Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/542

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vn JUNE s, 1907.

P.C.C., Aston, 250), and bequeathed to her grandson Edmund Halley, jun. (later surgeon R.N.), certain lands in Upwell, &c., which are identically described in the will of Mrs. Catherine Price (see 10 S. iii. 6). This con- clusive evidence indicates that Surgeon Halley did not leave any issue surviving him, and that his wife Sybilla must have been previously married, for she in her will names two granddaughters (see ante, p. 89). The documentary proof of relationship between the Halley and Pyke families is, therefore, at present, confined to the will of Francis Halley (see ante, p. 263). These new data have been supplied by Mr. R. J. JBeevor. EUGENE F. McPiKE.

1, Park Row, Chicago.

" BREESE " IN ' HUDIBRAS.' There is a curious blunder as to the meaning of this word in the edition of * Hudibras ' pub- lished in 1732, with woodcuts by Hogarth. Part III. canto ii. opens with the lines : The Learned write, An Insect Bree-se Is but the mungrel Prince of Bees, That falls before a Storm, on Cows, And stings the Founders of his House. Breese here is so obviously the gadfly {A.-S. brimsa) that it is difficult to see how it could be misunderstood. Yet the " anno- tation " supplied in this edition, p. 290, is AS follows :

" An Inject Breeze ; Breezes often bring along with them great Quantities of Insects, which some are of Opinion, are generated from viscous Exhalations in the Air."

This note is reproduced in Zachary Grey's edition, 1744 (reprint, 1869, p. 248), with the additional comment : " See an account of blasts, Lord Bacon's ' Natural History,' cent. vii. 696, p. 143 " ! The word must have been then quite obsolete, one would imagine, to be thus mistaken for " breeze," a current of air. A. SMYTHE PALMER. S. Woodford.

KIRKSTEAD CHAPEL, LINCS. A few miles from Woodhull Spa, on the east coast of Lincolnshire, is a beautiful little Early English chapel, formerly the parish church of Kirkstead, but now disused. The build- ing adjoins the site of Kirkstead Abbey, but, to judge from the block plan of the icono- graphy of the abbey in Stukeley's * Itine- rarium Curiosum,' it did not form part of the monastery, but was probably formerly a wayside chapel.

The recent history of the chapel is curious, and is thus described by Allen :

"The chapel is a donative of exempt jurisdiction, but appears to have had no stipend for the offi-

ciating minister, until it came into the hands of Mr. Daniel Disney, who, being a Presbyterian, appointed a minister of that persuasion to perform service there, with a salary of 30/. per annum. In order that the tenets which he professed might not want support in his parish, in 1720 he settled certain lands upon tive trustees, the profits of which were to be applied to the maintenance of a Presbyterian minister at this place. This gift he afterwards confirmed by his will in 1732, and in addition bequeathed to the trustees the use of the chapel and the chapel-ground for the same purpose. On the death or alienation of the minister the trustees were to present the names of two [ministers] to the lord of the manor, who was to appoint one of them ; and on his neglect or refusal, the trustees themselves were to make the appointment. Ministers continued to be nominated by the pre- scribed form until the death of a Mr. Dunkley, who had for many years received the bequeathed stipend, and whose demise took place in 1794. On that occasion the owner of the manor took posses- sion of the estates which had been conveyed to the trustees, and appointed to the chapel a minister of the Church of England, paying him 30/. per annum. The trustees recovered possession of the estates by an action of ejectment tried at Lincoln summer assizes, 1812, but riot the chapel. A new chapel was erected, and the Presbyterian form of worship re-established here in 1822." Allen's ' History of Lincoln,' pp. 78-9.

I have been unable to obtain a report of the proceedings in the action for ejectment referred to above, and am assured by the Presbyterian body (who have most kindly assisted me) that there is no record of the litigation with regard to the chapel among their archives. It appears to me to be almost incredible that a lawsuit involving the possession of some 1,200 acres of land should have left no trace, and I hope that some reader of ' N. & Q.' will kindly suggest to me some source of information.

JOHN HEBB.

WILLIAM SEATON. In the churchyard of St. Stephen's (Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion), Rochdale, there is a flat grave- stone with the inscription :

" Sacred to the Memory of the late Rev. William Seaton, Minister of the Gospel, Who Departed this Life October 21st, 1852, aged 56 years. He was the last Male Descendant in a direct line from George oth Earl of Wintoun, whose Titles, Honours, and Estates were confiscated to the Crown in the Scottish Rebellion, 1715."

George Seton, the fifth Earl of Winton, was of the seven earls who after the battle of Preston were tried for treason. He alone of them refused to plead guilty. He was sentenced to death, but succeeded in making his escape from the Tower by cutting his prison bars, crossed to France, and died at Rome in 1749.

The writer has a copy of John Pinkerton's ' The Scottish Gallery ; or, Portraits of