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NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. i. APRIL 15, im.

have many times cured Mr. Pearson of ague with cobweb pills, when we were abroad.'' "Six middling pills of Cobwebs" are pre scribed by Wesley "For an Ague," par. 9 Mrs. Pearson swept down the cobwebs, anc with bread mixed them into pills.

H. J. FOSTER.

WILTON NUNNERY (10 th S. i. 248). Wilton Abbey was dissolved in the thirty-fifth year of Henry VIII., by whom the site and build- ings were granted to Sir William Herbert, afterwards created Earl of Pembroke. Its religious inmates were of the Benedictine order, and seem to have been usually selected from among the daughters of the nobility. At the suppression its revenues, according to Dugdale, were estimated at 601J. 11s. Id., but Speed states their amount as 6521. 11s. 5d. The prioress of this nunnery was, in right of her title, a baroness of England.

That it was restored during the reign of Queen Mary there is no doubt. The former abbey was then and has been since known as Wilton House. Soon after the dissolution of Wilton Abbey, some considerable altera- tions were made (according to Mr. John Britton, F.S.A.) in the arrangement of the buildings for domestic purposes, by William, the first Earl of Pembroke. Charles I. is said to have been particularly partial to Wilton, and frequently resided there. The architects Holbein, De Caus, Inigo Jones, Webb, and others, were successively engaged to enlarge and embellish it. Edmund Lodge tells us that Queen Elizabeth visited the town in September, 1579, and that the Court resided here for a short time in October, 1603.

An interesting incident in connexion with Wilton Nunnery has hitherto remained un- recorded in ' N. & Q.' The story runs that in 1299 there was a certain knight, Sir Osborne Gifford, of Fonthill, who stole out of the nunnery of Wilton two fair nuns and carried them off. This coming to the ears of the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, he first excommunicated the said knight, and then absolved him on the following con- ditions : 1, That he should never come within any nunnery, or into the company of a nun ; 2, that for three Sundays together he should be publicly whipped in the parish church of Wilton, and as many times in the market- place and church of Shaf tesbury ; 3, that he should fast a certain number of months ; 4, that he should not wear a shirt for three years; and lastly, that he should not any more take upon him the habit and title of a knight, but should wear apparel of a russet colour until he had spent three years in the

Holy Land. All these penances, adds God- win, Peckham made Gifford swear to perform before he would grant him absolution.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. Bradford.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Microcosmographie ; or, a Piece of the World Dis~ covered: in Essayes and Character.-!. By John Earle. (Cambridge, University Press.) WITH a reprint of Earle's witty and thoughtful ' Micrpcosmographie,' to a knowledge of the value of which the world is tardily awaking, the Cam- bridge University Press is beginning a series of reprints certain to gladden the heart of the scholar, the antiquary, and the bibliophile. The series in question, of which the second volume will consist of Sidney's ' Defence of Poesie,' is unlike anything previously attempted by the Cambridge Press, and is (issued in a new and an eminently artistic type and in a strictly and narrowly limited edition, but two hundred and twenty-five copies in all being offered for sale, and the type, which is reserved to- the Cambridge Press, being in the present instance already distributed. How beautiful this type is, and how clear also, may be seen from the work and from the prospectus. Altogether exquisite is the reproduction of the title of the sixth augmented edition of 1633, with its quaint allegorical printer's mark. Neither as regards text nor punctuation is any departure froni the original permitted, and the masterpieces of literature, to which the series is confined, will be placed before the reader of to-day as they were seen by their producers. On the itness of Earle's work for revival, and on the his- tory of its appearance, we commented (9 th S. xii. 358) in dealing with a previous, if less ambitious, reprint of the same edition. Seventy-eight "cha- racters " appear in this, as against fifty-four in
 * he first edition, which bears date 1628. Earle's

' Microcosmographie,' it may be mentioned, was translated into French no common fate at that the title of ' Le vice ridicule et la Vertu louee.'
 * ime for an English book so early as 1679 under

A greeting is merited by the book for its own sake, as introducing to general notice one of the nost characteristic works of early Stuart times. tfo less welcome is it as proof of the resolution of a great University Press to be known as producers of beautiful works. No long time can elapse, aking into account circumstances and conditions of publication, before the owner of these dainty volumes will point to them with pride upon his shelves, and their possession will be disputed in he sale-rooms.

Great Masters. Part XII. (Heinemann.) ANOTHER part of ' Great Masters ' maintains the ligh level, both as regards selection and execution, hat places the work foremost among modern art publications. A dozen consecutive parts establish low thoroughly representative of the great galleries of Europe the completed work will be, and how artistic, when competently exercised, are those processes at which at the outset we were disposed to cavil. First of the four plates constitut- ing the number comes Reynolds's 'The Duchess of Devonshire and her Baby,' from the Duke of