Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/162

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [is s. n. AUG. 19, 1916.

three Posts, or the whole Weeks News. Advertise- ment* will be incerted at Reasonable Hate*. This Paper circulates Forty Miles round, and several Hundreds dispers'd every Week. Friday, October the 7th, 1715. Printed by Jos. Bliss, at his New Printing-House near the London-Inn, without East-Gate."

Dr. Brushfield was aware of Dr. Tanner's letter, but he says: "How far the hearsay report was correct we have no present means of ascertaining. No other contemporary writer alludes to it." There is a good collection of early Exeter newspapers in the Library of the Devon and Exeter Institution, but it does not include a single number of the earlier series of Jos. Bliss's Exeter Post-Boy. From the Rev. J. Ingle Dredge's series of articles on ' Devon Booksellers and Printers in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries' (Western Antiquary, vols. v. and vi.), it appears that Bliss and Farley were in partnership in 1707, four works containing their joint names as printers. From 1708 to 1710 Bliss's shop was " in the Exchange," which Dr. Brushfield says was a few doors below the Guildhall, though the imprint on the earlier Exeter Post-Boy seems to identify this with the Exchange Coffee House, in St. Peter's Churchyard. In 1711 he had removed to the address given in The Pro- testant Mercury. R. PEARSE CHOPE.

I am much indebted to your correspondent MB. J. B. WILLIAMS for his notes on the very interesting subject of early provincial newspapers. I much regret that at the moment I have not time to go minutely into this subject, but I should like to call MR. WILLIAMS 's attention to a contribution on this subject by the late Dr. T. N. Brushfield, entitled ' Andrew Brice and the Early Exeter Newspaper Press,' which he will find in vol. xx. of the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, published in 1888. H. TAPLEY-SOPEE.

Public Library, Exeter.

WILLIAM HOLLOWAY v!2 S. ii. 8). In addition to 'The Peasant's Fate,' 1802, he published ' Poems on Various Occasions,' 1798 ; ' The Baron of Lauderbrooke, a Tale,' 1800 ; ' Scenes of Youth, or Rural Recollec- tions,' &c., 1803 ; ' The Minor Minstrel,' 1808; and 'The Country Pastor, a Poem,' 1812. In some of these there are local allusions to Dorset. A William Holloway was collector of customs, notary, and surveyor for the registry of shipping "at East Cowes from before 1779 to his death in 1816 ; but only the coincidences of name and date suggest that he may possibly have been the author. W. B. H.

PEAT AND Moss : HEALING PROPERTIES (12 S. ii. 9, 96). In confirmation of L. L. K.'s statement that sphagnum moss is being utilized in this war, three photographs appeared early in July in a Devonshire paper (The Western Weekly News, I think) illus- trative of its collection on Dartmoor by Mr. J. Durrant of Okehampton, who, being too old to fight, had to date patriotically tramped about 1,000 miles in quest of it. Those of us who know Dartmoor bogs and mists will say all honour to him.

W. CURZON YEO. Richmond, Surrey.

The use of moss from a dead man's skull I find mentioned several times in a MS. book of recipes, and once in the preparation of an ointment for dressing a weapon with which a wound had been made, as " Take the moss of a dead man's skull that was never buryed" this, with " two ounces of man's fat" and other ingredients, to be "brayed in a morter." THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

RICHARD WILSON, M.P. (12 S. i. 90, 158.. 213, 277, 437, 516; ii. 34, 55, 74). The 'Royal Kalendar' for 1800 and 1802: gives Richard Wilson, M.P. Barnstaple (1796-1802, defeated there 1790 and 1802), as of Datch worth Lodge, Herts, and Queen Street, Westminster ; for 1806 it gives " Richard Wilson of Lincoln's Inn Fields " as Principal Secretary to Lord Chancellor Eldon (a post he held 1801-6),. and as one of the sixty Commissioners of Bankrupts (which he held 1802 till the Commission was abolished, 1832) ; for 1810 it gives No. 47 Portugal Street as his address. Lord Eldon gave him in 1806 a third appointment as one of the Corporation of Cursitors in Chancery (whose office was in Rolls Yard), his district being London and Middlesex, and his name appears as such until 1834. The 'New Law List,' 1827, gives- among the names of attorneys in London,. " Richard Wilson of No. 47 Lincoln's Inn. Fields, solicitor to the Lambeth Waterworks Company." He was a trustee of the Law Association in 1825. It appears clear to me that the M.P. Barnstaple, 1796-1802, was the Richard Wilson, attorney, who acted as agent or steward to the second and third Dukes of Northumberland from about 1786 (presumably) till he died, June 7, 1834, and, from his address, I assume he was Lord Eldon' s Secretary, Commissioner of Bank- rupts, and Cursitor. Does Joshua Wilson's ' Biog. Index,' 1806, give any clue as to the Richard Wilson who was M.P. for Ipswich.