Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/421

 2 n <"S. N 21., MAY 24. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

413

be enabled to obtain a list of all the bars or clasps ever granted to the brave owners of either the naval or Peninsular war medal. A similar favour for the China and East India Company's medals would be highly valued by W. 11. C.

Exeter.

Geddes. In Advice to a Young Oxonian, Ox- ford, 1781, arc the following lines :

"Let puzzled Geddes, in pedantic dream, Pother o'er that which ' seems yet does not seem,' And pile up Absolutes, whose curious lot Is to be that which is and yet is not ; While Like and Unlike are the same, and One, Embodies Many and amounts to None. Put no such learned nonsence in thy stock, Master thy spelling-book then study Locke."

The phraseology has a modern German sound, but the Kantian philosophy could hardly have reached Oxford in 1781. I should be glad to know who is the Geddes above mentioned, and to what work the lines apply ? A. H.

" Index." I shall be obliged if any of your correspondents can give me a motto or maxim for an Index, as I have a particular object iti view.

JOHN NUKSE CHADWICK.

King's Lynn.

Did Lord Bacon die without Issue f Mr. Martin says :

" Most, if not all of Lord Bacon's biographers, posi- tively assert that he died childless. Aubrey, however, who had good opportunities of informing himself on this head, both from the time in which he lived, and his posi- tion in society, expressly says that he left a daughter, who married her gentleman usher Sir Thomas Underbill, and was living after the beheading of King Charles I." Character of Lord Bacon : his Life and Works, by Thomas Martin, Barrister-at-Law, note (J.), p. 358.

Aubrey's statement is utterly irreconcilable with Dr. Rawley's :

" Children he. had none; which, though they be the means to perpetuate our names after our deaths, yet he had other issues to perpetuate his name, the issues of his brain; in which he was ever happy and admired, as Jupiter was in the production of Pallas. Neither did the want of children detract from the good usage of his con- sort during the intermarriage, whom he prosecuted with much conjugal love and respect, with many rich gifts and endowments."

These passages imply that there never was any issue ; and it is plain that Rawley's testimony in this matter is conclusive. J. W. PHILLIPS.

Ilaverfordwest.

The DeviTs Bible. I copy the following from the Rev. R. E. Hughes's Two Cruises with the Baltic Fleet. Speaking of the Royal Library at Stockholm, he says :

" In the same room (with the " Codex Aureus ") is the Devil's Bible, an enormous MS. folio, on ass's hide ; it contains, in addition to the Bible, a history in twenty-

four books, by St. Isidore Hispalensis. I could not get at the history of the book, or the cause of its strange title. All I could learn was, that Satan is in the habit of perusing its pages in the evening. I have no doubt that there is some interesting legend connected with this strange and enormous work, and I greatly regretted that the crowd and the hurry rendered it impossible to get any information on the subject. The gentlemen whom we knew at Stockholm, and the chief booksellers, stuck to the story I have given ; in which however they told me, with much gravity, that they did not believe."

Can any of your readers supply the information which Mr. Hughes was unable to obtain ? The legend about such a " strange and enormous work" could not fail to be interesting ; and to English people, I believe quite new.

HENRY KENSINGTON.

Hoppus's " Practical Measurer." What is the date of the first edition of this well-known work ? I have now before me the sixth, London, 1761. Hoppus has attained nearly as much celebrity as Cocker, and it is likely to continue ; for, within the last six months, I have observed the an- nouncement of several new editions by different publishers. E. Tooc.

Swansea.

Bermuda. Moore, in speaking of the inha- bitants of Bermuda, says :

" The old philosopher who imagined that, after this life, men would be changed into mules, and women into turtle-doves, would find the metamorphosis in some de- gree anticipated at Bermuda."

Who is the philosopher here referred to, and in what part of his works does the passage occur ?

N. L. T.

Drinking on Martyrs' Tombs. In Dryden's Astrcea Redux, I find the following : " Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear, To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear, And guard with caution that polluted nest, Whence Legion twice before was dispossest : Once sacred house, which when they entered in, They thought the place could sanctify a sin ; Like those, that vainly hoped kind heaven icould wink, While to excess on martyrs' tombs they drink."

I doubt not I shall be informed, through the pages of "N. & Q.," to what superstition allusion is made in the last two lines. J. B. R.

Quaker Settlement in Maryland. There was a Quaker settlement in Maryland (U. S.) as early as 1676. Can any of the Society in England give any facts as to its origin ? Among the names in its records are Powell, Howell, Christison, Dur- dan, &c. Is there any clue thus furnished ? The " Society of Friends" began about 1650 ; and no doubt a correspondence was kept up between those in America and those who remained at home. Are there any letters in existence that would throw light on this inquiry ?

MABYLANDEK.