Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/181

 2nd s. N 9., MAR. 1. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

173

Colonel George Talbot. The name of a certain Colonel George Talbot occurs in the early history of the province of Maryland. He was the son of Sir George Talbot of Kildare, Bart., and of Grace, daughter of the first Lord Baltimore. Colonel Talbot, in October, 1684, killed in a quarrel Christopher Reresby, collector of the customs in Maryland, and was sent to England to be tried for murder. Can any of your correspondents give any information about the event of the trial, and the subsequent fate of the prisoner ?

K. P. J.

Bacon's " Reflections on Death." Are the "Re- flections on Death " at the end of Montagu's edition of Bacon's Essays genuine ? Which is the earliest edition of them ? S. W. SINGER.

Lovelace's Lucasta. This disguised lady, im- mortalised by Lovelace's charming lyrics, is now generally understood to have been the Lady Lucy Sacheverell. In Dulwich College there is (or was) a portrait of Althea, but without any clue to lead to the discovery of her real name. Lysons, in his Environs of London, speaks of her as the same with Lucasta. Is there any authority for such a supposition ? EDWARD F. RIMSAULT.

The Drunken Sermon at Grantham. Can any of your readers give a fuller account of this matter than is rendered in Tumor's Grantham? where it is merely stated that

" Michael Solomon, Gent, gave, out of the Angel Inn, iu Grantham, in the year 1706, 40s. per annum for ever, for a sermon to be preached against drunkenness, the Sunday next after the Alderman's choice, in the after- noon."

Who, and what, was Mr. Solomon ? Did he re- side in Grantham ? Had he any especial motive or reason for instituting an annual sermon against inebriety ? Were the Granthamites of that day unusually bibulous? If the worthy Solomon in- tended to deter people from getting " bosky," it was strange that he should direct his sermon to be preached on the Sunday after the alderman's choice, when it would merely amount to a post mortem examination. His appointing the sermon for the afternoon no doubt arose from his con- sidering that it would be too personal to have it preached in the morning, when the alderman and corporation attended the church, in state, after partaking of what is, even to the present day, "neatly wrapped up" in the innocent term "cho- colate," with the new chief magistrate.

HENRY KENSINGTON.

Lord Dongan. Who was Lord Dongan, killed at the battle of the Boyne ? Was he William Dongan, Earl of Limerick, or the son of this nobleman ? G. STEINMAN STIUNMAN.

" England and Wales." What is the date of a Topographical Account of England and Wales t with maps, by John Bill. I am led to suppose it of the time of James II., or Charles I., but the title-page is wanting in my copy.* J. K.

Batterdashes. Mr. Aubrey, in a MS. Preface to his intended History of North Wiltshire (a MS. in the Ashmolean Library at Oxford), in treating of the manners and habits of the noble- men and gentlemen who lived in the time of his grandfather, Mr. Lyte, temp. Hen. VIII. (this Preface being dated April 28, 1670), says :

"Every baron and gentleman of estate kept great horses for men at arms. Lords had their armories to furnish some hundreds of men. The halls of Justices of the Peace were dreadful to behold ; the skreenes were garnished with corsletts and helmetts, gaping with open mouth, with coates of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown- bills, batterdashes, bucklers, and the moderne colivers and petror.ells (in King Charles's time) turned into musketts and pistolls."

A part of this MS. Preface (not the whole of it) was printed by Cur 11 in his Miscellanies, in 1714, and there this word is printed "Batter- dashers." What were batterdashes, or batter- dashers ? In the reign of King George III., spatterdashes were military gaiters, and in the farce of the lleview on the Wags of Windsor, written by George Colman the younger, Phoebe Whitethorn, who follows her iover in military attire, sings of " Spatterdash neat, and niy hair in- a club." Military Costume of the Reign of King George III. F. A. C.

The Tythe Improprietors of Benefices in Capi' tidar Patronage. In looking over the list of benefices in the gift of the various deans and chap- ters, appended to the Clergy List, I perceive that only about 135 of them are rectories, the rest being vicarages and perpetual curacies.

Is there any book which affords accurate in- formation as to who are the improprietors (in plain words, the receivers') of the tithe-rent-charge of all the vicarages and perpetual curncies in the gift of deans and chapters ? (I may add, of those in the gift of colleges, and other public corporate bodies also ?) In some cases, I know that the ca- pitular patrons themselves are the improprietors. Is it so in all cases, or at least in most of them ? If so, when and how did they become possessed of them ? I mean, of course, as a general rule, when and how did they become possessed of them? C. H. DAVIS, M.A. (Clergyman).

ErcJts " Irish Ecclesiastical Register" Can you, or any of your readers, tell me (what I am anxious to know) how many editions there have been of the late Dr. Erek's Irish Ecclesiastical

[* Our correspondent should have given the size of the work.]