Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/399

 ii s. vi. OCT. a, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

327

THE REV. HERBERT RLX, ROYAL SOCIETY, 1879-95. (See ante, p. 302.) Messrs. Wil- liams & Norgate have kindly lent me their file copy, the only file they hold, of Rix's ' Sermons, Addresses, and Essays,' and it appears that the volume was issued by friends after the writer's death as " a real, though very inadequate memorial of a life devoted to the noblest ideals, and of a robust and rare intelligence." It opens with an appreciation by Philip Wicksteed.

Rix was born in December, 1850, and was only fourteen when severe attacks of rheu- matic fever left him with the heart troubles to which he ultimately succumbed. He became a student at Regent's Park Baptist College, then under Dr. Angus. Finding that he could not bind himself to any formulae or sub- scriptions, he informed Dr. Angus of his difficulties. All who have had the privilege of the friendship of Dr. Angus will remember his large-heartedness. He ' ' acted throughout with the greatest sympathy and kindness," and " the young heretic got an appointment as classical tutor at the College at Pontypool." Afterwards he became assistant to Allanson Picton at St. Thomas's Square. Hackney ; but this work was soon brought to a close through the resignation of Picton. In 1879 he received the appointment of clerk to the Royal Society, and in 1885 became Assistant Secretary.

It was when Rix and his wife occupied the official apartments at Burlington House that Wicksteed first knew them. He de- scribes Rix as "a perfect secretary, with rare powers of organising and arranging details, punctual, systematic, upright, and conscientious. . . .giving his staff the sense of being called into fellowship of work by a friend rather than ordered by a superior." He was full of courtesy and sympathetic kindness, but fire would be struck from him by anything approaching an imputation against the Society of which he was the servant. On one occasion a disappointed interviewer, who had hinted that some wire- pulling might have affected the selection from the candidates for membership, sud- denly found himself passing through the door as the Assistant Secretary held it un- compromisingly open.

Nevertheless, his heart was not wholly in his work he wished to give his life to preaching. He hadjbuilt a cottage at Limpsfield (where some of his friends had already pitched their tents), intending to live there with his wife on 100?. a year, and to vary sermon -writ ing by cultivating his little plot of land ; but when he retired the Royal

Society voted him a pension, and this with other resources brought his income to far beyond what he had anticipated. He died in the autumn of 1906, only a few weeks after losing his wife, who had served on the committee for the revision of the Braille system of writing for the blind, and with a friend had transcribed a translation of the whole of the ' Divina Commedia.'

JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

PETITION TO THE HON. MARY CONWAY, 1629. From the State Papers Domestic Charles I., vol. 142, p. 25, I transcribe the following letter:

MOST NOBLE MlSTBKS

When I came forth of your howse, as Noah's dove out of the Arke, my hope was that I shold have found some rest for the sole of my foote : that is, a howse in the Countrey for me, and my husband to have dwelt in : But as the dove found the earth covered with waters : soe I found the howse replenished with inhabitants, and not soe much as warninge geven them to depart. Therefore my humble suite unto you is, not that you wold receive me into the Arke againe as Noah did the dove : But that you wold solicite your Hono ble good father, that he wold be pleased to geve order for a speedie and peaceable possession of that howse, without being either burthensome to my friends, or too chargeable to my husband, w ch favour if I may be soe happie as to obtayne at your hands : then shall I by my letter the seacond tyme returne unto you, as the dove did unto Noah, with an olyve leafe in my mouth, to yeld you, and my verie good Lord, humble, and hartie thanks for my quiet, and peace[able*] possession thereof. And thus with the acknowledgment of mine, and my husbands serviceable due respect unto you, I humblye take my leave, restinge Your most Submissive

Servant, and Suppliant

ELIZABETH AMSON. from Arrow the vi th of May 1629. [Endorsed :.,

To the Hono hle, Mistress Marie Conway, daughter to the moste noble Lord Viscount Conway at his howse in S* Martins Lane present these.

E. H. FAIRBROTHER.

CAWTHORNE. This surname seems rather uncommon, if one may judge by the fact that it occurs but once, so far as I can dis- cover, in all the ten General Indexes to ' N. & Q.' There is mention (4 S. v. 597) of one Mrs. Cawthorne, a centenarian, "an old lady residing in Chatteris (Cam- bridgeshire) [who] completed her 100th year [4 May, 1870]."

I became interested in the genealogy of the Cawthorne family on account of its


 * Torn away.