Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/162

128 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 S. X. FEB. 18, 1922. Thus, to take an actual case, if a man was (1) admitted to Westminster School in 1736, aged 11, (2) matriculated at Oxford from Christ Church in February, 1743, aged 17, and (3) died on May 2, 1790, aged 64, we may infer thus much:—

1. That he was born between Jan. 2, 1724, and Dec. 31, 1725.

2. That he was born between Feb. 2, 1725, and Feb. 28, 1726. 3. That he was born between May 3, 1725, and May 2, 1726.

Therefore his birth was between May 3 and Dec. 31, 1725.

—Students of Blake may be interested to learn of an early American publication of some of his poems. In The Harbinger, vol. vii., No. 10, p. 73 (New York, July 8, 1848), under the heading 'Poetry' are printed 'Selections from Blake's Poems,' consisting of five poems from the Poetical Sketches—'To the Evening Star,' 'To Morning,' and three songs, beginning respectively "How sweet I roamed," "My silks and fine array," and "Love and harmony combine." These items were discovered too late to be included in Dr. Geoffrey Keynes's new bibliography.

—At intervals I have been examining the library and valuable manuscripts and parchments left by my late father, who all his life was zealously (if not very systematically) collecting. I have recently found amongst a number of other old books in a box in the cellar of this house 'The History of the Holy Warre,' by Thomas Fuller, second edition, printed at Cambridge in 1640. The book itself, with its beautifully illuminated initial letters, is curious, but what interested me still more was the discovery therein of two parchments emanating from Fountains Abbey and dated 1339. Now, though my father makes a note in the old volume that he bought it at a sale at Ripon in 1874, it is possible, if not probable, that he never read the book or knew of the existence of the parchments, otherwise he would have removed them. At some previous date the book had been the property of James Aitcheson, who may have come across the parchments and placed them there. We know that it was not uncommon for amulets and charms to be written on skin and sold at monasteries to the pious or superstitious, but these were usually of a different character to those which have now come to light by accident. One, signed by Robert Copgrove (abbot of Fountains from 1336 to his death in 1346, sometimes described as Copegyrie) has on the full length of the left margin a coloured figure with hideous features (painted violet). The figure is kneeling, is wearing a rochet with gold points and showing the scarlet of a full-length cassock beneath. A scarlet girdle is seen immediately above the golden points of the rochet, which has a pointed amice or collar and has a golden stole proceeding from under it. The following is the perfectly legible prayer:—

Our fader whiche arth in heofnai halowid be thi name. Thi kyngdome come to be thi willd don in earth as in hn [illegible] geve us thiss day our breed odir substannce. And forgeve us ovr dettes as we forgeven ovre detvrres & lyde vs nott into tymptatacion bvt delyver vs from yvel for thi sonnes sake. Amen.

There is no illumination on the second parchment, which is in the same calligraphy and has inscribed upon it:—

Ave holie & grete fader in hevine Do wee aske grete meercyes from thi hand and unto [us] geve all thynges whyche in thi bountyfull gude- ness thi hand may seem fytt to bewtowe upon oure wycked and bad selves and wovld wee ask of the O grete and powerfull God not to benumbe ovre hearyng and seeing those thyngs of whiche and by whiche we through thi deer sonne Jesu.s may come to the throne of grace and thyre obtayne forgyvness for all our syrines and suche falts as may have been commitiyed by us and we would aske thi blessyng to fall upon ovre Kynge Henrie and all ye people of thys natcion and all rude and wcykedness whatsoevere. J. FAIRFAX-BLAKEBOROUGH. Grove House, Norton-on-Tees. GILBERT IMLAY AND HENRY LEE (see 12 S. ix. 488). I am mortified to find that I gave the wrong Henry Lee as the re- cipient of Gilbert Imlay's letter of Sept. 2, 1784. As a penance for this mistake I have looked through various authorities for the right Henry Lee, and in doing so ran across an interesting reference to Keats, which I append in its appropriate place. The Henry Lee whom Imlay wrote to was born in Prince William County, Va., in 1757. He went to Bourbon Co., Kentucky, then a part of Virginia, in 1779, as a sur- veyor. In 1785 he founded Lee Station,