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NOTES AND QUERIES, [us. vn. Ap KI L2e,i9i3.

the town, on the night of the marriage of the then Prince of Wales. The crowd was tremendous, and as a small child he recalls being taken into the house to escape the pressure. It was then occupied as a school for young ladies, kept by a Miss Ho well. Afterwards, in the seventies, a Mr. John Slack had a school for boys there.

It was to Birmingham that Sikes was reported to have gone after the murder of Nancy ; to Birmingham Mr. Dombey and Major Bagstock travelled in Mr. Dombey's private carriage taken in the train ; and it was at Birmingham that, in 1840, the travel- ling companions Forster, Maclise,and Dickens found their resources so straitened that they had to pawn their gold watches.

WlLMOT COBFIELD.

' VITTOBIA COBOMBONA.' There is a pas- sage in, this play which, it may be useful to point out, can be matched by a story jfrom the * Percy Anecdotes.' The anecdote in question may be found in the Chandos reprint, p. 197, and is headed 'Robert of Normandy.' It relates how the father of the Conqueror rebuked the Emperor at Constantinople for discourteously inviting jhimself and his suite to a banquet, without providing places for them at table, and probably illustrates nothing more than the ingenious manner in which the '. Anecdotes ' were compiled. The Norman nobles sat upon their richly embroidered and costly -cloaks, which they left behind them. Upon the Emperor's sending a messenger after .his guests with the cloaks, the Duke replies : " Go and tell your master it is not the custom of the Normans to carry about with them the seats which they use at an enter- tainment." In Webster, Brachiano at the trial scene, on quitting the Hall of Justice, ficts in a similar manner, thus : Servant. My lord, your gown. Brack. Thou liest ; 'twas my stool :

Bestow 't upon thy master, that will challenge

The rest o ; the household stuff, c.

G. A. PABBY.

HYMN TO ST. ANNE : FIFTEENTH-CENTUBY MS. PSALTEB. By the courtesy of the Head Master of Bury St. Edmunds Grammar School I have been allowed to copy out the following short hymn to St. Anne in the fifteenth-century MS. Psalter once belonging to Bury Abbey, now to Bury -School. It is on fol. 263v. Mr. J. Mearns called my attention to it. It is neither good poetry nor good Latin, but as it has never, so far as I know, been printed, you may deem it worthy of a place in your columns.

The Psalter has been fully described by Dr. James in the Cambridge Antiquarian Society's octavo Publications, No* xxviii., pp. 93-5.

O mater preclarissima,

Anna deo gratissima,

In ueritatis lumine

Uera fruens dulcedine,

Peccatorum caliginem Et amaram dulcedinem A nostris aufer mentibus, Et reple nos uirtutibus.

Fae cor nostrum mollescere, Fas oculos perducere Humilitatis lacrimas Que nostras murident animas.

Ut dolor peniteucie Amorque summe patrie Nos faciant in ethere Celi regem conspicere.

Presta, pater altissime, Presta, nli dulcissime, Presta, benigne spiritus, Qui plus es paraclitus.

F. E. WABBEN. Bardwell.

THE EABL OF PEMBBOKE AND RICHARD BUBBAGE. During my work for the Life of Richard Burbage I came on one letter most interesting to me. It has not yet been printed, and I think it ought to be, as an illustration of the relations possible at the time between* the " incomparable pair of brethren, who prosecuted (Shakespeare) with so much favour while living," and con- temporary players.

The Earl of Pembroke to Viscount Don- caster, Ambassador to Germany, at Middle - burg :

" I could nob let my cousin Barkley go, without a small testimony of my unceremonious respect unto

your Lordship This day the French Embassador

took leave. We shall put off our blacks at St. George's tyde, and be laught at for it by all Chris-

tendome at Midsummer My Lord of Lenox

made a great supper to the French Embassador this night here, and even now all the company are at the play, which I, being tender-harted, could not endure to see so soone after the loss of my

old acquaintance Burbadge Your Lordship's

most affectionate friend and servant Pembroke. Whitehall, 20th May."

The date must have been 1619. Burbage had died on 13 March ; 1618/19, was buried on the 16th, and " in all London not an eye was dry." The Queen had died on 2 March (not "the same day," as the 'D.N.B.' says), and the players were forbidden to play while her body was above ground ; so the dates also become instructive. And Pembroke, rather than see a play without Burbage, stays at home and writes letters.

C. C. STOPES.