Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/171

Rh Q U A Q U A 159 presents in his place (1 Will, and Mary, sess. 1, c. 26). By 13 Anne c. 13 during the pendency of a quare impedit to which either of the universities is a party in right of the patron being a Roman Catholic the court has power to administer an oath for the discovery of any secret trust, and to order the cestui que trust to repeat- and subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation. QUARLES, FRANCIS (1592-1644), a sacred poet of the 17th century, enjoyed considerable celebrity in his own day, and some of hia works have shared in the recent revival of interest in our older literature. The work by which he is best known, his Emblemes, was originally pub- lished in 1635, with grotesque illustrations, engraved by Marshall, and borrowed from the Pia Desideria of Hermann Hugo. The poems, which are diffuse medita- tions upon Scriptural texts, seem, in modern phrase, to have been " written up " to the illustrations, and are quite in keeping with their quaint mixture of sublime and familiar thoughts. An edition of the Emblems, with new illustrations by C. H. Bennett, was published in Edinburgh in 1857, and these illustrations are reproduced in Mr Grosart's complete edition in the Chertsey Worthies Library. The incongruous oddities of Quarles's verse are more obvious than the higher qualities that recent admirers claim for him. The following stanza, in a paraphrase of Job xiv. 13, has often been referred to as the supreme example of his occasional sublimity of thought : " Tis vain to flee ; till gentle Mercy show Her better eye, the farther off we go The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow." Quarles would seem to have been a man of good family, and he boasts of his " long-lived genealogy." He was bom at Romford in Essex in 1592, and, after a regular education at school, Christ's College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn, had influence enough at court to get the office of cup- bearer to the queen of Bohemia. He was afterwards (about 1621) appointed secretary to Ussher, the primate of Ireland, and later on, returning at an uncertain date to England, obtained (in 1639) the post of city chronologer, which had been held before him by Middleton and Ben Jonson. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he wrote on the Royalist side, and died in 1644, in consequence, his widow suggests, of his harsh treatment by the king's enemies. Quarles's first publication, with the suggestive title of The Feast of Wormes, appeared in 1620, and from that date till his death he was a busy and prolific writer of verse and prose. His Divine Poems, collected in 1630, were published separately at intervals in the course of the preceding ten years. Divine Fancies followed in 1632; then the Emblems, which might well come under that general designation. The earlier poem of Argalus and Parthenia (1622) was in a different vein : the substance was imitated from Sidney's Arcadia, and the verse from Marlowe's Hero and Leander. The speeches are spun out to a most tedious length, but the poem contains more fine lines and fewer incongruous fancies than any other of the author's productions. Quarles also published many Elegies, in the fashion of memorial verses of which Milton's Lycidas was the contemporary masterpiece. His Hieroglyphics, in the same vein as his Emblems, appeared first in 1638. His principal prose work was the Enchiridion (1640), a collection of four " centuries " of miscellaneous aphorisms. This was followed two years later by more " observations " of the same kind " concerning princes and states." Lovers of commonplace wisdom dressed in a garb always studi- ously quaint and sometimes happily epigrammatic, may turn to Quarles with every prospect of enjoyment. QUARTER SESSIONS (in full, GENERAL QUARTER SESSIONS OF THE PEACE) is the name given to a local court with civil and criminal jurisdiction. In England the court consists in counties of two or more justices of the peace, one of whom must be of the quorum (see JUSTICE OF THE PEACE), in cities and boroughs of the recorder alone. The quarter sessions are a court of record. The records in a county are nominally in the custody of the custos rotulorum, the highest civil officer in the county, practically in that of the clerk of the peace, who is nomin- ated by the custos and removable by the quarter sessions. In a city or borough he is appointed by the council and removable by the recorder. The original jurisdiction of quarter sessions seems to have been confined to cognizance of breaches of the peace. By a series of statutes passed in the reign of Edward III. the time of the holding of the sessions was fixed, and their jurisdiction extended to the trial of felonies and trespasses. The jurisdiction now depends upon a mass of legislation reaching from 1344 to the present time. The dates at which the county sessions must meet are fixed, by 2 Geo. IV. and 1 Will. IV. c. 70, to be the first weeks after the llth of October, the 28th of December, the 31st of March, and the 24th of June. Quarter sessions in a city or borough depend upon the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, 45 & 46 Viet., c. 50. A grant of quarter sessions to a city or borough is made by the crown in council on petition of the town council. The main points in which borough differ from county quarter sessions are these : (1) the recorder, a barrister of five years' standing, is sole judge in place of a body of laymen; (2) the recorder has a discretion to fix his own dates for the holding of a court, as long as he holds it once every quarter of a year ; it may be held more frequently if the recorder think fit or a secretary of state so direct ; (3) the recorder has no power to levy a borough rate or to grant a licence for the sale of exciseable liquors by retail. In some few boroughs the recorder is judge of the borough civil court. Quarter sessions in the counties of Middlesex, Kent, and Lancaster, as also in London and the Cinque Ports, are governed by special legislation. The jurisdiction of quarter sessions is either original or appellate. Original Jurisdiction. Civil. This includes the levying of a county rate and its application, the appointment of a county licensing committee, and of public officers, such as the county treasurer, the public analyst, and the inspectors of weights and measures, the confirmation of bye-laws made by local authorities, the increase or alteration of polling places and petty sessional divisions, the regulation of police, and powers under various Acts of Parliament, such as the Highway Acts, and the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act. The quarter sessions of the metropolitan counties have by 25 Geo. II. c. 36 the power of licensing music-halls, &c., within 20 miles of London. Criminal. Apart from statute, the commissions of justices of the peace provide that they shall reserve the graver felonies for trial at assizes. They are now forbidden by several Acts of Parlia- ment to try a prisoner for treason or murder, or for any felony punishable without a previous conviction by penal servitude for life (such as burglary and rape), or for any of the offences enumerated in 5 & 6 Viet. c. 38, the most practically important of which are perjury, forgery, bigamy, abduction, concealment of birth, libel, bribery, and conspiracy. The procedure is by indictment, as at assizes, and the trial of offences by jury. In the case of incorrigible rogues and of sureties of the peace the quarter sessions exercise a quasi-criminal jurisdiction without a jury. They may also estreat recognizances entered into for appearance in a court of summary jurisdiction, but this part of their jurisdiction may be considered practically obsolete, as the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, gives the court of summary jurisdiction power to estreat the recognizances itself. Appellate Jurisdiction. Civil. The principal cases in which this jurisdiction is exercised are in appeals from orders of a court of summary jurisdiction as to the assessment of the poor-rate and the removal and settlement of paupers, and orders made under the Highway, Licensing, and Bastardy Acts. Criminal. An appeal lies to quarter sessions from a court of summary jurisdiction only where such an appeal is expressly given by statute. The appellate jurisdiction has been considerably increased by the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879 (42 & 43 Viet, c. 49), which allows an appeal (with certain exceptions) from every conviction or order of a court of summary jurisdiction inflicting imprisonment without the option of a i'mc. The appeal may be