Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/258

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. SEPT. ae, WM.

number of the garrison was 2,552 (foot and horse). Peters added on the extra 1,000 to account for the 1,000 "people " Cromwell admitted that he butchered in St. Peter's Church.

The comments on this document to be found in the Royalist Mercuries are im- portant. Mercurius Pragmaticus (For King Charles II.) for 25 Sept.-2 Oct., 1649 (E. 575 [3D, says:

" But, whilest I am writing this, a letter is brought to my hands entituled ' From Ireland,' subscribed by that fast and loose prophet, Hugh Peters, directed to Henry Walker, the Pillory Youth, Ironmonger, Hebrew monger, Occurrencer, or what else you please to know him by, printed by the cuckold Ibbitson, said to be read in the House of Commons on Friday last, and ' Im- primatur. Henry Scobell ' to it ; wherein it is thus written.

[The letter is then set out.]

" When we gather this much (1) That here's a letter, though but a sory [sic] one, not from King Oliver, but Hugh Peters, his chaplain extra- ordinary, not to the Speaker of the Juncto, not to the President of the Councell of State, but only to Master Henry Walker, alias Luke Harruney.

(2) That it bears date the 15 instant, which is three daies before their former letter from Liver- poole, that told us the newes of so many heads cut off and brought us from Dublin, which them- selves are since ashamed of, as being a lie of the Saw-pit size, and have disclaimed it accordingly.

(3) That tis very strange that Oliver should neglect the sending of an expresse to the Regicides if any such thing were, knowing how acceptable it would be to the Juncto and of what concern- ment to the recruiting of his Army both with men and money, so much retarded by his ill successe hitherto in Ireland. (4) And lastly, That the letter should be dignified by being read in the House and yet want an order of Parliament for the publication thereof and a day of Thanks- giving to make it authentique."

Again, a week later, after Cromwell's two dispatches dated (falsely, I believe) lo and 16 Sept. had been published. The Man in the Moon for 26 Sept.-lO Oct., J 649, states of this letter :

" A shrewd breakfast for the poor Cavees if this newes be true ; but true or false, it seems Hugh gave thanks in the great church for it. Yet I wonder Hugh should say they are marching with their Army to Kilkenny and Noll saics to Dublin. Which a man should believe is the most skill, for Peters will lie in the Pulpit and Cromwell dissemble with God and man.

" That Belzebubs brindled bandog Walker now howls and stretches the open sepulchre of his throat as if he were crying carrets for Mrs. Ibbitson at Pye Corner, making the Cavaliers terrible and dreadful creatures and quite undone in all their wretched designes. Sirrah, Saffron Chapps, tell me one thing, hadst thou not been undone, if that King, whom since thou hast requited according to the proverb, hadst not saved thy life when thou wert condemned, like a rogue as thou wast, to be hanged, when by his

mercy instead of kissing Tyburn thou hadst th* liberty to do penance in a pillory in Cheapside, from whence thou leapst from an Ironmonger to a Hawker, from a pillory to a pulpit, and since being kicked out of thy deluded parish hast taken thy degree backward, like some of thy masters,, and writest ' Cleric,' and now though thou canst not understand English, playst the cunning Imposture [sic] in Hebrew, that thy deluded auditory may not understand thy knavery when, were it in English, they would know thee for as, arrant a dunce as ever went to School at the Bear garden, as may be seen by his [sic] Sla- vunian [?] style in thy Westminster Catterwawle, called ' Perfect Occurrences,' bumbasted out with a Bill of Mortality and the sixpenny story of a man that lost a wall eyed mare in Islington [i.e., an advertisement] when the thief himself stool her to carry his fardle of nonsence, heresy and blasphemy to "Oxbridge, to infect his parrisb. with the national sin of atheism," &c.

The Man in the Moon's vulgar abuse wa quite justified, and his assertions about Walker can be corroborated. They are an interesting example of the journalism of the times. But it will be seen that tha ' Tales and Jests ' cannot give any story accurately. The book obscures the real points at issue. J. B. WILLIAMS.

" LEFT HIS COBPS "(US. ix. 225 ; x. 158, 196). It may be as well to give the autho- rized version of an anecdote already quoted, to be found in Dean Ramsay's ' Remi- niscences of Scottish Character,' 21st ed., 1872, chap. vi. :

" At a farmer's funeral in the country, an undertaker was in charge of the ceremonial, and directing how it was to proceed, when he noticed a little man giving orders, and, as he thought, rather encroaching upon the duties and privileges of his own office. He asked him, 'And wha are ye, mi' man, that tak sae muckle on ye ? ' ' Oh, dinna ye ken ? said the man, under a strong sense of his own importance, ' I 'm the corp' 8 brither ! ' '

The Dean added a foot-note : " In Scot- land the remains of the dead person is called the ' corp.' ' W. B. H.

EABLY RAILWAY TKA YELLING (11 S. x. 170, 215). My father told me that he often travelled in a seat allotted as suggested in MB. LUCAS'S query, and he used to relate an amusing story of one Jim Kershaw, who tried to travel a station beyond that for which his seat was booked. The guard, waybill in hand, walked the length of the train as it stood in the station where Ker- shaw should have alighted, and called out :

This train 's noan startin' till Jim Kershaw gets out." HENRY BBIEBLEY.

Wigan.