Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/128

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NOTES AND QUERIES. ins. XL FEB. e,i9i&

Pliny tells us that onion juice mixed with woman's milk

"is employed for affections of the ears ; and in cases of singing in the ears and hardness of hearing ifclfinjected into those organs with goose-grease or honey." Book XX. chap. xx.

Culpepper is of opinion that the juice dropped into the ears " easeth the Pain and Noise of them " (sub ' Onions ').

All this points to aural comfort conveyed by onions. ST. S WITHIN.

In Wesley's ' Primitive Physic,' first issued 11 June, 1747, the following references occur to the curative application of onions in regard to deafness :

67. Deafness.

243. Three or four drops of onion-juice at lying down, and stopped in with a little wool. 70. Deafness, with a headache, and buzzing in the head.

246. Peel a clove of garlic ; dip it in Iwney, and put it into your ear at night with a little black ivool. Lie with that ear uppermost. Do this, if need be, eight or ten nights.

71. A Settled Deafness.

247. Take a red onion ; pick out the core ; fill up the place with oil of roasted almonds. Let it stand at night ; then bruise and strain it. Drop three or four drops into the ear, morning and evening, and stop it with black ivool.

80. Noise in the Ears. 279. Drop in Juice of Onions.

S. T. EL PARKES. [YGREC also thanked for reply.]

ANDERTOXS OF LOSTOCK AND HORWICH (11 S. xi. 21, 75). The Crosby Hall list referred to by B. S. B. is set out in full in Gillow's ' Biographical Dictionary of the English Catholics,' and the author there says that " among the Blundell of Crosby MSS. is a list of works ascribed to Boger Anderton by his son Christopher in 1647, but other hands are known to have written many of these works." It is also known that the private printing press of Boger Anderton was setup at Birchley, and that the books mentioned in the list were only printed there. No evidence is given at that time (1647) of the authorship of them, tliis having been discovered in recent years by Mr. Gillow, who in a letter to me says: " I have secured Brereley's ' Com- monplace Book,' written in 1622 ei seq. (MS., of course), and this settles the identity [of Lawrence Anderton with John Brerelev. Priest]."

In the Catholic Becord Society's sixteenth volume, p. 421, much valuable informa- tion is given by Mr. Gillow, in which he says that " MS. material 'has come into

my hands which conclusively proves " the- correctness of the statements I mentioned in my notes on this subject (see ante, p. 21). Your correspondent will find that many of the books in the Crosby Hall list were not written by the Andertons, but by others, proving that Boger Anderton did not write the books, but merely printed them. No reliance, as far as I can find, has ever been placed on the list by the Society of Jesus ; and most of the bibliographical authorities- ascribe the books to James Anderton : these,. Mr. Gillow now proves, are all wrong.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.B.S.L.

an

Materials for the History of the Town and Parish of Wellington in the County of Somerset. By Arthur L. Humphreys. Parts I.-1V. (187,. Piccadilly, 5s. net each.)

OUR frequent and welcome contributor Mr. A. L.. Humphreys has done well in collecting and publish- ing these 'Materials,' which are of permanent value and will prove of great use to future historians.

The first part contains extracts from wills cover- ing a period from 1372 to 1811, and Mr. Humphreys thinks " that no documents could be found which, more fully or quaintly illustrate the history of the town of Wellington during the several centuries covered by these testamentary declarations." They contain details in abundance of the chief residents. Notable among the?e is the Popham family, and: the complete text of Sir John Popham's will, " a most delightful and picturesque document," is; given. There are also wills of the Southey family, and under these references are made to Mr. A. J. Jewers's 'Ancestry of the Poet Southey,' which, appeared in the fifth volume of our Eighth Series.

The second part contains Manorial Court Rolls,. 1277-1908, and Mr. Humphreys, for the informa- tion of those of his readers not acquainted with the subject, explains their meaning and origin. Very few manors have records going so far back as- Wellington. The earliest Court Roll known is of 1246, while Wellington's is dated only thirty -one years later. At that period there were two families who have had representatives there ever since : those of Buncombe and Harcombe. Several of the Rolls refer to the Southey family, the first being dated 1383. The contents give an insight into the manners and customs of the people. A good many seem to have been quarrelsome, for there are frequent fines inflicted for "drawing blood." Many persons were fined for '* dwelling outside their tenements, contrary to the custom of the manor." The proper pruning of apple-trees was also looked to, some being fined for " cutting downe great limms from* apple-trees, contrary to good husbandry." No end of people got into trouble for neglecting to "scour their ditches." Boys in 1373 were much as boys in ] 915, and two sons of John Sely were fined Qd. for robbing cherry-trees, and John Knyght, jun., was- fined 3d. for fishing without licence. Summonses for " tolcestre " are frequent. To these Court Rolls.