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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. IL SKPT. 9, me.

Mr>. Dutton continv;ed to reside at Gransden after her husband's death, and occupied herself chiefly in writing and publishing a large number of religious books.

She died Nov. 18, 1765, and was buriedin the Old Burying - Ground at Gransden. A tombstone was erected to her memory by Mr. Christopher Gold ing of London in 1822, which was replaced in 1887 by a new stone, ber.ring the following inscription :

In Memory of ANNE DUTTON,

Relict of Benjamin Dutton. many years Pastor of the Baptist Church in this place. She resided 34 years in this parish, spent her life in the cause of God, was the Author of 25 Volumes of Choice Letters and 38 smaller works, and generously left an Endowment for the preaching of the Gospel in this Village. She entered into rest Nov. 18th, 1765, Agsd 73 years.

" The Memory of the Just is blessed."

I understand LIEUT. WHITEBKOOK has " quite a complete list of her works." The sixty-three works alluded to above, with the later editions by other editors, should make a good bibliography, interesting to Dissenters.

The identification of Mr. Sk p seems easy. He was, I think, Mr. John Skepp, member of the church at Cambridge. He became pastor of the Baptist Church meeting in Curriers' Hall, Cripplegate, about 1715, and died in 1721. Mrs. Dutton says: "and upon my being fixed in London under the ministry of the late Mr. Skepp, I soon found the truth thereof."

Some further particulars of Mrs. Dutton's career may be found in a memoir, pp. vii- xxvii in J. A. Jones's new edition (1833) of ' A Narration of the Wonders of Grace in Six Parts,' having a frontispiece portrait by Hopwood (sculpt.) dated June 1, 1815 ; and also in ' A History of Great Gransden in the County of Huntingdon,' by the present vicar of that parish, in monthly parts, 1892, one hundred printed.

HERBERT E. NORRIS.

Cirencester.

FOLK-LORE : CHIME-HOURS (12 S. i. 329, 417 ; ii. 136, 194). Some portion of the interest attaching to the superstitions con- nected with chime-hours is to be found in the apparent modernity of origin of the beliefs. The accumulation of these beliefs must be recent, if mechanical chimes are those in- tended, inasmuch as mechanical chimes are themselves modern. That clairvoyancy follows birth at midnight chiming would, therefore, be a superstition later than the introduction of chiming clocks to country parishes.

But what are chime-hours ? Clocks chime ivery hour or at no hours. The phrase- suggests some particular hours at which bell-ringing took place prior to the intro- duction of clockwork chiming. If these- hours are, as I gather, morning and evening Angelus and Curfew, the bell-ringing at ail these times, save midnight, is easily ex- plicable and of ancient origin. But for what cause have chimes been associated with midnight, and what sounding of a bell habitually took place at midnight in the days when beliefs such as have been men- tioned originated ? MARGARET W.

MUSICAL QUERIES (12 S. ii. 49, 113). 1. Handel flourished when the old ecclesias- tical modes were gradually giving place to our major and minor keys. The association of the latter with cheerfulness and sadness respectively has, therefore, also been of gradual growth. Hence we are not suqjrised to find the air '' Come and trip it as you go ' r in Handel's ' L' Allegro ' in the key of c minor, or " He was despised " in E flat major. In the latter there are poignant harmonies, and all the more impressive in that they are specially reserved for the words " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."

As to " another example " of a Dead March in a major key, it is soon found. It is the March Handel wrote for ' Samson,' for which the ' Dead March ' in ' Saul ' was, however, soon substituted as the more striking of the two. J. S. S.

THE FIRST ENGLISH PROVINCIAL NEWS- PAPER (12 S. ii. 81, 155). It was not my intention to start a controversy by setting out a number of forgotten facts, but I cannov permit MR. CHOPE to describe my " find " of Bliss's first paper as merely an " apparent " discovery. My discovery is a very real one. I first drew attention to Jos. Bliss's Exeter- Post-Boy of 1707 in 1912, in the " Print- ing Number" of The Times.

The term " apparent disco very " is all the more unfortunate in preceding a misstate- ment of Dr. Oliver's error about Bliss.. Dr. Oliver's error lay in the assumption that Bliss's The Protestant Mercury; or,. Exeter Post-Boy, which appeared in 1715,. was the first title of the paper started by Bliss. Dr. Oliver was ignorant of Jos. Bliss's Exeter Post-Boy of 1707. If to term this an "error" be to "asperse" Dr. Oliver, then I must plead guilty, and repeat that it is not Dr. Oliver's only error about the early Exeter press.