Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/345

 2- S. NO 17., APRIL 26. '56.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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carious subsistence by mendicancy and composition. His poem, Tlie Deity, published in 1739, was written while his condition was wretched in the extreme ; but it was fortunately noticed by Hervey, author of Meditations, as Avell as by Fielding. It passed through several editions. Consult Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary.']

Fairfax Correspondence. Where are the Fairfax letters and correspondence ?

E. HAILSTONE.

[The Fairfax Correspondence has been published under the editorship of George W. Johnson, Esq., two vols. 8vo., 1848. The history of these letters would make an amusing chapter of Literary Curiosities. It was in Leeds Castle, in Kent, that this correspondence was discovered. Mr. YVykeham Martin, the present occupier, having oc- casion to make some alterations in the castle in 1822, swept away among the lumber an old oaken chest, filled apparently with Dutch tiles. It was purchased by a shoemaker for a few shillings, who found an enormous quantity of MSS. carefully arranged beneath the Dutch tiles. It was fortunately suggested to the shoemaker to offer the MSS. to Mr. Newington Hughes, a banker at Maidstone; and by this lucky accident the whole col- lection was preserved, Mr. Hughes becoming their pur- chaser. In addition to the correspondence published in these two volumes, there will be found among the Civil War Tracts in the British Museum, 140 letters of Sir Thomas Fairfax. See also Addit. MS. 11,325. for original letters and papers relating to the Fairfax family.]

Tupper on the "Probability of Sensation in Vegetables" Is this the correct title of a book published some time since ? If not, what was its true title, its publisher, and can it now be pro- cured ? Gr. E. FREBE.

[This work is entitled An Essay on the Probability of Sensation in Vegetables; with Additional Observations on Instinct, Sensation, Irritability, Sfc., by James Perchard Tupper. Published by White, Coehrane, & Co., Fleet Street. 8vo. 1811.]

Beading of the Psalms (2 nd S. i. 213.) Where can one obtain the necessary information for train- ing a clerk and body of school-children to respond in monotone ? P.

[The best publication for the accentuation and rhyth- mical division of the Morning and Evening Services is Dr. Gauntlett's Choral Use, published by Masters.]

Glass Painters. Any information respecting William Price the elder, and William Price the younger, and Joshua Price, who all flourished as glass painters in the last century, will be thank- fully accepted by MAGDALENENSIS.

[Notices of these artists are extremely meagre in the ordinary books of reference. William Price, Sen., painted the window in Merton Chapel, Oxford, 1700, and died in 1722. His brother Joshua finished the windows at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1717; and the coloured glass in the east window of St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, was executed by him in 1718. William Price, Jun., stained the windows in Westminster Abbey in 173,5 ; and those at Queen's New College and Magdalen, Oxford, " whose colours," says Walpole, " are fine, whose drawings good, and whose taste in ornaments and mosaic is far superior

to any of his predecessors, is equal to the antique, to the good Italian masters, and only surpassed by his own singular modesty " (Dallawaj', vol. ii. p. 38.). He died a bachelor at his house in Great Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, Juty 16, 1765 ; and his library was sold by Benjamin White, in 1766.]

Dr. Adam Littleton. 'What is the ancestry of Dr. Adam Littleton, the celebrated author of the Latin Dictionary ? He was born at Halesowen, in Shropshire, anno 1624, and died in 1694. Did he leave any issue ? if so, who is his present repre- sentative ? C. J. DOUGLAS.

[The pedigree of the family of Dr. Adam Littleton is given in the Gentleman's Magazine, June 1801, p. 511.]

Copper Plates of 1652. Having recently pur- chased some old copper-plates at a sale, under the designation of "old engraved copper," I am anxious to obtain some information respecting them. There are twenty- three plates, post 4to. size. No. 1. bears the following inscription :

i' 1652. 'TIS AI VERWAKT GAEREN."

With the imprint :

" Pet. Quast. Inventur C. Fisscher excudit cum privile."

The subject appears to be either a history of im- posture, or a history of mendicancy, and the work is treated in a bold and masterly manner. On the right corner of each plate the initials G. R. appear. I shall be much indebted to any reader of " N. & Q." for information as to the work to which these singular plates belong.

CHARLES REED: Paternoster Row.

[These plates are from designs by Peter Quast, a Dutch painter and engraver, born at the Hague in 1602. His pictures usually represent drolls, beggars, and assemblies of boors merry-making, which he treated with much humour and some vulgarity. In the list of his prints given in Bryan's Dictionary, is a set of twenty-six plates of beggars, boors, &c. ; these are probably the old copper- plates purchased by our correspondent.]

THE GOLDEN EOSE AND OTHER PAPAL GIFTS.

(2 nd S. i. 252.)

MR. THOMS will find a reference to the filings from St. Peters chain and the keys in Dupin, who tells us that

" St. Gregory promised the Empress Constantina some of the filings of the chain of St. Peter, if the priest who is appointed to file them could have any ; for this file will not take hold, when those who desire them do not de- serve to receive them."

A very awkward test ! Dupin adds, that " the Pope sent everywhere some of these, filings en- chased in keys" History of Ecclesiastical Writers,