Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/469

 S. NO 23., JUNE 7. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

461

Master and his successors in perpetuity." It is now in possession of the convent of St. John o Jerusalem, at Paris. When the Order of the Templars was, as is asserted, illegally suppressec by Pope Clement V., and other potentates, be- cause they could not suppress what they had not established, a successor to Jacques de Molay was appointed, and the order has been continued ever since, and is still in existence. On the death 01 Fabre de Palaprat, in 1838, Sir Sidney Smith, previously Grand Prior of England, was invited to assume the office of Grand Master. This honour, however, he declined, but consented to preside over their councils as Regent, according to their statutes, until some fitter person should be put in nomination, an event that did not occur during his life. A work entitled Regie et, Statuts secrets des Templiers, par Maillard de Cambuse, Paris, 1840, gives a list of all the successive grand mas- ters of the order of the Temple. Sir Sidney Smith is stated to be the forty-sixth. It appears he was at the head of forty English knights of the order, which was one reason for his election. The above work is said to contain much curious information, and renders it probable that the earliest freemasons' lodge in England was founded by some recreant and seceding Templars, and it is generally understood that all the lodges in the world at present are offshoots from the early British one. The foregoing information, which perhaps may be interesting to some of your readers, is gathered from the thirteenth chapter of the second volume of Barrow's Life of Sir Sidney Smith. E. H. A.

The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, or in other words of the Knights of Malta, still exists at this island, and many are known to me, who have taken this masonic degree within the last twelve months. The present commander is Major Cholmeley Dering, of the East Kent militia, now stationed in this garrison. Might I inform your correspondent F. C. H. that all masonic degrees are separate and distinct. W. W.

Malta.

Grey Beards (2 nd S. i. 293. 361.) A historical reference to the class of jugs called greybeards is cited and illustrated in " N. & Q.," 1 st S. x. 113., where for mark read mask. L.

Odd Titles of Books (1 st S. xii. 403. ; 2 nd S. i. 283.) The enclosed, which I have just cut from a Cork bookseller's catalogue, may well rank under this head :

" Sibs' ' Bowels Opened,' or Communion betwixt Christ and the Church ; Twenty Sermons on Canticles, 4, 5, 6 ; 4to. portrait and last leaf damaged at corner, scarce, Gs. Gd. 1639."

WILLIAM FEASER, B.C.L.

Alton, Staffordshire.

Singular Funeral Sermon (2 nd S. i. 353.) The sermon to which M. E. alludes may have been published, but it was not preached, in 1733. The Rev. Robert Proctor, M.A., was presented to the rectory of Gissing, March 27, 1613, and died in 1668. Hugh More, M.A., a Scotchman, was in- stituted to the rectory of Burston, March 12, 1626, and was not succeeded in the living until May 9, 1674. Of Hellesdon Hall or its inmates I am unable to discover any mention.

MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A..

Burials in Unconsef rated Places (1 st S. viii. pas- sim.)

" Lord Camelford (who died March 10, 1804, having received a fatal wound in a duel) was altogether a singular character. The day before his death he wrote with his own hand a codicil to his will, in which he particularly describes the place where he wishes his remains to be in- terred, and assigns his reasons. He states that persons in general have a strong inclination to the country in which. they were born, and generally desire that their remains may be conveyed from any distance to their native place. His desire, he says, may be thought singular, because it is the very reverse of this. ' My wish is that my body may be removed as soon as is convenient to a far distant country, to a spot not near the haunts of men, where the surrounding scenery may smile upon my remains ' It is situated on the borders of the lake St. Lampierre, in the canton of Berne, and three trees grow on this spot ; lie desires that the centre one may be taken up, and the body being there deposited may be immediately replaced ; and he adds : ' At the foot of this tree I formerly passed many solitary hours contemplating the mutability of human affairs.' " Barrow's Life of Sir Sidney Smith, vol. ii. p. 124.

E. H. A.

Blood which will not wash out (2 nd S. i. 374.) The belief that blood shed by the dying will not wash out from the floor or garments on which it has flowed, is so widely spread, that one cannot help believing there is truth in it. I have been informed that the blood of the priests who were martyred at the Convent of the Cannes in Paris during the French Revolution is yet visible on the pavement. This is a fact that some of your correspondents can no doubt verify.

About fifty years ago there was a dance in the court-house at Kirton-in-Lindsey : during the evening a young girl broke a blood-vessel, and expired in the room. I have been told that the marks of her blood are yet to be seen. At the same town, about twenty years ago, an old man and his sister were murdered in an extremely Brutal manner, their cottage floor was deluged with blood, the stains of which nre believed yet to remain. EDWARD PEACOCK.

Bottesford, Brigg.

Passage in " Timon of Athens " (2 nd S. i. 85.) Your periodical has an interesting article, iigned W. R. ARROWSMITH, in which that gen- leman proposes the word deject as the probable