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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. i. APR. 9, wio.

and current records of the Civil Service, and that I am acting as Hon. Secretary.

It will be a favour if any readers who have knowledge of meritorious services rendered by Civil Servants at home or abroad will communicate with me, when the circum- stances will be recorded for reference and for answering inquiries.

At the moment, a fair quantity of old pamphlets and original documents have been copied, or acquired by purchase, principally relating to the history of the Post Office Service, and any one wishing for information may be supplied on application.

W. V. MORTEN.

The Drive, Roundhay, Leeds.

[' N. & Q.' is naturally in full sympathy with such a laudable effort to preserve and make known the memories of the past. One of the latest instances of this is MB. McMuRRAY's appeal (ante, p. 187) for access to the ecclesiastical records at Somerset House. See also the articles on Inscriptions,' ante, pp. 204, 205, 251.]
 * Catalogues of Manuscripts ' and ' Monumental

BURTON AND PETRARCH. Probably every one with some experience in the pastime or labour of tracking quotations has at one time or another been misled by the ascription to a wrong name of the words whose source he was seeking. A good example of such an error is in Burton's ' Anatomy of Melan- choly,* partition 2, sect. 3, memb. 2, p. 257, 2nd ed., 1624 : " Seldome, saith Plutarch, Honesty and Beauty dwel together." The margin gives ' ' Raro sub eodem lare honestas & forma habitant.' 1 This is from Petrarch. See his ' De Remediis utriusque Fortunae,' Lib. II. dial. i. : "Raro admodum forma insignis honestasque uno sub lare habitant n (p. 436, ed. Lyons, 1584). The thought is Juvenal's, x. 297: "Raro est adeo con- cordia formse | Atque pudicitise."

On the next page, 1. 17, Burton writes : refuseth no stature. " The quotation is from the latter part of the same dialogue in Petrarch (p. 438).
 * ' Nullam virtus respuit staturam, Virtue

For the words in 1. 10, " Vulnus non pene- trat animum, ?l Burton appears again to be indebted to Petrarch, who in dial. Ixxvii. of Lib. II. of the ' De Remediis ' has " Dolor. Vulneribus inflictis afficior. Ratio. Hos- tilis mucro loricam penetrat, non animum " (p. 662).

In the fourth and subsequent editions of the ' Anatomy l the marginal note " Macro - bius," which in the two previous editions had no reference mark in the text, has got attached to the quotation ' ' Vulnus non

penetrat animum."' It really belongs to " Galba the Emperour was crookbacked." See ' Saturnalia,* II. iv. 8 and vi. 3, 4. This Galba was the father of the Emperor (Suet., ' Galba/ 3). EDWARD BENSLY.

University College, Aberystwyth.

"THE WIDOW'S SON'S " BUNS. The fol- lowing cutting from The Morning Post of 26 March (Easter Even) is worthy of a cranny in ' N. & Q.' :

" At a public-house in Bow yesterday a quaint custom was observed. Hanging in the house are about seventy age-blackened buns, and yesterday morning another was added to the collection. There is a legend that the house was once kept by a widow whose only son went to sea on a Friday, promising that he \vould return on the following Good Friday. That was seventy years ago, and the sailor has never reappeared. Through- out her life, however, his mother clung to the belief that he would return, and each year she set aside a bun for him. After her death the custom was maintained by succeeding occupiers of the house, and the sign of the house was changed to ' The Widow's Son.' "

ST. SWITHIN.

THE OLDEST POSTBOY. The following- paragraph from The Morning Leader of 21 January is, I think, deserving of a niche in ' N. & Q.,' if only by way of pendant to MR. HIBGAME'S note re ' Oldest Postmaster,' which appears at p. 106, ante :

" The funeral of the late Mr. John Wilson, who died at the age of 96, the oldest postboy in England, took place at Dartford yesterday. Mr. Wilson was engaged for 40 years as postboy at ' The Bull Hotel,' Dartford, a hostelry made famous by Charles Dickens, and visited by the late Queen on more than one occasion. Mr. Wilson acted as postillion to Queen Victoria several times, and he filled a like position when our present Queen landed at Gravesend from Denmark to marry King Edward.

" Only a few days before his death the deceased related incidents connected with his carrying voting papers after the polling at a Parliamentary election. The papers were carried on horseback from Bromley to Maidstone, where the declaration of the poll was made."

My heading is that under which the para- graph appeared. WILLIAM McMuRRAY.

SOPER AND PARRY FAMILIES. (See 10 S. xii. 344.) Some exceedingly interesting notes have been received from Lieut. -Col. G. 'S. Parry of Eastbourne, touching the history of the Parry, Perry, and Pery families of Greenwich, &c., before 1809. Among those items is a reference to the will of Anne Parry, dated 25 Feb., 1795, and proved 29 Dec., 1796 (631 Harris). The testatrix was " the widow of John Parry,