Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/322

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ia s. n. OCT. n, 1916.

The 1st Earl of Pembroke and Striguil (Chepstow) and Regent of England died on May. 14, 1219 (aged over 70), at Caversham, near Reading. Shortly before his death he had assumed the habit of a Templar, and by his own directions he was buried in the Temple Church at London, where his recum- bent effigy is still preserved. Camden quotes one line of his epitaph, thus :

Miles eram Martis, Mars omnes vicerat armis. A. R. BAYLEY.

Striguil is Chepstow in Monmouthshire. William Marshal was buried in the Temple Church in London in 1219. For his epitaph see Weever's ' Ancient Funerall Monuments,' 1631, p. 442, and Gough's edition of Cam- den's 'Britannia,' 1806, vol. ii. p. 97. There is a less important castle in the same county, between Usk and Caer Went, with a name which I have seen spelt as Striguil, Strignil, Strignal, Strugle, and Strighill, alternatively Troggy Castle. EDWABD BENSLY.

AUTHOR WANTED (12 S. ii. 249, 296).! think I remember the lines more correctly than they appear in the query :

Can man believe with common sense

A bacon slice gives God offence,

Or that a herring hath a charm

Th' Almighty anger to disarm ?

Wrapt up in Majesty Divine,

Does He regard on what we dine ?

When a young man, away back in " the sixties," I used to smoke and spend delightful evenings with an old gentleman, Mr. Alex- ander Cockburn (he was a nephew of Lord Cockburn), in Edinburgh. At that time the Ritualist controversy was agitating the Church. It pleased him immensely to recite this verse. I always understood that he was the author of it though he never definitely said so. G. C. C.

THE SIGN VIRGO (12 S. ii. 251). At the risk of being jeered at for my ignorance, I should like to ask what proof there is that Seth knew anything whatever about the zodiacal signs. I am also curious as to the authority there is for saying that these symbols were on the breastplate of the Jewish High Priest. Cuneiform characters, Saracenic numerals, or tokens of early Esperanto would scarcely have been a more surprising attribution. ST. SWITHIN.

RESTORATION OF OLD DEEDS AND MANU- SCRIPTS (12 S. ii. 268). Chivers of Bath would be able to restore or preserve old deeds and MSS. He has done some excel- lent work for me in the preservation of old parish [registers, by covering both sides

of the pages with a tnmspareiit vellum. He did this ulso with an old township book, the hand-made paper of which was fast crumbl- ing away. The writing seems, if anything,. clearer than before ; anyhow I was able to transcribe the MS. for the Chetham Society,. having before been unable to handle it with safety. ARCHIBALD SPARK K.

MOTHER AND CHILD (12 S. ii. 190). This is a subject upon which much. has been written and published in many languages. In the middle of the eighteenth century a considerable controversy took place between three or four well-known doctors. It was begun by Daniel Turner (1667-1741), who in ' De Morbis Cutaneis ' (1714) asserted his disbelief in the occurrence of maternal impressions on the unborn child. This was followed by three pamphlets issued in further defence of his disbelief. Dr. J. A. Blondel, a Frenchman by birth, but practis- ing as a physician in London in the er.rly eighteenth century, published in 1720 anony- mously .' The Strength of Imagination in Pregnant Women Examined.' In further reference to Turner's theories Blondel issued in 1729 ' The Power of the Mother's Im- agination over the Fcetus examined in Reply to Dr. Turner.' This created much dis- cussion, and the book was translated into several European languages. A third dis- putant arose in John Henry Mauclerc, who in 1740 published (in reply to Blondel) ' The Power of Imagination in Pregnant Women Discussed : with an Address to the Ladies on the Occasion.' This was issued a few years later with a new title-page, when it was called :

" Dr. Blondel confuted ; or, the ladies vindi- cated, with regard to the power of imagination in pregnant women, together with a circular and' general address to the ladies on this occasion^ London, 1747."

The Gentleman's Magazine had a good deal to say upon the subject, and in the volume for 1764, pp. 455-7, there is a long letter (anonymous) entitled ' Effects of Imagina- tion upon Pregnant Women disproved in a Letter from an Eminent Physician to a Married Lady.'

Within recent years Mr. W. Bodenhamer issued in The Medical Record, New York, 1892,

" A few brief reflections upon the ancient dogma of maternal imagination or impression as a factor or a disturbing element in the production of various and numerous abnormalities of the fcetus."

So much for the history of the subject, which., however, may be pursued very much farther.