Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/136

 128

. N ?., FEB. 16. '56.

see Swift's Works (Scott's edition), vol. xvii. pp. 219. 412. and 449. The following is a short extract :

" I desire you [Lord Carteret] will tell Lord Fitzwalter [who married the duke's granddaughter") that if he will not send fifty pounds to make a monument for the old duke, I and the chapter will erect a small one of ourselves for ten pounds ; wherein it shall be expressed, that the posterity of the duke, naming particularly Lady Holder- ness and Mr. Mildmay, not having the generosity to erect a monument, we have done it of ourselves. And if, for an excuse, they pretend they will send for his body, let them know it is mine ; and rather than send it, I will take up the bones, and make of it a skeleton, and put it in my register-office, to be a memorial of their baseness to all posterity. "

ABHBA.

Judge Jeffreys and the Earldom (2 nd S. i. 70.) In a foot-note in Sir Harris Nicolas's Syno2)sis of the Peerage, and sub " Jeffreys," it is said :

" That the titles of Earl of Flint and Viscount Wick- ham were sarcastically applied to this notorious per- sonage. Granger, vol. ir. p. 272. says, ' there is a print of Judge Jeffreys as Earl of Flint, Viscount Wickham, and Baron of Wem ; ' and adds, ' I was once inclined to think it a sarcasm, until a curious gentleman showed me the following book, Dissertatio Lithologica, dedicated to Honoratissimo Domino Georgio Comiti Flintensi, Vice- comiti de Weickham, Baroni dc Weiui. supremo Anglise Cancellario, et serenissimo Jacobo Secundo regi Anglia; a secretioribus consiliis.' The proof which convinced Granger is, however, evidently a satirical dedication to him as the flinty Jeffreys."

7-

If the title of Earl of Flint was conferred on Jeffreys, the reason why that designation was chosen, no doubt, was because he was a Flintshire man. He was first-cousin to Sir John Trevor, Master of the Rolls, and Speaker of the House of Commons, who died 1696. His family was an ancient one, and of the tribe of Bleddyn ab Cynfyn. When Jeffreys was urging the violent proceedings against Cornish, his cousin, Sir John, remonstrated with him, and declared that if he executed the man it would be murder, but in vain ; he used to brow- beat the witnesses from the bench. Most his- torians describe his personal appearance as con- ! formable to the ferocity of his disposition, but in the picture of him at Erthig, he is represented in j his robes, with the purse, and what appears to be a ' viscount's coronet near him, as a remarkably hand- ; some man, with a very intelligent countenance ; j the eyes have an expression of languor. Though > a bud man, he was undoubtedly a- great lawyer, j and the Reports published by Vernon were his j work, but his name was too unpopular to be pre- ! fixed to them. Sir William Williams, Speaker of the House of Commons in the last two short | parliaments ofChas. II., had been made Solicitor- : General by James II., with a promise of the chancellorship if he succeeded in bringing about i the conviction of the bishops. When they were i

acquitted, there was a great cheer in the hall, and Jeffreys, who was sitting in the Court of Chancery, being told the reason, was observed to lift his nos,egay to his face to bide his triumphant smile, as much as to say, " Mr. Solicitor, I keep my seal ;" for he knew it had been promised to Wil- liams if he had succeeded.

FRANCIS ROBERT DAVIES. Moyglass Mawr.

The Screw Bayonet (2 nd S. i. 32.) The anec- dote referred to by W. K. R. B. is given by Captain Grose, Treatise on Ancient Armour (1st edit. p. 115.). The regiment was the 25th, com- manded by Lieut.-Col. Maxwell ; and the engage- ment, during one of YY r illiani IH.'s campaigns in Flanders.

The regular introduction of the bayonet, ac- cording to Grose, took place in France about 1671. The first corps armed with them being the regiment of Fusiliers, raised that year, and since cstlled the Royal Regiment of Artillery. It appears that a contrivance for fixing the bayonet, so as not to prevent loading an<l firing, was in use in Queen Anne's reign ; and, as an intermediate step between the dagger-bayonet and that of the present form, by fixing two rings on the wooden handle of the dagger originally intended for screwing into the muzzles of the pieces, which were slipped over the barrel. Grose engraves one as a specimen. I have a plug or dagger-bayonet of the ancient form, and I believe they are not of very usual occurrence. E. S. TAXLOK.

Ormesby, St. Margaret.

Edmund BoJiun the Licenser. In Macaulay, vol. iii. p. 443., the argument against the non- jurors from the practice of the primitive Chris- tians, is said to be

" Remarkably well put. in a tract entitled, The Doctrine of Non-resistance or Passive Obedience no way concerned in the controversies now depending between the William- ites and the Jacobites ; by a Lay .Gentleman," &c.

The author of this "small piece" was Edmund Bohuu, afterwards the unfortunate licenser of the press, as appears by his Autobiography, p. 85. He was, in his day, a useful, as well as an indus- trious writer and translator; witness the History of the Desertion (many times cited as an authority by Mr. Macaulay), Life of Jewel, Geographical Dictionary, Versions of Wheare and Sleidun, and The Justice of Peace his Calling. But M;i- caulay, having borne testimony, as it seems un- consciously, to Bohun's argumentative powers, prefers (in vol. iv. pp. 350-356.) to exhibit him as the editor of " Filmer's absurd treatise," and the antagonist of Sidney's views, as a man of " mean understanding," of " weak and narrow mind." Effect is thus given to an amusing pic-