Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/346

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

B. XIL OCT. so, 1915.

R. V. YATES.

Liverpool. Near the Prince's Road en- trance to Prince's Park is an obelisk (with drinking fountain attached) bearing the following inscriptions : -

Erected to the memory of Richard Vaughan Tates, the enlightened and philanthropic founder of Prince's Park.

Erected by public subscription 1858.

The park was purchased by Mr. Yates in 1843 for 50,000?., and eventually presented to the town. JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

Postscript. I am desirous of obtaining particulars of the following memorials : -Joseph Sturge, Birmingham. Sir Titus Salt, Bradford, father Nugent, Liverpool. The Jessop Fountain, Sheffield. Sir Hugh Myddelton, Amwell, Herts. Dr. R. Smith, Welton, near Lincoln. Sir T. Sutton, Godalming. H. Schneider, Barrow-in-Furness. Sir J. Ramsden, Barrow-in-Furness. W. Rathbone, Liverpool. Rev. M. Lester, Liverpool.
 * Sir Erasmus Wilson, Margate.

John Ccry, Cardiff. George Fox, Fenny Drayton. Gel. Pritchard, Brosoley. "G. J. Holyoake, Brighton. Andrew Carnegie, Pittencrieff. George Moore, Wigton.

(To be continued.)

FLYING TUBK. (See 10 S. xii. 127, 236.) At the former reference L. L. K. wrote, " In the extract printed at 10 S. x. 186 Bishop John Wilkins refers to the case of a Turk in Constantinople who, according to Busbequius, could fly," and asked for the chapter and verse in Busbequius' s works. 'This is what Wilkins said in the extract given by W. C. B. :

"'Tis not perhaps impossible, that a Man may be able to Fly, by the Application of Wings to his own Body ; As Angels are Pictured, as Mercury and Daedalus are feigned, and as- hath been at- tempted by divers, particularly by a Turk in Con- stantinople, as Busbequius Relates." 'The Dis- covery of a Worlde in the Moone,' 1638 (4th ed., 1684, i. 183).

In reply to this query the late COL. PRIDEATJX and myself both indicated the only passage in Busbequius in which any- thing resembling the above could be found. The resemblance was not close, Busbequius' s story being of a dervish who asserted that
 * the head of his monastery used to spread his

cloak on a lake and sail in whatever direction he wished. In addition I quoted from Burton's ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' par- tition 2, section 2, member 3 :

" If the Heavens then be penetrable, as these men deliver, and no lets, it were not amiss in this aerial progress to make wings, and fly up, which that Turk in Busbequius made his fellow-citizens in Constantinople believe he would perform."

I have now no doubt that the mention of Busbequius is an error, and that the story meant is that in Nicetas Choniata's ' Life of Manuel Comnenus,' lib. iii. cap. 5, pp. 156, 157, of Immamiel Bekker's edition (Bonn, 1835) in the ' Corpus Scriptorum Historian Byzantinae.'

We here read how when Clizasthlanes, the Seljuk Sultan of Iconium, was visiting the Emperor at Constantinople, a certain Saracen proposed to fly from the top of a high tower over the Hippodrome. He was dressed in a long full white tunic, the material being made billowy by withes hooped round (Xvyot 5e cts KVK\OV TrepLa^Oevre^ (TTOIOVV TO vffxuTfJia) . This seems to show

the means by which he hoped to perform the feat. (We are reminded of Archbishop Williams, who, when about 7 years of age,

" took a leap, being then in long Coats, from the walls of Cqnway Town to the Sea-shore, looking that the Wind, which was then very strong, would fill his Coats like a Sail, and bear him up, as it did with his Play-fellows." Hacket's 'Scrinia Reserata,' p. 8.)

The Emperor tries to prevent the Saracen from making the attempt, but, after keeping the spectators in suspense for some time, he finally jumps off, and breaks every bone in his body.

We are not told that the unfortunate man had artificial wings merely that he raised his arms and waved them like wings. Nicetas tells us that in consequence of the Saracen's fate the mob in Constantinople jeered at the Sultan's Turkish attendants when they appeared in public.

I would suggest that Burton referred to Busbequius by a slip of memory, and that Wilkins was indebted to Burton. Wilkins, as an Oxford man who was an undergraduate during Burton's lifetime, is bound to have read, or at least read in, the ' Anatomy.' It is interesting to remember that he was at one time chaplain to the Lord Berkeley to whom Burton dedicated his book. But he obtained his post, apparently, after the publication of ' The Discovery of a Worlde in the Moone.' See P. A. Wright Hender- son's ' Life and Times of John Wilkins,' p. 38. EDWARD BENSLY.