Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/211

 S. NO 10., MAR. 8. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

a covered piazza, in which stood those four curi- ous bronze tables, or nails, which are now in front of the Exchange. In the Itinerary of the old Bristolian, William Wyrcestre, the Tolzev is called the Tholsylle. If T. E. R. is acquainted with Bristol, he will remember the Tolzey Bank, which stood opposite the Council House, and had on its notes an engraving of Bristol High Cross, which was placed at the meeting of the four streets, Wine, Corn, High, and Broad Streets.

F. C. H. (Bristoliensis.)

Derwenlwater Family (2 nd S. i. 153.) The only child of the Lord Derwentwater, executed for rebellion in 1715, married Lord Petre ; from her the present lord is lineally descended, and is his heir and representative, and possesses the clothes in which he was executed. The estates were given to Greenwich Hospital. R. T.

The Great Case of Tithes (2 nd S. i. 13.) Justice Pearson was a great opponent, not to say persecutor, of the Quakers, who began to make a noise in England about the middle of the seven- teenth century.

Nicolson & Burn, in their History of Cumber- land and Westmorland (vol. i. p. 536.), give an amusing examination of the celebrated James Nayler before the bench of magistrates, assembled in petty sessions at Appleby, A.D. 1652 ; in which Justice Pearson figures as a strenuous advocate for the payment of tithes : " and yet," say the historians above-mentioned " (to shew how catch- ing is enthusiasm), this same Justice Pearson afterwards turned Quaker, and writ a book against tithes." JOHN o' THE FORD.

Malta.

Instinct (2 nd S. i. 84/137.) Your correspond- ent HERMES says, " he must be a very learned, or very bold man, who would venture to give a de- finition of instinct." Paley, who, without adding the adjective very, was a bold and learned man, in his chapter on instinct, defines that faculty to be a ''propensity prior to experience, and indepen- dent of instruction ;" which, probably, after all that has been written on the subject, is as happy and condensed a definition of it as has ever been given. That animals, as well as men, have reasoning as well as instinctive powers can scarcely b'e doubted. For example, a monkey in the Zoolo- gical Gardens will loop a straw to draw a nut within his reach, if placed beyond the stretch of his arm. This caniiot be called instinct, but an obvious reasoning faculty. So also the anecdote told by Darwin, in his Zoonomia, who witnessed a wasp, pursuing its flight with a fly in its grasp, suddenly alight on the gravel walk in the garden ; and, after sawing off the fly's wings, immediately continue its journey. This again was an equally obvious instance of a reasoning power.

The infant instinctively turns its mouth to the mother's breast ; and the man instinctively raises his arm, if threatened with a blow. Man, in his presumption, wishes to monopolise all the reason- ing powers ; and I have been in company with otherwise intelligent men, who have considered it almost profane to imagine the Creator has given reasoning powers to any other animals but them- selves. R. W.

Sussex Place, Eegent's Park.

" Clint" (1" S. xii. 406. ; 2 nd S. i. 139.) There is in this parish, Cossey, near Norwich, a Glints Gate, at the end of a Clints Lane ; and I pre- sume that the hill, or long sloping ground at the end of which it stands, was formerly called the Clint Hill, like those at Diss. Like them, it is a sandy eminence, sloping down to the marshy ground and the river Wensum. The German word Klinse, like MR. HALLIWBLL'S Clint, signi- fies a gap or crevice. F. C. H.

Execution of Patrick Redmond (2 nd S. i. 53.) In the account given by a correspondent of "N. & Q." of the resuscitation of this criminal, after being hung for some time, the fact is noticed that he " went to the playhouse-door the night of his execution, to return Mr. Glover thanks, and put the whole audience in terror and consternation." It is said, moreover, that Pat never forgot the player's kindness ; and for many a year continued to pester him for relief, on the ground that " Sure, his honour had brought him to life again, and had therefore the best right to support him."

G.

"A pear year" SfC. (1" S. xii. 260. ; 2 nd S. i. 84.) These proverbs have long been recorded in my note-book. The second, doubtlessly, refers to the prevalence of autumnal cholera in years when plums are plentiful. Such proverbs are of much antiquity, as shown by the following in- stances from Halliwell (Archaic, $*c., Diet., v. v. QUETE and OVER QUALLE) :

1. " That we shalbe litulle qwete,

And plente shalbe of appuls grete."

MS. Cantab, Ff. v. 48. f. 75.

2. " That x,ere wliete shalbe over alle ;

Ther slialle monv chiMur over qualle."

MS. Cantab, Ff. v. 48. f. 77.

I cannot help thinking that this Cambridge MS. must contain something more to the same effect. Perhaps some correspondent there would examine Ff. v. 48., and report its contents to " N. & Q."

E. G. R.

William Clapperton (2 nd S. i. 113.) William Clapperton was many years in the old respectable bank of Sir William Forbes & Co., and afterwards a teacher of the French and Italian languages, Edinburgh. He died about 18-15. J. S.