Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/239

 10<"S. III. MARCH 11, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

195

containing his life and trial, 1736, being con sidered the best. The only copy of the 1666 edition I note is in Henry G. Bonn's cata logue, 1841. None of the writers on books say the fire damaged any of the above editions. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

SOTHERN'S LONDON RESIDENCE (10 th S. iii 88, 111). As an old lover of the drama ] entertain a fond remembrance of the many charming comedies produced at the Hay- market Theatre during the regime of Mr Buckstone, and I am therefore in a position to state, without any hesitation whatever, that Mr. Edward Askew Sothern at one timt occupied a suite of rooms at 332, Oxford Street, W. a house, by the way, only very recently rebuilt. I may take the opportunity to add that I and a friend were present on the occasion of the first appearance of Mr. Sothern as Lord Dundreary, and it must be admitted that I was subsequently much surprised by the great success of ' Our American Cousin.' HENRY GERALD HOPE.

119, Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.

STATUTES OF MERTON (10 th S. iii. 8). There can be no doubt that the true reading is "mutare." The words are in the ninth chapter of 20 Henry III., commonly called the Statute of Merton, and are printed in the ' Revised Statutes ' thus : " & omnes Comites et Barones una voce responderunt q'd nolunt leges Anglic mutare que usitate sunt et approbate." They are the same, with imma- terial differences, in Ruffhead's ' Statutes at Large.' Both in the 'Revised Statutes' and in the 'Statutes at Large' the translation is "answered, that they would not change the laws," tfcc., showing that the translator read "mutare.''' LLYD.

'MosER's VESTIGES' (10 th S. iii. 128). MR. COURTNEY will find in The European Magazine^ vols. xlii. et seq., the reminiscences of Joseph Moser, under the title ' Vestiges, Collected and Recollected.' At p. 7 of vol. xlviii. Moser dates from Princes Street, Spitalfields, 22 July, 1805.

EDWARD SMITH.

Joseph Moser (1748-1819), artist, author, and magistrate, contributed to The European Magazine a series of papers on London antiquities and history. The first series, entitled 'Vestiges, Collected and Recollected,' numbering sixty-four in all, appeared be- tween July, 1802, and December, 1807. A second series, called 'A Historical, Philo- sophical, and Moral View of the Ancient and Modern State of the Metropolis ; with Observations on the Circumadjacent Coun-

ties, Anecdotes, fec.,' commenced in August, 1811, and apparently discontinued at the twenty-ninth paper, December, 1813. They have not been reissued in any form, and are not frequently met with complete. The value of their information is not great ; Moser's own recollections are of interest, but his researches are frequently at fault.

His other writings include a volume of anecdotes of Richard Brothers and a number of unimportant political pamphlets. There is a brief biography in the 'D.N.B.,' vol. xxxix., and a portrait in The European Magazine for August, 1803. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

39, Hillmarton Road, N.

[MR. JOHN RADCLIFFE also thanked for reply.}

PEG WOFFINGTON PORTRAITS (10 th S. ii. 226). At Newtownbarry House, co. Wexford, my nephew, Mr. R. W. Hall Dare, has two sphinxes about two and a half feet long, of terra-cotta ; both have the body of a lion with forepaws crossed, a lady's head of much finer clay, and on the shoulders a little furred mantle with the hood thrown back. I never knew who was represented till I was lately looking at the china in the British Museum. There I saw the familiar face, and on a sphinx of white Chelsea china the same little mantle, the hood on the head this time. The back is that of a lion, but instead of legs resting on a square base the figure is terminated by blades of foliage or seaweed feathering to the ground.

MABEL V. A. BENT. Hughes's Hotel, Jerusalem.

EPITAPHS : THEIR BIBLIOGRAPHY (10 th S. i. 44, 173, 217, 252, 334 ; ii. 57, 194, 533 ; iii. 114). The first couplet asked for by MR. JOHN T. PAGE is to be found on a tombstone in Skelton Churchyard. The second including the variation given by MR. PAGE and many others is to be found in many churchyards throughout the country.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Bradford.

QUEEN OF DUNCAN II. (10 th S. iii. 107). The remarks of D. M. R. upon Wm. Fitz- Duncan suggest one or two considerations which would seem to have escaped him. Has he read any MS. of his 'Cumbrian Chronicle'? Has he the fullest confidence n the extensions given by the printed text
 * o which he refers? If a negative answer
 * o both questions may be surmised, shall we

jonsider that, after all, chroniclers generally wrote what they thought they knew, much as we do ourselves ; that they commonly meant something, again much as we do our-