Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/411

 2-xi S. NO 20., MAY 17. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

403

the stone, on a sudden so struggled drew him backward beyond his power to recover that he was choaked."

Can any of your Devonshire readers inform me whether or not this stone still remains, and if it docs, whether it is still designated as above ?

HENRY KENSINGTON.

Passage in Coleridge (2 nd S. i. 254.) An au- thor's name cited simply is understood to mean the most eminent of its bearers. In literature Coleridge is the poet, in law the judge. The Coleridge referred to by "a Layman" was an English divine of the last century, who seems to have been a learned and pious man. He may have been influenced by Spinoza, but not by Paul us, who was born in 1761, three years after the publication of the Dissertations. As the book was published by subscription, and is not common, I copy the passage :

" I would note also that 1 Kings, xvii. 4., D^TtyH, the Worebim, the ravens, are said to feed Elijah at the brook Cheritb, before Jordan. Now there is a town mentioned, Josh. xv. 6., called Beth-Warebab, or simply Warabab, whose inhabitants would be called Worebim, or Hawore- bim, the men of Warabab. Hence it is probable that the translation, 1 Kings, xvii. 4. G., should stand thus : ' And it shall be that thou sbalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the men of Warabah to feed thee there. And the men of Warabah brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and .he drank of the brook.' This observation, which I suppose I may justly claim as my own, will take off one topic of ridicule from deistical men, and be more confirmed by noting that the town is, Josh, xviii. 22., in the tribe of Benjamin, and seems not far from the river Jordan." Miscellaneous Dissertations arising from the seventeenth and eighteenth Chapters of the Book of Judges, by the Rev. Mr. John Coleridge, Vicar of, and Schoolmaster at, Ottery St. Mary, Devon. London : printed for the Author, 1758. Dissertation xxix. p. 234.

H. B. C.

Garrick Club.

Proclamation of Banns (2 na S. i. 270. 341.) The answer of B. B. (p. 341.) to J. K.'s inquiry (p. 270.) on the subject of soldiers' marriages, is calculated to lead to a false conclusion. B. B. says that " J. K. alludes to the practice in England of allowing soldiers [banns] to be proclaimed only two Sundays instead of three before marriage." Now J. K. does not assert that there is any such practice. He simply says that " he has been told, that in the instance of soldiers who are suddenly ordered upon service abroad, the banns are oc- casionally published" two Sundays instead of three. I do not believe that such a practice exists. If any clergyman has at any time done this, he has acted either in gross ignorance or in open defiance of his duty. Neither the Marriage Act nor the Rubric gives him a discretionary power. The facility with which marringes are solemnised " over the borders " every one knows ; and doubt- less there have been many families legitimised, and many expectant Luirs-at-law disappointed, by

such proceedings as B. B. has instanced. It is satisfactory, however, that the legislature is turn- ing its attention to the law of marriage as it now prevails in Scotland.

Apropos of soldiers' marringes, I was once threatened with condign punishment for having married a private soldier without the consent of his commanding officer. But this threat was " vox et preterea nihil." The soldier, so marrying, sub- jects himself to certain penalties from the military authorities, but the officiating clergyman commits no offence. GASTKOS.

Legal Jeu d'Esprit (2 nd S. i. 222., " Gorham Controversy.") With due respect to Y. B. N. J. he has got hold of but a lame version of this ad- mirable piece of wit, and has left out the conclu- sion, which is singularly pithy and pointed, and is as follows :

" Chorus and Semi- Chorus of People.

Hurrah for the Bishop ! Hurrah for the Vicar !

Hurrah for the row that grows thicker and thicker !

Alas for the Church, that grows sicker and sicker !

Moral.

Odium thcologicum to fish up,

In a priest is a curse : But in Right Reverend Bishop

Ecce ter quaterque worse !

Q. E. D.

If the Vicar's a pest,

The Bishop Ecce turpior est ! "

Sir George Rose said and wrote so many clever things, that it is natural enough for tbe bar to have attributed this brochure also to him. I don't pretend to deny his claim to it, but only wish to observe that it came out in the Examiner news- paper. Y. B. N. J. says it was " handed about," which phrase, I presume, means that it was passed from one barrister to another, either verbally or in MS., which may a.ccount for his incomplete version. It puts one in mind of the palmy days of Tom Moore and his political squibs. M. H. R.

Heaven in the sense of Canopy (2 nd S. i. 133. 201.) Is not the use of the word in this sense referable in some degree to the beautiful expres- sion of the psalmist :

" Who strctchest out the heavens as a curtain." Psalm civ. 2.

Or Isaiah xl. 22.

" That stretcheth out the heaven as a curtain, and sprcadeth them out as a tent to dwell in."

Expressions in which, as Dr. Shaw remarks, allusion appears to be made to the kind of veil or curtain which in the East is expanded over the inner courts of the houses (where upon special occasions, such as at marriages, &c., the company is received), in order to protect them from the heiit. R. W. HACKWOOD.