them direct.]

Replies to Minor Queries.

Bishop of Sodor and Man (2nd S. vi. 498.) — The assertion that the Bishop of Man has a seat, but not a vote, in the House of Lords, is to be found in Lodge's Peerage and Johnson's Jurisprudence of the Isle of Man, and also in Crutwell's Life of Bishop Wilson, where it appears to have originated. Mr. Crutwell says that Bp. Levinz (who was Bishop of Man between 1684 and 1692) sat there in his episcopal robes; and adds, that he had it "from a gentleman on the authority of the present Earl of Abingdon's grandfather, who said that the Bishop had a seat there de suo jure." This seat is said to have been within the House at the lower end of, and detached from, the Bishops' Bench. Camden and Tanner, however, say that he has neither seat nor vote in the English Parliament.

As the Bishop of Man was never summoned to Parliament, the Isle of Man being a distinct territory from England, this right, if it existed, would be altogether sui generis, and could hardly have escaped mention by those writers who have treated of the Parliament, and who are entirely silent upon the point. The right to a seat, or to a seat and vote in the Upper House of Parliament, is conferred by the Writ of Summons alone.

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Forged Assignats (2nd S. vi. 70. 134. 255.) — The whole history of these assignats is given in Dunkin's Dartford, p. 233. The partisans of the expatriated princes entered into a contract with a stationer in St. Paul's Churchyard, who employed Mr. Finch to make the paper at Dartford, and superintend putting them in the line of the French army, then advancing into Germany. This dangerous undertaking had well nigh proved fatal to Mr. Finch. The moulds of the forged assignats remained in the paper-mills at Dartford until they were closed, in 1832. In the house where Mr. Finch afterwards lived, Lord Lyttelton's ghost appeared to Mr. Andrews. This house is at present tenanted by Augustus Applegarth, the inventor of a note which "was not to be forged," and for which he received many thousands from the Bank of England. Mr. Applegarth was also the inventor of the composition roller, and of the printing-machine till lately used by The Times. A. J. DUNKIN.

The Richmond Assmen. - It is a little singular that there was the same inscription mentioned by your correspondent (2nd S. vi. 526.) upon a board in this place, within fifty yards of our Railway Station. At least it was identical, mutatis mutandis, with that at Margate; it ran thus:

"Excellent asses' milk I sell,
And keep a stud for hire
Of donkeys fam'd for going well:
They seldom ever tire.

"One angel honour'd Balaam's ass,
And met her on the way:

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But Currell's troops through Richmond pass
With angels every day.

"John Currell, Donkey Hackneyman, Richmond,
Surrey."

This man plied his trade as far back, it is supposed, as 1805. There could be here no "involuntary plagiarism," as Anna Seward calls it, but Currell's poetry was supposed to have originated in the following manner. Some popular writer, a Mr. Dickens, or a Mr. Thackeray, who spent his summer at Richmond, and went backwards and forwards to London, used to chat a little with Currell, and the latter begged him to write a few lines to celebrate his team of animals. Yet we

are far from insisting upon this version, and leave the question of plagiarism open for decision.

Still from time immemorial large numbers of these animals have been kept at Richmond for the saddle. In the 2nd year of James II. the mineral waters here were discovered, and riding exercise was probably enjoined with their use.

In The Belvidere, a Poem, Lond. 1749, inscribed to Joseph Grove, Esq., of Richmond, there is a couplet

"There harmless asses seek their nightly fold,

Though mean the flock, they bring their owner* gold."

Of Mr. Scott, this assman, as he was called, I have an anciently engraved copper-plate card, which I transcribe and annex.

Under the royal arms of the period, from 1694 to 1702, is the following inscription, which is given verbatim et literatim : —

"At King William's Royal Ass-House a
little above ye ferrey on Richmond Hill:
Asses Milk is Sold. Also Asses are Bought & sold
there or let to such as Desire to keep them at
their own Houses by
JOHN SCOTT."

Richmond, Surrey.

Φ.

Francis Lord Lovel (2nd S. vi. 396.) -Chance has nearly directed me to an answer to the Query. A few days since I purchased an old second-hand book, entitled, "The Last of the Plantagenets, an Historical Narrative, illustrating some of the public Events, &c. of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries." Smith & Elder, 1839. A great part of the work relates to the stirring events of the Battles of the Roses; and Richard III.'s "noble soldier" Francis, ninth Lord Lovel, adds much interest to the story. It is therein incidentally mentioned that, after the reverses at Stokefield, Lord Lovel fled with a friend and one faithful attendant, and eventually took refuge in the secret chamber at Minster-Lovel, where he died from illness and privation. A graphic description is given of his painful end; how he had himself.

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"Dressed in his armour as he was wont to be in the day of his power, and placed in a chair before a table, so that when they in after times shall haply find his wasted limbs and mouldered form in this secret place, which had been his cell and sepulchre, they may know who and what he was when living; nor confound the reliques of a Lovel and a soldier with the ashes of the ignoble dead!"

Being in a weak and exhausted state, the narrative adds that he died soon after, and was left in that position by his attendant, who escaped by a secret passage. The book itself is a romance, but a note at page 215. says:—

"This discovery did not take place until the year 1708, when in laying a new chimney at Minster-Lovel, a large vault or room was found beneath, in which appeared the

With a note: "Mr. Scott, an honest man in the neighbourhood, who keeps near 200 asses.'

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entire skeleton of a man sitting at a table with books, &c. before him, whilst in another part of the chamber was a cap, the whole being in a decayed and mouldering state. several barrels and jars which had held his stores; but the former part of this account rests on the witness and authority of John Manners, third Duke of Rutland, who related it in the hearing of William Cowper, Esq., Clerk of the Parliament, on May 8, 1728; by whom it is preserved in a letter dated IIuntingfordbury Park, August 9, 1737."

It is also sometimes added that the vault contained

There is no authority given for this note, but I assume it to be true, all the particulars being given more at length, with Mr. Cowper's letter, in Burke's Extinct and Dormant Peerage, under LOVEL, BARONS LOVEL; and Banks considers it worthy of belief. SIMON WARD.

The Cann Family (2nd S. vi. 409.) - I find the name of Cann mentioned in "Calendarium Inquis. ad quod Damnum," Edw. II., p. 253., No. 157.: "Hen Can pro Priore de Brugge,

Brugge de terr' et ten' ibm.

SALOP."

I also find, at p. 370., vol. i. Part Iv., of the Antiquities of Shropshire, by the Rev. R. W. Eyton, mention made of William Kanne as a witness with others to the grant of a tenement in Mill Street in Bridgnorth, by Wm. Fitz Hamund, in the year 1277; and in a note to the name of Kanne, at the foot of the same page, Mr. Eyton says:

"The first member who has occurred to me of a Family afterwards well known in the Borough, and from which Cann Hall in the Low Town derived its name."

It is probable that Mr. Eyton, in the compilation of his important work, may have met with other information respecting this family.

The late Mr. Hardwicke, in his valuable collection of MS. Shropshire Pedigrees, now in the possession of Mr. Sidney Stedman Smith of this town, gives no information or pedigree, possibly for want of reliable data, as I think he would scarcely have failed to give the pedigree of a family of so much note, if he had found materials for so doing, especially as being connected with this town.

Cann Hall, the ancient residence of this family, yet remains. It is an old gabled mansion, with Thomas Charlton Whitmore, Esq., of Apley Park. a fine oak staircase, and now the property of The old hall is also invested with historic associations derived from the fact that Prince Rupert took up his residence for one night at this manuncle Charles I. At p. 134. of the Antiquities of sion in 1642, when engaged in the cause of his Bridgnorth, by the Rev. George Bellett, mention is made of this event; and a copy of a letter given, dated 21 Sept. 1642, which Prince Rupert then addressed to the jury appointed to choose bailiffs, in order that such only should be chosen as were well affected for his Majesty's service.

H. S.

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Henry Family of Kildare (2nd S. v. 486.) Can your correspondent HAUD IMMEMOR adduce any evidence of the fact that the founder of the Henry family of Straffan in the county of Kildare, was coachman and subsequently steward of Godwin Swift, Esq., temp. Charles II.? Or is there any evidence that Mr. Godwin Swift had a coach at all, for a coach was a very scarce thing at the period? Then as to the situation of steward, is there any evidence that Mr. Godwin Swift at that time required one? There is evidence, however, that at the period alluded to by HAUD IMMEMOR the father of the immortal Swift held a situation of the kind, viz., steward to the King's Inns, and that he was appointed thereto in consequence of having been assistant steward for five or six years previously. See the Works of Swift, edited by Sir Walter Scott, Bart., second edition, printed for Constable, Edinburgh, 1824, vol. i. pages 9, 10.) I may observe also that this Godwin Swift was uncle, not ancestor, to the Dean of St. Patrick's. S. N. R.

A Point in Heraldry (2nd S. vi. 459.)-DAVID GAM has evidently mistaken the sense in which the word "adulterina" should be understood in the note he cites from Erasmus. It only means false, and not adulterous in the sense of illegitimacy of persons. Metal upon metal, or colour upon colour, is considered as false heraldry, obviously from the indistinctness such a mode of emblazoning arms would exhibit; it being one of the first principles in heraldry that the heraldic charges should be as distinctly seen as possible upon the warrior's shield. The rule involved in these remarks is laid down by most of the old heralds in their writings. Nor does the previous word "vitiosa" make this view of the case otherwise, as it may be rendered in the milder signification, faulty. There are some instances, both in English and foreign heraldry, of metal upon metal, or colour upon colour. The arms ascribed to the city of Jerusalem is a case in which the field is argent and the crosses, which compose them, or. This at once disposes of any question involving illegitimacy of personal descent. THOS. WM. KING, York Herald.

College of Arms.

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pocket-hand-head-cover. Hence the transitions that have taken place in the use of that article of dress: first worn on the head, then carried in the hand, and lastly in the pocket. The word mouchoir is not the translation of it, unless de poche be added: for the French have mouchoir de tête, mouchoir de cou, as well as mouchoir de poche. In fact, mouchoir has, like the other, deviated from its original meaning. First confined to the use of the nose, as the verb moucher implies, it has passed from that organ to the head, from the head to the neck, and from the neck to the pocket. G. DE CHAVILLE.

Parkstone, Poole, Dorset.

Eels from Horsehair (2nd S. vi. 322. 486.) This tradition, which must be totally incorrect in the fact of the metamorphosis, has at least had the merit of travelling "far north," and among juveniles long ago was held to be a positive truth. The way that the experiment used then to be performed was to put a number of short pieces of horsehair into a good-sized crystal bottle, with clear water, after some time to shake them up well, and in appearance, when floating, they assumed a kind of wambling or vermicular motion in the fluid, as if alive, but having a mere imaginary resemblance to the evolutions of the eel. Another tradition then prevailed: in wading through slimy ponds to beware of what was called the "horseloch leech," which had such a fancy for human blood, that, once adhering to the skin, it could not again be removed; and its property being to let out as fast as it drew in, the victim was thus bled to death. Certainly the belief made boys more careful of their behaviour, but riper years unfolded that this was no better than a bu-kow, or bugbear of mothers, to frighten their "throuther laddies" into propriety. A third tradition, in fishing and catching a fresh-water eel: the substance was reckoned an abomination to be eaten ; it was therefore duly skinned, and the skin with a knot tied round above the calf of the leg, which as long as worn prevented the leg being broken.

It is one of the advantages of being a reader of "N. & Q." that it frequently revives things forgotten, and sets a-rummaging in shelves and presses for books, &c., which in other circumstances would remain for the moths to prey upon them. G. N.

The supposed transformation of horsehairs into slender eels must have arisen from noticing what may often be found in wet ditches and stagnant pools. A keen observer may discover what appear to be long horsehairs; they are, however, a species of Annelides, distinguished as the Gordius aquaticus, almost as fine as a hair, and brown, with the ends rather black. I have taken them out of the water, and examined them with a microscope,

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