Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/288

 234 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.tx. SEPT. 17, 1021. "FLOBEAT ETONA ! " (12 S. ix. Ill, 153). The two depicted by Lady Buller were Robert Elwes, Grenadier Guards, and the Hon. Stanley Monck, 52nd Light Infantry. Monck told me later that there had been no mention of Eton at the time. I knew them both. J. McG. CHRISTOPHER SAXTON (12 S. ix. 191). Among the Duchy of Lancaster Depositions at the Public Record Office (Bdle. 44, No. 47) is a plan of part of the course of Luddenden Brook dividing Midgeley and Warley, made by Christopher Saxton, and dated 1599. In a later bundle (51, No. 59) is a perfect plat of the mills and watercourses in, dispute between John Towneley, Esq., and John Parker, gent., in Extwistle and Worsthorne, "made by Christopher Saxton, April 23, 1606." At the same time he made a, deposi- tion as Christopher Saxton of Dunningley, in the county of York, gent., aged 64 or thereabouts, saying that he had seen the water of Swinden running between com- plainant's mill and the new mill called Mr. Parker's mill, and had measured the same. He did not see any wellsprings or runnels of water coming into the said brook between the mills but onlie suche as he this deponent hath ex- pressed and sett downe in one platte by him this deponent made and nowe shewed and delyvered unto the said Commissioners at the tyme of this his examination. The " platte " accordingly is endorsed by the Commissioners who took the depositions as having been shown to them at Burnley on the date above given. This proves that he was living ten years later than 1596, and gives his residence at the time. Dunningley is north of Wakefield. J. BROWNBILL. In the eighties I published in ' N. & Q. ' all I had been able to scrape together about Saxton's life, and since then I have kept a look-out for further data. According to the 'D.N.B.' he was alive as late as 1596 ; but neither the date of his death nor the place of his burial are given. The only scrap of information I have come across since the appearance of the 'D.N.B.' volume is that Saxton gave evidence and submitted plans in a dispute about the upkeep of certain drains on Hatfield Chase in the Isle of Axe- holme, I believe in 1597. My notes and books are inaccessible at present, but these new particulars were given in a recently published book on the history of the Island or the Chase by an author whose name I do not remember. L. L. K. RUNNYMEDE (12 S. ix. 150, 177, 195). One would like to hear more of the copy of Magna Charta bearing the signature of Geof - f rey de Say which MR. PARSONS tells us is in the possession of his descendants. The standard work on the Charter, by McKechnie (2nd ed., 1914), tells us that only four of the original versions bearing the great seal are known. There seem to be copies in which the names of the twenty-five executors have been written in a later hand ; but there are no signatures to the sealed copies and, so far as is known, the magnates named as wit- nesses did not sign. Even King John did not sign in the sense of subscribing his name. R. S. B. SOUND OF FINAL " A " (12 S. ix. 107). The second stanza of Herrick's 'The Widow's Tears ; or Dirge of Dorcas ' begins thus : Woe worth the time, woe worth the day, That reave d us of thee, Tabitha. J. R. H. SHAKESPEARE'S CHEESE-LOVING WELSH- MAN (12 S. ix. 110, 196). The Welshman's predilection for cheese, and especially toasted cheese, had become proverbial long before Shakespeare's time. In Andrew Boorde's ' First Boke of the Introduction of Know- ledge ' (1547), cap. ii., the Welshman (de- scribing the characteristics of his nation) says : " I am a Welshman ... I do love cause boby, good rosted chese." One of the most amusing of the early col- lection of tales entitled * A C. Mery Talys,' 1525 (' Shaks. Jest-Books,' ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1881), is No. LXXVI. : Of Seynt Peter that cryed cause bobc. I fynde wrytten amonge old gestes howe God mayde Saynt Peter porter of heuen, and that God of hys goodnes, sone after hys pass yon, suffered many men to come to the kyngdome of Heven with small de- seruynge ; at which tyme there was in heuen a great company of Welchemen, whyche with their crakynge and babelynge troubled all the other. Wherfore God sayde to saynte Peter, that he was wery of them', and that he woldefayne haue them out of heuen.. To whome saynte Peter sayd : Good Lorde, I warrente you, that shal be done. Wher- fore saynt Peter wente out of heuen gates ami cryed with a loud uoyce cause bobe, that is as moche to saye as rosted chese, whiche thynge the Welche- men herynge, ranne out of Heuen a great pace. And when Saynt Peter sawe them all out, he sodenly wente into Heuen, and locked the dore, and so sparred all the Welchemen out. By this ye may se, that it is no wysdome for a man to loue or to set .his mynde to moche vpori any delycate or worldely pleasure, wherby he shall lose the celestial! and eternall ioye. Enfield. H. DUGDALE SYKES.