Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/485

 ii s. XL JCSE 19,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

475

T:ie next mention of Marsh is in a query on 30 May, 1863 (3 S. iii. 431*), which is on another subject, namely, an article in The Quarterly Review, vol. Ixx. p. 290, for 1842, in which the critic incidentally asked : " Who now remembers the name of Mr. Charles Marsh ? " (No. 1.) The reference here is to Marsh's great speech in the House of Commons on 1 July, 1813, against Wilberforce's attempt to force hristianity on the natives of India. The Quarterly reviewer's " Mr." seems to show that he was unaware of Marsh's death. An editorial biography is subjoined, which must have taken my late industrious little friend James Yeowell, then sub- editor, many hours to work up a thing he revelled in. At the ond he says : " Mr. Marsh, we believe, subsequently returned to India." On p. 478 <3 S. iii.) is a note which remarks that "Marsh is generally supposed to be the author of * The Clubs,' " &c. In vol. iv. p. 363, is a reply by the then well-known biographers C. H. and THOMPSON COOPER, which says : " We hope this renewed mention of him may elicit the date of his decease." On p. 529 F. C. B., who heads his reply " Charles March,"t says : " This gentleman died in the spring of 1835." The exact date and place of death are, however, still to seek.

The first notice of Marsh is in my old friend and early companion (I once had three copies of it), 'The Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors,' 1816, attri- buted in 'N. & Q.' to John Watkins and Frederic Shoberl. In it we get an original and contemporary biography of Marsh. The member of Parliament was in good favour, otherwise we should hear of it, for the authors spoke their minds in the freest manner. Allibone copies the ' Biog. Diet.,' 1816, but without acknowledgment I do not mention this in blame, as it was quite impossible for Allibone in so vast a work to cite all his authorities. It is still, and I believe always will be, useful to refer to Allibone. The next and last biography is in the ' D.N.B.'

I have searched at the Probate Registry from 1831 to 1839 inclusive, but have found neither will nor letters of administration. I

on Lord Thurlow was first in the number (p. 121), and occupied over three columns. I presume T. was the editor, W. J. Thorns.
 * It is signed " T." : a previous note of T.'s

t Was that how the name was pronounced ? For John Taylor spells it in the same way. I presume he wrote from memory, from the absolute unreliability of his statements, which all require to be verified.

noticed very few in the index of the name of Marsh or March, but there was one Charles Marsh, died December, 1835, whose will I looked atrather as a "forlorn hope," since the index had not given him an " Esquire." He turned out to be a publican of Essex. I mention this for the benefit of any future searcher. If the mistake I made (first above-mentioned) had not been pointed out to me, I should never have given this matter another thought.

I feel very curious to know more about Marsh- It is pretty evident that he did not fulfil the promise of his early years, and I should be glad to have my idea combated that he got into bad ways and eventually died in poverty and distress.

I hope some one will endeavour to write a longer biography than that in the ' D.N.B.' Marsh well deserves it.

Another matter I wish to mention is that by this reply I get back my record for an answer to the earliest question in ' N. & Q.' That record I held by my reply re John Reynolds, John Wilkes's attorney (11 S. i. 284), forty -eight years after the question was asked. This was backmarked by the late (and I may truly say very much la- mented) COL. W. F. PRIDEAUX in his reply as to the * Arabian Nights,' fifty -eight years after the question (US. viii. 21). My present reply settles the identity of the author, and is sixty -one years after the original query. RALPH THOMAS.

30, Narbonne Avenue, Clapham Common.

STONES USED TO STAUNCH BLOOD (11 S. xi. 411). In the notice, at the above reference, of vol. xx. of the ' Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice,' &c., your reviewer, after remarking, " In a list of cargoes brought to England from the East Indies in October, 1626, occurs ' cestelletto di pietre per stagnar il sangue,' " asks, " What were these stones used to staunch blood ? "

Is not an answer supplied by the following extract in Southey's ' Common Place Book,' Second Series, p. 538, from " A Booke of the Thinges that are brought from the West Indies. Newly compyled by Doctor Monardus of Seville, 1574, translated out of Spanish by John Frampton, 1580 " ?

" They doo bring from the new Spain a stone of great virtue, called the Stone of the Blood. The Blood Stone is a kind of jasper of divers colours, somewhat dark, full of sprinkles like to blood, beeing of colon*- red: of the which stones the