Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/458

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io< s. v. MAY 12, im

and Luke Ashton : Pennington, R. A., 1719 ; Urswick, "LukeAshton FecetWigan, 1724"; Claughton, L. A., 1727 ; Rushen Castle, Isle of Man, L. A, 1728 ; Gersingham, L. A., 1740 ; Woodland, 1744. There are no founder's initials on the Woodland bell, but the letters, figures, and heart-shaped stops correspond exactly with those on the first bell at Urs- wick. This seems to show that there was still a foundry at Wigan in 1744, although Mr. J. P. Earwaker, F.S A., in the Trans- actions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1892, states that the bells of Wigan Church were sent to Gloucester in 1732 to be recast by A. Rudhall. Further information may be found in vol. ii. N.S. Transactions of the Cumberland and West- morland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, pp. 282-306, and in vol. iii. No. 2 of the Transactions of the Barrow Naturalists' Field Club, pp. 100-14.

HARPER GAYTHORPE.

Barrow-in-Furness.

[MR. A. H. ARKLE also refers to Mr. Earwaker's paper.]

"THE SOPHY" (10 th S. v. 308, 354). Sully (memoirs) calls the ruler of Persia by this title, and describes war and negotiations between the " Grand Turc " and " son ennemy le Sophy," who had sent "vers le Pape, 1'Empereur, et le Roy d Espagne pour Her amitie auec eux et les requerir d'assistance." counter embassy to Henri IV., held by him to be " le plus estime Roy de la Creance de Jesus." D.
 * 'Le grand Seigneur" therefore sent a

ABBEY OR PRIORY (10 th S. v. 327). My note seems incomplete. I should like to add that the street which runs by the Worksop Priory Church is Prior's Road, and the old mill near is the Priory Mill. A.t some dis- tance from the church, in the middle of the road, is the Prior's Well now covered in to which in the old days people from near and far used to resort, and drink the water for pleasure and health's sake. Yet, with these old names before them, the church was "t'owd Abbey Church"; the fine Priory Gatehouse close by was ** t' owd Abbey Gateway." The ruins of St. Mary's Chapel, on the south side of the church, went by the name of " t' owd Abbey ruins." The his- torians of Worksop John Holland, 1826; Edwin Eddison, 1854, and Robert White, 1875 and 1905 all write of it as a Priory, though Eddison often relapses into the error, very common in his time, of calling it an " abbey." THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

The Hixtoni of Japan : together ivith a Description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690-92. By Engelbert Kaempfer, M.D. Translated by J. G. Scheuchzer, F.R.S. 3 vols. (Glasgow, MacLehose & Sons.) As an expansion of the great work they are accom- plishing in their superb reprint of the 'English Voyages' of Hakluyt (now out of print), the 1 Collection of Voyages ' of Purchas, and ' Coryat's Crudities,' Messrs. MacLehose & Sons reissue, for the first time in a complete form, what is yet the most important and authoritative early work upon Japan. The author of this was a German, and the explorations he made were undertaken on behalf of the Netherlands Embassy to the Emperor's Court, which, in a spirit of exemplary devotion to science, he joined as physician. Our English share in him is greater than might be judged from these things. His MS. collections came into the possession of Sir Hans Sloane, by whose secretary Scheuchzer they were translated, and by whose influence they were given to the world in two volumes folio in 1727, half a century before the appearance of the first German edition. The motive of the purchase of the MS. by Sir Hans Sloane seems to have been found in the merits of the ' Amoenitates Exoticfe ' of the same author.

Setting out from Batavia on his voyage to Japan, Dr. Kaempfer went on board a ship that touched at Siam. He was thus able to give an animated account of the revolution in that country, and the execution of Constantin Faulcon, at that time Prime Minister. His observations on Japan begin with geographical descriptions and other matters derived from Japanese authors. He concludes the first book with the natural history of the metals, minerals, plants, trees, animals, birds, insects, fishes, and shells of Japan, including not a few which, as he mentions, are mythical. In the fourth book full particulars are supplied concerning Nagasaki, the one place open to foreigners that is, to the Chinese and the Dutch ; while the fifth book records the observations made in the course of the two excursions from Nagasaki to the Court of the Emperor at Jedo which, under some limitations, he was allowed to make. The last supply sufficiently animated accounts of incidents of travel, of tea- houses (herein called tea -booths), of bagnios or bath-houses, of hotels, and the like. Full comment is passed upon what, though it is not so called, is hari-kari ; and it is claimed for Japan that it can boast, as well as Rome, its Mutii Serevolse and its* Horatii Coclites. Under the head 'Japan and- Foreign Trade' it is said, "The country is popu- lous beyond expression, and one would scarcely think it possible that, being no greater than it is, it should nevertheless maintain and support such a vast number of inhabitants. The highways are an almost continued row of villages and boroughs. You- scarce come out of one, but you enter another, and you may travel many miles', as it were, in one street." Of Jedo, which is described as " the Capital of the whole Empire, and the seat of the secular Monarch," it is affirmed that " I may venture to say, it is the biggest town known." They were, he says, "one whole day riding a moderate pace from Sinagawa, where the suburb- begins, along the chief street, which goes across, a little irregularly indeed, to the other end of the?