Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/231

 ii s. iv. SEPT. 16, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

225

There was bought of Mr. Gladman, coffin-maker, in the same year : Aug. 16. A 6 ft. 3, 17 by 21, Sing. Close- Nailed Lid. . Lord Balmerino. . 15 A 6 ft. 3, 16 by 20. . Earl Kilmarnock. . 14 The other purchases on or about this date, of gloves, nails, candles, scarves, hoods, palls, &c., are not identified, and the pay- ments for horse hire, and " soldering up the body " do not include these two funerals ; but amongst the charges incurred with Mr. John Lodington for hire of plumes is the following :

1746, July 12. For the use of 15 Plu(mes) Black Ost(rich) Feathers, Lovett

(? Lovat) 150

The date Aug. 16, occurring twice in these entries, is correct, as the purchases would be made a few days before the coffins and their appurtenances were required. The Lovett or Lovat entry is very doubtful. The date does not admit of its being connected with the execution of Simon, Lord Fraser of Lovat, which did not take place until the following April. D. C. Bell ('The Chapel in the Tower,' p. 323) quotes a letter from the Duke of Newcastle to the commanding officer of the Tower, beginning " Mr. Steven- son, the undertaker, in whose custody the body of Lord Lovat now remains." There is a remote suggestion in this that the account-book before me is that of Stevenson. I have searched diligently amongst all the entries for further details relating to the funerals, but without success, and I am much disappointed that no expense was incurred with " Mr. Ware, Herald Painter," for " an atchievment " (sic), or " silk escoutcheons " (sic), or " banners, shields, and long pencils."

The rediscovery of the three coffins is, I believe, first recorded in Wilkinson's 'Londina Illustrata ' (circa 1817). The plates are now exhibited on the west wall of the chapel. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

COL. NEWCOME'S DEATH. There is an interesting comparison to be made between the death of the old trapper as related in Fenimore Cooper's story ' The Prairie," and the pathetic end of Col. Newcome The few sentences which follow I give fron Thackeray's novel * The Newcomes ' :

" At the usual hour the chapel bell began to toll and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said ' Adsum,' and fell back. It was the word we used at school, when names were called ; and lo, he, whos

leart was as that of a little child, had answered o his name, and stood in the presence of The

Master."

The death of the old trapper is thus described! n Cooper's * Prairie,' which was published

a quarter of a century earlier :

The old man, supported on either side by his riends, rose upright to his feet. For a moment le looked about him, as if to invite all in presence o listen (the lingering remnant of human frailty), ind then, with a fine military elevation of the head, md with a voice that might be heard in every part f that numerous assembly, he pronounced the

word 'Here!'"

GEORGE WHERRY. Cambridge.

A FIGMENT ABOUT JOHN BALLIOL. There is a danger that the fame of the bunder of Balliol College should suffer from an altogether imaginary scandal. In The

hurch Quarterly Review for last July, at p. 373, it is said that


 * John de Balliol was once on a time very

drunk, in a manner most unbecoming his station in ife, and in his madness he put a grave insult on- my Lord the Bishop of Durham." The source of the story is an account of Bishop Chirkham of Durham given in the*

Lanercost Chronicle ' under 1260. It runs- as follows :

"Contigit enim baronem suse diocesis, totius-

nglice noniinatissimum, cervicisse contra hones- tatem sui gradus, et ecclesise reverentiam almd perperam commisisse."

Manifestly sui refers not to Balliol, but to the bishop ; and equally manifestly the construction requires the omission of the comma after gradus. But this being so, it follows that cervicisse and commisisse cannot stand together in a single clause ; and we may assume with confidence that the editor or transcriber wrote cervicisse by mistake for cervicose, " in a stiff-necked manner." The text then will read :

"Contigit enim baronem suse diocesis cervicosfr

contra honestatem sui gradus et ecclesiae reveren- tiam aliud perperam commisisse."

But even if the reading of the printed edition were correct, cervicio (a verb other- wise unknown) would mean " to behave in a stiff-necked manner," and could not possibly come from cervisia, "beer." The mistranslation seems first to appear in the Baroness de Paravicini's ' Early History of Balliol College' (1891), p. 46, where the founder is said to have " gotten himself drunk with beer, quite contrary to the fair esteem beseeming his rank " ; but it must not be charged to the author, who expressly says that she owes her translations to the kindness of friends. C. A.