Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/200

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. i. MA*. 5, 1910.

PARLIAMENTARY DIVISION LISTS (10 S. xii. 490; 11 S. i. 51). I find that I was not correct in stating in my reply that the earliest division list shown in the Tables of Contents to the ' Parliamentary History ' belongs to the year 1716. The fact is that from vol. vii., in which the division referred to is recorded, the various division and other lists in each volume are set out separately, and I omitted to look at the chronological ' Proceedings and Debates in both Houses of Parliament ' in which alone the earlier divisions appear. The three following lists will be found in vol. vi. : Division on the Occasional Conformity Bill, House of Lords, 1703 (col. 170) ; Division on Motion to tack Occasional Conformity Bill to the Land Tax Bill, House of Commons, 1704 (col. 362) ; ' A List of the Lords who voted for and against Dr. Sacheverell, 4 1710 (col. 886). These are apparently the earliest, unless we include a list headed "These are the Straff ordians, Betrayers of their Country,'* which contained the names of the members of the House of Commons who voted against the Earl of Strafford's attainder, and was posted up by a crowd about Westminster Hall on 3 May, 1641 (' Parliamentary History,' vol. ii. col. 756).

It may be interesting to note that the House of Commons before adopting the present system of recording divisions, which dates from 1836, had tried in 1834 to secure an authentic record by the very primitive means of having the names called out by a member in the House and another in the lobby, and taken down by clerks. The resolution to adopt this plan was passed on 8 July : the first division recorded under it occurred on 17 July ; and, after one other division had been similarly recorded, it was rescinded on 18 July ('Hansard's Debates,' Third Series, vol. xxiv. col. 1299 ; vol. xxv. col. 131). The extremely unsatisfactory results may be judged from the prompt manner in which the new system was got rid of. Contrary to the present practice, the names of members voting in those two divisions are entered in the ' Journal * (vpl. Ixxxix. pp. 489, 494). No attempt was made to arrange them in alphabetical order, and they were evidently printed exactly as taken down hurriedly at the time.

F. W. READ.

NEWS-LETTERS IN THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE (11 S. i. 68, 158). See art. 'News- letters 2 in the indexes to the Calendars of State Papers, Domestic Series, temp. Charles II. These news-letters are especially

noticeable in the correspondence of Henry Muddiman, news collector to the Surveyor of the Press, chiefly within the period c. 1663-6. See ante, p. 187.

WILLIAM McMuRRAY.

CHAUCER AND BOCCACCIO (11 S. i. 107). Mr. Edward Hutton, in his recently pub- lished life of Boccaccio (' Giovanni Boccac- cio : a Biographical Study,' p. 313, Note 2), says :

" Did Chaucer meet Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy ? He seems to wish to suggest that he had met the former at Padua, but, as I have said, of the latter he says not a word, but gives ' Lol- lius ' as his authority when he uses Boccaccio's work. Cf. Dr. Koch's paper in ' Chaucer Society Essays,' Pt. IV. ; Jusserand in Nineteenth Cen- tury, June, 1896 ; and in reply Bellezza in Eng. Stud., 23 (1897), p. 335."

C. C. B.

There seems to be no direct evidence that Chaucer and Boccaccio ever met and talked together. At the same time it is highly probable that they did meet when Chaucer was in Italy in 1372 and 1373, when, as we know, he visited Florence. The grounds for such an assumption will be found in the article on Chaucer in the * D.N.B.'

T. F. D.

It is not impossible that Chaucer and Boccaccio may have seen each other during the mission of the former to Genoa in 1372, when, as is reported, he met with Petrarch at Padua. No such meeting could have taken place on the occasion of the English poet's second and longer visit to Lombardy in 1378, for the simple reason that Boccaccio was then dead. Lander's ' Conversations * were, of course, purely imaginary, and have, as a rule, no real basis in historical fact. The best authorities, I believe, are agreed that Chaucer and Boccaccio never met, or, if they did, that all evidence to that effect has now disappeared. The subject, I understand, is discussed in an article, ' Chaucer and Boccaccio,' that appeared in The National Review, vol. viii. 1886-7. W. SCOTT.

J. H. SWALE, MATHEMATICIAN (11 S. i. 107). He was born at Bishopthorpe, York, 16 Oct., 1775, and died at Liverpool, 13 Jan., 1837. He was a schoolmaster in Liverpool from 1810 until his death. Only one part of his ' Geometrical Amusements ' seems to have been published. There is an interest- ing paper on Swale, by T. S. Davies, in The Philosophical Magazine, 1851 (title of paper, Geometry and Geometers,' No. VII. ) ; and in the following year in the same magazine