Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/369

 10*8. i. APRIL 16, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

301

LONDON, SATURDAY, APEIL 16, 190k.

CONTENTS.-No. 16.

NOTES : Joanna Soutbcott, 301 Westminster Changes in 1903, 302 Bibliography of Publishing, 304 ' Derby's Ram ' Herring Song/ 306 The Cedilla" Foulard " Lynold Family John Gauden : Edward Lewknor " Wentworth " : its Local Pronunciation, 307.

QUERIES : " Part and parcel" Passim Passing-bell Francois Vivares Nelson and Wolseyr-Bass Rock Music, 308 Engravings Admiral Donald Campbell Arms of Pope Pius X. Wyburne Family" Stat crux dum vol- vitur orbis" Oxfor.1 Men sent to the Tower "Foleif," 309 Ralegh Portrait- Jessamy Bride James Brindley Mitchel & Finlay, Bankers Good Friday and Low Tides Early MS. Mention of Shakespeare H. Lawrance, Fan- maker White Turbary, 310.

REPLIES :" Our Lady of the Snows," 311 American Loyalists' Examination of an Old Manuscript' Oprower '"'Scole Inn," Norfolk, 313 "Kick the bucket" Cam- den on Surnames : Musselwhite Latin Lines Tass_o and Milton, 314 German Reprint of Leicarraga Miniature of Newton William Willie-Sleep and Death, 315 "I expect to pass through " " Disce pati "William Hartley "Drug in the market" "Old England" Tideswell and Tideslow, 316- Cobweb Pills, 317 Wilton Nunnery, 318.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Earle's ' Microcosmographie ' ' Great Masters ' Crof ton's ' Old Moss Side ' DobeH's 'Rosemary and Pansies '' Jesus Christ Gure launaren Testamentu Berria' Magazines and Reviews.

Notices to Correspondents.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT'S seals are referred to, ante, p. 280, as being great rarities. That is perfectly true ; but to add that most of the thousands distributed were sold at a guinea each is absolutely incorrect and misleading. Joanna gave strict injunctions that they should not be sold, she having heard that in a few instances small sums of money had been received for them on wrong pretences. I am the fortunate possessor of two of these certificates of future millennial joys, and of one of these the seal is still unbroken, and therefore possibly unique. Another misleading statement is that Joanna " was undoubtedly mad." She was perfectly sane, and above the average for shrewdness. She had a genuine religious mind, and consider- able textual knowledge of the Bible ; but she belonged to that comparatively small section of humanity in which the subliminal consciousness is in the habit of rising up over the threshold and quite flooding the house of reasoned judgment and every-day experience. One of the effects is automatic writing, and Joanna began somewhat in this way, and would have so continued, but no one could read the doggerel writings that issued from her unpractised pen : consequently an

amanuensis was required, and then the sub- liminal consciousness had to speak and no longer write.

The history of her blameless life, her en- thusiastic followers, of the various curious schisms which came into existence at Ashton and elsewhere later on, and of the faithful few who even now in England and America look up to her as their spiritual mother all this history is far more interesting than votaries of Marie Corelli and Rudyard Kipling conceive, and is adequately known to very few indeed. NE QUID NIMIS.

The interesting note on Mr. F. B. Dickin- son's article in Devon Notes and Queries in- duced me to renew my acquaintance with the grave of Joanna Southcott in the burial- ground attached to St. John's Chapel, St. John's Wood. There are two stones. The actual tombstone lies flat on the ground, and is surrounded by a low iron railing. Near the wall of the burial-ground is another stone, standing erect, and bearing an inscription directing the visitor to the grave ; this stone, the inscription declares, was erected in 1828. Both stones are in an excellent state of pre- servation, the inscriptions being perfectly legible, while stones lying close at hand be- longing to graves of about the same date can only be read with great difficulty. It is, therefore, certain that the stones have been cleaned from time to time, if not recut ; and their smooth surface suggests that they have been actually renewed ; in the latter case, however, the restorer failed to record the fact. It may also be mentioned that the attention of a loving hand is further indicated by a wreath with card attached, bearing the words "In Memory," which, enclosed in a glass case, reposes on the tomb.

It is clear, therefore, that, if the tomb- stone was shattered by the explosion in 1874, a new one was provided and has been well looked after since. All the same, one would like to know the original authority for a statement which, to me at least, appears improbable. After examining the grave I spoke to an attendant, who told me that he well remembered seeing the broken windows in the houses in the High Street overlooking the burial-ground ; but he had never heard of any gravestones being injured by the explosion, nor could he remember that the stone over Joanna Southcott's grave had at any time been renewed. It ought, however, to be stated that, though resident in the neighbourhood in 1874, it was not till many years afterwards that he was employed in the burial-ground.

I also learnt from the same attendant that