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NOTES AND QUERIES- [11 s. XL JUNE 5, 1915.

The letters say nothing about his pastoral duties, which must have been light in a population mainly Catholic ; there was no parish church, but the Cathedral served for one. Matters of business, investments, and so forth, are naturally the staple of his communications to his family lawyer, but he occasionally mentions well-known Gal way names, such as Kirwan and Bodkin, and notes, 11 Dec., 1781, the curious circumstance that " our great patriot, Mr. Denis Daly," the talented member for co. Galway, "wants

to borrow 500/ He lately married a lady

with 42,OOOZ., and he has had a place of 1,500/. a year given him by Government." (It was really 1,200Z., as Muster-Master General, and the bride was Lady Henrietta Maxwell, daughter and heiress of Lord Farnham.) He also records, 25 Dec., 1781, the marriage of his wife's first cousin once removed, Alicia Oliver, daughter of the Archdeacon of Ardagh, to James Hewitt, Dean of Armagh, who succeeded his father, the Lord Chan- cellor of Ireland, as second Baron Lifford in 1782. Another family event, noticed 11 Dec., 1781, is the birth of the first child of another cousin, Catherine, daughter of the Rev. Charles Dudley Byder (son of the Archbishop), and wife to Samuel Madden of Hillton, co. Monaghan, a grandson of " Premium " Madden, founder of the Madden prize at Trinity College, Dublin. The habit of intermarriage, fatally common in Ireland, is strikingly evident in this affectionate family. Three Baxters married Olivers ; three* Ryders married an Oliver, a Madden, and a Burton. Thus do all "good" families in Ireland " call cousin."

In several letters Burton asks Baxter to send hogsheads of London porter, a.nd he adds that " 1 1 a couple of Glocester and a. Cheshire cheese was sent with the Porter it would be very agreeable to my wife." Stout had not then attained the celebrity in Ireland which Guinness conferred upon it, and cheese has always been a foreign luxury.

A rather cold account of the drowning of a.n improper young person in a bog-hole near Tuam ; another, much more sympathetic, of a fire in the Archdeacon's dressing-room, in which he kept his money, whereat his wife " lost consciousness " and a silk gown ; a casual remark that Archbishop Browne "has raised the See upwards of 1,600Z. a year as he is a native of this country it goes down very q lietly," and that the Archbishop would be absent from his See from August to May ; with a couple of references to the Volunteers, or bands of ruffians who posed as such and damaged his carriage (I April, 1780) and

frightened his neighbours but " I thank God I have good spirits and am not afraid of dying a violent or a natural death," the good Archdeacon declares, with no feeling for bathos : these represent the chief ex- ternal notices in the letters. It is pleasant to read, in 1781, that " we are on very good terms with every individual in this Country,, and they show every inclination to make this Country agreeable to us. Beef and all kinds of provisions are very cheap."

On 16 July, 1782, he refers to the death of his wife, which must have occurred! between then and the previous Christmas, a.nd deplores that he has to go into his new house alone. How long he remained so is not recorded, for the letters stop at the following 20 June, when he has <; immediate occasion for cash " and draws 45 S/. 8s. Id. ; but he cannot have waited long before he married again, for he died, according to Lady Burton, in 1794, and, if his first union was barren, there were five children by the second. The lady, it is needless to say, belonged to the ecclesiastical establishment. She was Maria Margaretta, daughter of Dr. John Campbell, Vicar- General of Tuam. Her mother was a Lejeune, and this permitted her grandson, the translator of the 'Arabian Nights,' to indulge the pleasing fancy that he was descended from Louis XIV., through an imagined indiscretion of La Belle Mont- morency. He was on surer grounds in stating that he was the eldest son of Col. Joseph Netterville Burton, second son of the Archdeacon's marriage with the daughter of the Vicar- General. The science of eugenics has recorded few more curious results.

STANLEY LANE-POOLE.

A COLLEGE HALL -BOOK OF 1401-2.

(See ante, pp. 393, 415.)

UNTIL we come to the 2nd week of the 3rd quarter, we have to be content with lists consisting mainly of surnames only. Then for nine weeks running the Christian names of the Scholars are also given, which is a help now if one is checking the Register of Scholars by the Hall-book. In many of the early books, but not in that of 1401-2, other aids for checking the Register are provided in the shape of notes, of two kinds :

1. At the point where a new boy comes or an old one leaves or dies, the appropriate note frequently occurs, such as " hie primo,"