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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. m. JUNE 10, 1911.

BEDFORD LIBBABY. At the present moment, when attention has been drawn to this institution by the attempted sale of its principal treasure (Bunyan's Foxe), it may perhaps be serviceable to note that in The Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1817 (pp. 135-6), mention is made of other valuable works belonging at that time to this library. R. B.

Upton.

AUGUSTE JAX. While trying to verify Querard's Christian name (see 11 S. ii. 410) I came across the name of this great bio- grapher, and, oddly enough, there seems to be the same kind of error with regard to his forename as there is with respect to Querard's.

Jal died at Vernon on the 1st of April, 1873, and on looking up my note (4 S. xii. 186) at the time of his death, I find that I Called him Augustin. Now Otto Lorenz in his ' Librairie Francaise,' Larousse in his ' Grand Dictionnaire,' Georges Vicaire's 'Manuel 1 (1907, vol. iv. p. 515), and our National Library Catalogue all call him Auguste. Jal also signed himself Gustave Jal. The authority I had for Augustin is that of Jal himself. The title and preface to his * Dictionnaire de Biographie et d'Histoire ' are only signed " A. Jal," but on p. 1346 in the index we read " Jal (Augustin). See p. 10." On that page we find his signature to the preface, so there is not the slightest doubt as to the identity. As to his origin, he says see p. 1027. At this page he is writing about a man who was annoyed because some one had disclosed the fact that his father was a baker. Then Jal says that his own father was a baker, and that he (A. Jal) was born at Lyon 13 April, 1795.

In the above I was referring to the copy of Jal's dictionary at our National Library, then in the Reading-Room. Since then I have referred to my own copy, in which the seven or eight hundred errors of various kinds that are corrected by Jal in the twenty columns of errata on pp. 1327-36 are all noted. Then I find among the errata, p. 1334, col. 2, for the date of his birth, instead of 13th read "12 avril." He gives, other references about himself, but he omits one to p. 867, where he mentions a portrait of himself by Madame de Mirbel.

Besides this, in ' A. Jal : Souvenirs d'un Homme de lettres, 1795-1873,' Paris, 1877, p. 13, Jal says he was born " 12 avril, 1795." The ' Souvenirs ' is a very interesting account of Jal's life by himself, edited and published

by a person who does not give a name. It is one of the books the late H. S. Ashbee bequeathed to the " English nation," and is the only copy in the National Library. It is still uncut, except the pages I have opened in order to try to find Jal's correct forename, but without result. RALPH THOMAS.

HOCKLE Y - IN - THE - HOLE : BROADSWORD

CONTESTS. Steele in The Spectator (No. 436) describes a broadsword contest that he witnessed at this resort in Clerkenwell, and evidently both " James Miller, serjeant lately come from Portugal," and " Timothy Buck of Clare Market " were very much in earnest. Yet in No. 449 a writer adds that he overheard at an alehouse two masters of the science of defence agreeing to quarrel, and when this was settled one asked of the other, " Will you give cuts or receive ? " The other answered, " Receive." And so the contest was arranged.

A further interesting side-light on these matches occurs in ' Instructions given to the Twelve New Lights that lately sprung up in G(uild) H(all),' London, 1712 :

" To draw towards a conclusion, party trials may not be improperly liken'd to those of skill at the celebrated theatre of Hockley in the Hole ; where he that does not lay about him lustily, and give his antagonist ' Sweet Cuts ' as they are called in Bear Garden language not only loses his share in the Box, but his Credit ; and it is the business of all Prosecutors to make their articles good at any expence."

The final suggestion, therefore, is that there could not be a prior arrangement of the result of the contest : the crowd saw to it that each man did his best.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

A MURDEROUS LONDON BOATMAN or 1586. M. ^douard Fournier's ' Varietes Histo- riques et Litteraires ' is an important collection of rare French tracts, and in the fifth volume he has reprinted, from the only copy known, a very curious pamphlet giving an account, true or false, of a murder in London in 1586. The title reads :

" Cas merveilleux d'un bastellier de Londres, lequel, sous ombre de passer les passans outre la riviere de Thames, les estrangloit. A Lyon, chez Frangois Arnoullet. M.D.LXXXVI."

According to this narrative, there was a certain Jean Visquee, a native of London, who plied his vocation as a boatman for a period of thirty-three years, and in the course of that period committed eighteen murders, and was only arrested in the attempt at a nineteenth homicide. His boat was to be hired at the Strand near Whitehall,