Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/68

 52

NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. x. JULY is, iocs.

turned through a lane, in which place it always met him. Unable to disbelieve his senses, he pre- vailed upon Mr. Ruddle to accompany him to the place. * I arose,' says this clergyman, * the next morning, and went with him. We went into the field, and had not gone a third part before the spectrum, in the shape of a woman, passed by. I was a little surprised, and though I had taken up a firm resolution to speak to it, I had not the power.

" On the 27th July, 1665, I went to the haunted field by myself, and then the spectre appeared to me. It appeared to move swifter than before. I had not time to speak to it. The parents, the son, and myself being in the chamber where I lay, I proposed our going altogether to the place the next morning. We nad not gone more than half the field before the ghost made its appearance, and moved with such rapidity that by the time we had gone six or seven steps it had passed by. I ran after it, with the young man. We saw it pass over the stile. I stepped upon the hedge at one place, and the young man at another, but we could discern nothing; whereas the swiftest horse in England could not have conveyed himself out of sight in that short time. A spaniel dog, which had followed the company unregarded, barked and ran away, as the spectrum passed by. The motion of the spectrum was not gradation or by steps, but by a kind of gliding, as children upon ice, which punctually [sic] answers the description the ancients give of these Lemurea. This evidence clearly convinced, but withal strangely affrighted, the old gentleman and his wife. They well knew this woman, Dorothy Durant, and now plainly saw her features in this apparition. The next morning I went by myself and walked for about an hour, in meditation and

frayer, in the field adjoining. Soon after five, stepped into the haunted field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces before the ghost appeared. I spoke to it in short sentences, with a loud voice. It approached me but slowly, and when I came near, it moved not. I spoke again, arid it answered in a voice neither audible nor very intelligible. I was not terrified, and therefore persisted until it spoke again and gave me satisfac- tion ; but the work could not be finished at this time. Whereupon the same evening it met me again near the same place, and after a few words on each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear now, nor ever will more to any man's disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an hour. These things are true, and until I can be persuaded that my senses all deceive me, and by that persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe the Christian religion, I must and will assert that the things contained in this paper are true. I know full well with what difficulty relations of so uncommon a nature obtain belief. Through the ignorance of men in our age in this peculiar and mysterious part of philosophy and religion, namely, the com- munication between spirits and men, not one scholar in ten thousand knows anything about it. This ignorance breeds fear and abhorrence of that which might be of incomparable benefit to mankind.

"On this strange relation, the editor [of the said history says he] forbears to make any comment."

Bowdon.

W. P. CA.

SNODGBASS AS A SUBNAME (10 S. ix. 427 ; x. 10). Is the following tale known ? There was a Collector of the name of Snodgrass in the interior of Madras Presidency, under the Company. He was rumoured to be living like a prince, and never to produce any accounts. A Special Commissioner was sent to inquire. It was found that all the accounts were kept at an old temple on an island in a lake. The Commissioner rowed out to the temple with his host the Collector, and all the books were put into a barge, which straightway sank in deep water. An unfavourable report, and dismissal without a pension, were the result. Mr. Snodgrass came home, sat down outside the India Office, and swept the crossing. A crowd assembled, and there was trouble. To get rid of him, he was given a pension. He instantly drove down in his four-in-hand, left a card with his compliments for the Directors, bowed, and drove away. After all this he sat on a hospital or fund committee with Dickens. S. I.

In the July Catalogue (275A) of Mr. Henry Gray (Goldsmiths' Estate, East Acton, W.), is the following :

" Snodgrass (Major J. J.), Narrative of the Burmese War, detailing the Operations of Maj.-Gen. Sir Arch. Campbell's Army, from its Landing at Rangoon in May, 1824, to 1826. Map and illustra- tions, 8vo, bds., uncut, 1827, 8s."

HARRY HEMS.

Thomas Snodgrass, Chesterfield Street, was one of the members of the East India Company, qualified with two votes at the election 11 April, 1821. I have an earlier list of the members (1805), but no one of that name appears in it. R. Me.

CAP OF LIBERTY (10 S. ix. 507). See several of the best-known presentments of Wilkes. " Wilkes and Liberty," long before " the French Revolution," made both the British factions habitual users of the Cap of Liberty, with which, indeed, the Tories sometimes adorned the Devil. D.

ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S EVE : MIDSUMMER : CORPUS CHBISTI (10 S. ix. 481). Much in- formation on this subject may be found in ' Popular Antiquities of Great Britain,* by W. Carew Hazlitt, vol. i. ' The Calendar,' pp. 169-87. The fine ballads * The Eve of St. John,' by Sir Walter Scott, and ' Song for the Morning of St. John the Baptist's Day,' in Lockhart's ' Spanish Ballads,' should not be forgotten.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.