Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/239

 ii s. xii. SEPT. is, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

231

STATUES AND MEMORIALS : THE BUST OF JOHN ROGERS (11 S. xii. 180) in St. John's Church, Deritend, Birmingham, has the following inscription on the pedestal :

This monument

was erected Oct. 20 th, 1883

by public subscription

in grateful memory of

John Rogers, M.A.

born in Deritend A.D. 1500

Translator and in part Reviser of

Mathew's Bible

placed by authority in all churches 1537.

He was leader also of the

Noble army of Martyrs

in Queen Mary's reign

and was burnt in Smithfield, London, A.D. 1555. J. W. Smith) w -, W. C. Badger, M.A.

S. Smith / VV Minister

There is an illustration of the bust in Mr. Robert K. Dent's ' Making of Birmingham,' 1894, p. 11. HOWARD S. PEARSON.

"BATH" MONTAGUE (11 S. xii. 139). A brief account ot this actor will be found at D. 51 of Oxberry's ' Dramatic Biography,' New Series.

During the latter part cf his life he occupied the position of prompter at the Sheffield Theatre, and died in that town 1 Feb., 1869. Probably The Era of that period may contain further particulars.

He had a son, William Montague, who was also an actor. WM. DOUGLAS.

125, Helix Road, Brixton Hill.

SCOTT RECORDS AT THE WAR OFFICE (11 S. xii. 173). The information desired regarding Thomas Scott and his family will be found in the ' Genealogical Memoirs of the Family of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., of Abbotsford,' published by the Grampian Club in 1877; while an account of the McCullochs of Ardwall appears in the earlier editions of Burke' s ' Landed Gentry.'

J. R. A.

QUOTATIONS ON DEATH (US. xii. 161). 2. Is directly borrowed from Bacon :

" And by him, that st>oke onely as a Philo- sopher, and Naturall Man, it was well said : Ponipa Mortis magis terret, quam Mors ipsa. Groanes and Convulsions, and a discoloured Face, and Friends weeping, and Blackes, and Obsequies, and the like, shew Death Terrible." See Bacon's ' Essayes,' ed. 1625, ' Of Death ' (" Golden Treasury " Series, 1871).

JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN (US. xi. 357 ; xii. 13, 147). A passage relating to the death of Thomas Chatterton in Brook Street, Holborn, in 1770, which mentions the exhibition of the well-known subject-painting by Wallis

at Manchester in 1857, is quoted in ' Old and Xew London,' vol. ii. p. 547 (by Walter Thornbury), as taken from ''Mr. Hotten's ' Adversaria.' " Was 'Adversaria ' a separate publication, or a heading of contributions by Hotten to The Literary Gazette, The Parthenon, or The London Review, 1862-6, which are noticed in the article upon him in the 'D.N.B.' ? W. B. H.

0n

Roumanian Bird and Beast Stories. By M. Gaster (Sidgwick & Jackson for the Folk- Lore Society, No. LXXV., 10s. 6d. net.)

THIS is a book which we have pleasure in re- commending with some special emphasis to the attention of our readers. Dr. Gaster, in a highly interesting and suggestive Introduction, sets out the theory that the origin of these tales which appear now for the first time outside their native country is to be sought in the spread and under- ground survival of Gnosticism or, to be more precise, of Manichaeanism. The system of beliefs from which they spring may be taken to have had a range conterminous with Arianism and the rule of the Goths, though its relation to these cannot be said to be made out.

The theory itself requires more discussion, and more support from evidence, than the author has been able to give in his pages. What he does give is not always very clearly stated nor well connected up, and in one instance at least he expresses himself so obscurely that most readers will take him to have made a blunder, and we ourselves confess to not understanding him. He says on p. 41 : " Yet the mendicant friars were able to exercise a tremendous influence upon the people, and, helped by other political powers, they were able to create a movement which led up to the Crusades."

Nevertheless, the main idea is pregnant with possibilities, and Dr. Gaster may claim to have rendered further service in disposing pretty conclusively of the error of supposing that super- stitions and rites of a childish character, still to be found among the folk, are survivals of extreme antiquity, and the more childish the older. He shows well and clearly how the welter of nations in Eastern and Central Europe ; how the known changes of thought and religion ; how the struggle between the Catholic Church and the divers heresies, must have operated to obstruct the transmission from one generation to another of those myths and religious traditions belonging to the heathen world which had not been safely enshrined in literature. It has become a common- place to derive the quasi-worship of saints among Catholics direct from the worship of many gods in heathendom, and writer after writer has com- placently assured us that Mary is but another name for Isis. We believe that here, too, fuller information and closer study along the lines Dr. Gaster indicates will produce considerable modifications of cut - and - dried views. It will, we think, be seen not only that the account of a folk-tale as a survival from days of primitive barbarism is improbable rather than not ; but