Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/81

 ii s. xii. JULY 24, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Quakerish in dress and general appearance, and he claimed to be a direct descendant of Hereward the Wake, the last of the English. He once called to see me at Worksop, but I was not then aware who ha was. The late Robert White afterwaids told me. Wake and White were a well-matched pair.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

CLERKS IN HOLY ORDERS AS COMBATANTS (11 S. xii. 10, 56). The querist writes of priests " serving voluntarily as com- batants," and then goes on to say that " the gallant French priests now fighting in their country's cause " cannot be included in his list because " they are all conscripts." Whether they are all conscripts or not I do not know, but that enormous numbers of them are " serving voluntarily " is certain. Many who were past the military age volunteered, and are now in the fighting line.

H. K. H.

JAMES BROODEN, M.P. (11 S. xii. 9). Much concerning James Brogden, who sat for Launceston from 1796 to 1832, including the date of his death (24 July, 1842), is given at 7 S. xii. 409, 473. To the information then supplied I would add a few points.

His first and most exciting election was noted in The Times of 24 May and 6 June, 1796, though a far more interesting reference is to be found in a letter of Pitt, then Prime Minister, from Downing Street, 10 Sept., 1795, to George Rose, his most trusted election manager, which helped to bring about the contest. Returned as a " Foxite," Brogden adhered to his allegiance for several years, and is to be found, for example, in a Whig minority on 31 March, 1802, upon a question affecting the Duchy of Cornwall, in which Launceston was situate, with Fox, Sheridan, and Erskine (' Parliamentary History,' vol. xxxvi. f. 413) ; but he fol- lowed his political patron, the Duke of Northumberland, into the Tory camp, and was rewarded by being made Chairman of Committees of the House of Commons. For this change of side he was pilloried in ' The New Tory Guide,' under date 1816-17, being twice referred to as " Mr. Brog " and as a political " rat " (pp. 28, 170), and each time as a member of " The Rat Club," an imaginary association of ex- Whigs. Singu- larly enough, he was not mentioned in ' Links of the Lower House,' published by John M. Cobbett in 1821, and full of savage Radical attacks on Tory members, including two of his colleagues, Jonathan Raine and .Pownall Bastard Pellew (afterwards second

Viscount Exmouth), for what may be termed the joint representation of Launceston and iNewport ; and this comparative immunity from satire was continued to him in 'A Full View of the Commons,' a work of the same year, violently attacking " the Boroughmongers." To-day, however, it is of more significance to recall that Brogden, as Chairman of Committees, took to the House of Lords in 1816 a Bill affecting " Napoleon Buonaparte " (sic in orig.), care- fully referred to as " N. Buonapart6 " in the margin ('Commons* Journals,' vol. Ixxi. p. 267). ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

" THE TALLEST ONE-PIECE FLAGSTAFF IN

THE BRITISH EMPIRE " (11 S. ix. 7, 94, 254). The following is from The Nottingham Guardian of 1 June, 1915 :

"FLAGSTAFF 216 FEET LONG. The longest flagstaff produced in British Columbia is being; forwarded to Great Britain as a present from Jthe Provincial Government, and will be placed in Kew Botanical Gardens. The tree from which it was made was a perfect specimen of fir pine, and the staff, which is 216 ft. in length, is without flaw or defect.

" In its original state the stick was 5 ft. in diameter at the butt and 14 in. in diameter at the- top, and perfectly straight. Dressed into shape, the staff has a diameter of 32 in. square at the butt for a distance of 16 ft. For the next 100 ft. it is octagonal in shape, and for the last 100 ft. it is round. The upper 200ft. is a gentle taper from*. 32 in. to 12 in. in diameter."

WM. H. PEET.

DR. LTJZZATO (US. xi. 380). Dr. Isaac Broyde of New York, in his biography of Ephraim (ben Raphael) Luzzato (Luzzatto) in the ' Jewish Encyclopedia,' states that he was born at San Daniele, Friuli, in 1729, and died at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1792 ; studied medicine at the University of Padua,. graduating in 1751. He settled in London, in 1763, where he was appointed physician. in the hospital of the Sephardi (Spanish and Portuguese) Jews. In 1792 he left London and died on his way to Italy. He was a highly gifted Hebrew poet, and during his residence in London published

" Londini : Excudebant G. Richardson & S.- Clark. MDCCLXVI." 4to, iii-xi + 87pp. There is a copy in the Oriental Department of the British Museum. It was reissued in the same form and by the same publishers in 1768. His kinsman, Samuel David Luz- zatto, the compiler of the catalogue of the library of Joseph Almanzi, Padoue, 1864,. states that only 100 copies were printed of the 1768 edition. Meyer Roest, in the