Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/168

 136 u. iv. ATO. 13, MOB. NOTES AND QUERIES, tion of the Commonwealth he was sent to Ireland, and died there in November, 1651 ('The Environs of London,' by James Thorne, F.S.A., 1876, part i. p. 351). Prickett, in his 'History of Highgate,' 1842, p. 76, says less. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. 6, Elgin Court, W. Neither Nelson, in his 'Antiquities of Islington' (1829), nor Tomlins, in his 'Peram- bulation' of that district (1858), makes mention of Cromwell House, although both refer, passingly, to the Protector's connexion with that part of North London. The former credited authority (p. 85) remarks :— "On the north side of the road at Upper Hollo- way [which is near the foot of Highgate Hill] are a few ancient houses, which it is probable were formerly inhabited by persons of note ; but nothing now remains to point out who have been their original possessors. Tradition reports that Oliver Cromwell resided in one of them (now the Crown public-house) It does not appear, however, that the Protector ever had a house in this pariah, though he in all probability visited the place ; for his contemporary and associate, Sir Arthur Hesil- rige, had beyond a doubt a dwelling in Islington." HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter. EASTER DAY AND THE FULL MOON (10th S. iii. 281). — While heartily supporting ME. W. T. LYNN with regard to fixing Easter Feast on the second Sunday in April in perpetmim, may I—with all due deference to his exactness generally—note that the rule which refers to the Paschal " full moon " is not strictly correct? The fact is that the Act of Parliament 24Geo. II. cap. 23, A.D. 1751 (see 'Statutes at Large,' vol. vii. pp. 329-45), while adopting the tables of Clavius, shoulu have set forth "the fourteenth day of the calendar moon," and not " the full moon." And this same mistake it is that persists in the Anglican Church Prayer-Book rules, and must be the cause very often of miscon- ception. Thus we find persons complaining that the ecclesiastical calendar on this, as on other occasions, seems partly to agree with, and yet mainly disagree from, 'The Nautical Almanac.' It is, of course, well known that the fourteenth day of Nisan figures in the Jews' mode of reckoning the date of their Passover; also tljat the observance thereof at the present time by the Jews on the four- teenth day after the new moon does not appear to be in accordance with the order made for its observance at the time of its institution. But this, as Kipling would say, "is another story." In the early Christian Church those who adhered to the Judaizing method of keeping Easter were called "Quartodeciraans," as MR. LYNN says. Yet in ante-Nicene and ante-Gregorian history, in the description of the Nicene calendar by St. Ambrose, and in the decree of Pope- Victor, there is no mention of " Pleni- lunarians:' or of the " full moon," but explicit reference to the "fourteenth day" of the- calendar moon. And in Clavius's own work, ' Romani Calendarii a Gregorio XIII.,' which appeared in A.D. 1603 at Rome, a passage occurs which reads in English thus: " The Church, in finding the new moon, and from it the fourteenth day, uses neither the true nor the mean motion of the moon, but measures only according to the order of a cycle." And the motions of Clavius's calendar moon were so arranged as to be in advance* of the moon of the heavens. For as the- early Christian Church kept the first day of the week (Sunday) as the special day of the new dispensation to mark their dissocia- tion from the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), similarly their ecclesiastical calendar empha- sized a desire for an allied yet different date- for Easter from the time of the Jewish Passover. E. WILSON DOBBS. Toorak, Victoria, Australia. ADAM'S COMMEMORATIVE PILLARS (10th S. iv. 69).—Sir Thomas Browne, in his 'Religia Medici,' writes as follows :— " I have heard some with deep sighs lament the lost lines of Cicero: others wilh as many groans deplore the combustion of the Library of Alexan- dria : for my own part, I think there be too many in the world, and could with patience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, could I, with a few others, recover the perished leaves of Solomon. I would not omit a Copy of Enoch's Pillars, had they many nearer authors than Josephus, or did not relish somewhat of the Fable." —Dent's ed., pp. 36-7. The Jewish historian and antiquary is, therefore, the first narrator of the legend ; but in a note "condensed from Greenhill"' we are told that "Josephus does not mention Enoch, but says the descendants of Seth erected two pillars, on which were engraven all the discoveries then known to mankind."—P. 188. JOHN T. CURRY. HYSKER OR HESKER (10th S. iv. 69).—The Hysker isles—or rocks, as they are generally called—lie about nine miles west of Rum, and about five south-west of Canna. The larger is about half a mile long, by about one-third of a mile broad ; the other is much smaller. The highest point, as marked on the chart, is thirty-four feet. Till recently they were uninhabited, but a lighthouse has lately been erected there by the Northern Lights Com- missioners, so that there is now a permanent.