Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/63

 ii s. xii. JULY IT, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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'Siddons, and mother of Horace Twiss, K.C.' Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster, and not unknown as a man of letters. WM. DOUGLAS.

12.5, Helix Road, Brixton Hill.

AN INGENIOUS EPITAPH (11 S. xii. 6). I find this epitaph printed in vol. i. of ' A Col- lection of Epitaphs,' p. 162, published 1806 by Lackington, Allen & Co., to which is prefixed an essay on epitaphs by Dr. Johnson. It is a little differently spaced, but otherwise identical. The name is Grim. R. J. FYNMORE.

BAYONNE : ARMES ET ICUSSONS ANGLAIS (11 S. xii. 8). Connaissant, d'apres les planches de 1'excellente edition des ' Re- cherches sur la ville et sur 1'eglise de Bayonne,' du chan. Veillet (torn, i- ), qu'a publiees, en 1910, M. le chanoine Daranatz, les clefs de voute de la cathedrale de Bayonne, il ne me semble pas que les sujets Xos. 45, qu'il cherche a identifier, soient heraldiques. Ce sont plutot, parait-il, de ces motifs decoratifs, tires de la vie des betes, dont fourrnille 1'art plastique du moyen age.

Le caractere armorial du No. 3 se degage beaucoup plus nettement : ce leopard devant uri arbre (on le dirait une impresa], ne l'a-t-on pas tire tout simplement des armes de Bayonne meme, ou Ton voyait la ville accostee de deux lions brochant sur autant d'arbres ? En empruntant le motif, le sculpteur 1'aurait traite d'une facon un peu libre, 1'aurait change meme, mais pas plus qu'il ne fallait, certes, pour bien remplir le champ.

L'ecu No. 2 ne peut, il me semble, etre considere comme anglais ; la formule animal brochant sur tronz d 'arbre est de genie bear- nais, navarrais ou biscayen, et on le trouve surtout es pays pyreneens occidentaux.

Seul le No. 1 trois tetes de cheval posees en profil, 2 et 1 promet quelques resultats du point-de-vue britannique. J'ajouterai que la planche du livre du chan. Veillet montre 1'ecu timbre, je le crois, d'un chapeau ecclesiastique. SICILE.

THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON (11 S. xi. 455 ; xii. 18). It may be difficult, if not impossible, to say whether the " plaintiff " or more properly the " complainant " or the " defendant " in this case obtained possession of the living child ; but I think no one can doubt that it was to the actual mother that it was awarded. It is evident that Solomon could not make up

his mind on the evidence, so to speak, as to where the truth lay ; and had it not been from the circumstances that surrounded him, namely, his ability to appeal to natural law or human nature by his threat to have the child divided, he would have been quite as likely as an English judge would nowa- days feel himself compelled to decide the case upon the well-known principle that, inasmuch as the onus probandi lies upon the person seeking to make out his or her case, in the absence of any such sufficient evidence judgment must go- for the defendant. Herein lies the secret of Solomon's wisdom in this case. By the stratagem which he adopted, all doubt as to the truth was instantly solved in any mind accustomed to weigh evidence.

Probabilities, such as suggested by MR. PINCHBECK at the later reference, could not, I think, give a sufficient preponderance to the evidence ; whilst the case is .singular, perhaps, in that so strong a maternal instinct was shown by one who was a harlot by profession. The principle of Solomon's judgment namely, the calling in aid of something outside the evidence in the case which might enable the judge or magistrate to know which side is speaking the truth, or, as I myself have had occasion to remark in sifting the evidence in native cases, to know which side is speaking the fewer lies has from time to time been attempted to be acted upon in more modern days. But inasmuch as no modern administrators of justice can have such opportunities as Solomon had of impressing human emotions into their service, it can only be afforded by exhibitions in which the lower animals often claim, by their instinct, superiority for this purpose over the reason of human beings.

I remember that in a recent case in the West Indies a magistrate, being unable to decide upon the evidence before him, where two native women claimed th? ownership of a duck, ordered that the animal should be placed on the ground near where the parties lived in order that it might be seen to whose home it went. This well-meant course of procedure, however, failed, because the duck took a direction in which neither of the parties lived ! The mistake the magistrate then made was by " tossing up " as to which side he should award his judgment, instead of falling back upon the principle of law enunciated above, namely, of deciding against the complainant or plaintiff who had failed to establish his or her case sufficiently. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.