Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/271

 2 nd S. N 13., MAR. 29. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

263

year been paying addresses to a number of ladies. There was in the house at least a sackful of love- letters ; some, which I regret I did not copy, from the celebrated Mary Wollstonecraft, afterwards Mrs. Godwin. R. CAHRUTHERS.

Inverness.

A Query about Elephants (2 nd S. i. 115.) I cannot say what poets have reproduced this fallacy since Sir T. Browne's exposure of it ; I only know that Southey was not one of them. In the Curse of Kehama, the elephant no sooner spies the lovely Kailyal, than quite naturally,

" Reverent he kneels." Book xm. stanza xi.

Sir T. Browne was not the first to expose this vulgar error, as J. E. T. seems to think. In the voyages of Cada Mosto, the Venetian, first pub- lished in 1509, and reprinted in 1613, an enter- taining narrative, which when it first appeared was probably as much read as the Pseudodoxia itself, is the following passage. I quote from the translation in Kerr's Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. p. 233. :

" Before my voyage to Africa I had been told that the elephant could not bend its knee, and slept standing; but this is an egregious falsehood, for the bending of their knees can be plainly perceived when they walk, and they certainly lie down and rise again like other animals."

It is remarkable that this traveller, while he cor- rects one error, commits another not less palpable regarding the same animal. He says :

" Of the large teeth, or rather tusks, each elephant has two in the lower jaw, the points of which turn down, whereas those of the wild boar are turned up."

This mistake as to the position of the elephant's tusks seems to have been almost as prevalent, and as obstinately maintained, as the error before no- ticed. It was referred to and corrected in the voyage to Guinea of Captain John Lok in 1554, printed in Hakluyt. Yet, if we may judge from a passage in a recent publication, this false opinion has continued to the present time. In the " His- tory of Maritime and Inland Discovery," in Lardner's Cabinet Cydopcudia (by Mr. Cooley, I believe), the writer, giving an account of Lok's voyage, says :

"Among the objects of curiosity found or expected along this strange coast, the elephant seems to have ex- cited the most interest in the English traders. They brought with them the head of one . . . ." " Yet it may be doubted whether the author of the narrative (who was also the pilot of the vo} r age) ever saw an elephant, since he thinks fit to inform us that, ' The great teeth or tusks grow on the upper jaw downward, and not in the lower jaw upwards, as the painters and arras-workers represent them.' " Vol. ii. p. 225.

On reading this one feels tempted to ask whether Mr. Cooley " ever saw an elephant." F.

TJie Champneys Arms (2 nd S. i. 133.) The families in Devonshire which bore arms of similar

character to those described, viz. a lion rampant within a border engrailed, were the following :

Champneys for which see the Visitation of 1620, Pole's Collections for Devon, Lysons, Rob- son, Burke, the Guildhall at Exeter, and an in- scription in Yarnescombe church.

Harpur for which see the same Visitation, Robson, Burke, and tie impalement on a monu- ment in Ilfracombe church, where there are several inscriptions to the family of Bowen.

Pomeroy or Pomeray for which the authori- ties in print and otherwise are too numerous to be here cited. J. D. S.

Systems of Short-hand (2 nd S. i. 152.) There is rather a curious work, entitled

" Polygraph)-, or Short Hand made easy to the Meanest Capacity: being an universal Character fitted to all Languages, which may be learned by this Book without the Help of a Master. By the Inventor, Aulay Macau- lay. 18rno. London : 1756."

It is well worthy of the notice of your corre- spondent. T. G. S. Edinburgh.

The Two-headed Eagle (2 nd S. i. 1 97.) W. S. W. has read my Note incorrectly if he supposes I stated that " such an eagle was the ensign of the ancient kings of Persia and Babylon" (p. 197.). My words were " The device of the eagle was the ensign of the ancient kings of Persia and of Babylon," (p. 138.) CETHEP.

Bodies of the Excommunicated incapable of Cor- ruption (2 nd S. i. 194.) Dr. Cowel in his Law Dictionary or Interpreter (folio 1727), after giving Panormitan's definition of excommunication, and the old form of an excommunication, says :

" By the ecclesiastical laws an excommunicated person was not to be buried, but the body was usually flung into a pit, or covered with a heap of stones, which was called Imblocare corpus. Hovcden, pp. 773. 796. 801. 810. ; Or- dericus Vitalis, lib. xiii. p. 908. And it was a common opinion that though the body was exposed to the weather, yet it never perished, but remained whole, as a terrible example to all posterity. Mat. Paris, p. 464."

W. H. W. T.

Somerset House.

The Tithe Impropriators of Benefices in Ca- pitular Patronage (2 nd S. i. 173.) I think that the REV. C. IT. DAVIS will find the most accurate information on this subject in Table No. IV. ap- pended to the Report of the Commissioners ap- pointed by His Majesty to inquire into the Ecclesias- tical Revenues of England and Wales. London : 1835. Folio. This work contains in upwards of 1000 pages an immense amount of information nicely arranged in a tabular form, to which the Clergy List and other books are greatly indebted. W. H. W. Tithe-ridge.