Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/478

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

24., JUNE 14. '56.

still more remarkable, she has been brought to bed twice within the space of one year last past, and had twins each time, being four children in twelve months."

Thoresby in his History of Leeds mentions, Jane, the wife of Doctor Phineas Hudson, Chan- cellor of York, as having died in the thirty-ninth year of her age, of her twenty-fourth child, and Dorothy, the wife of Mr. Joseph Cooper, of Leeds, of her twenty-sixth ; also, that a Mr. William Greenhill, of Abbots-Langley, in Herts, had thirty- nine children by one wife.

An inscription on a tomb in St. Martin's church, Leicester, gives the information that Mrs. Hey- rick of that place lived to see springing from herself one hundred and forty-three descendants.

R. W. HACKWOOD.

A Blackbird's Note. It is interesting at this season to listen to the varied notes of the thrush and blackbird. I was startled the other day at a performance of a very fine blackbird, who actually produced the following, which I will endeavour to render intelligible in default of musical characters. Key of C. Begin with G second line. GAB semiquavers, D crotchet ; descend to B quaver, and end, as begun, with G crotchet. This the bird whistled loudly and distinctly, but only once ; I listened in vain for it a second time amid a great variety of other notes. F. C. H.

National Defences. The following aphorism from Cotton's Lacon is worthy the attention of modern statesmen, who, purchasing wisdom from experience, would be willing to avoid the disasters which befel the British nation at the commence- ment of the late war :

" A poor nation that relaxes not from her attitude of defence, is less likely to be attacked, though surrounded by powerful neighbours, than another nation which pos- sesses wealth, commerce, population, and all the sinews of war, in far greater abundance, but unprepared. For the more sleek the prey, the greater is the temptation, and no wolf will leave a sheep to dine upon a porcupine."

JOHN PAVIN PHILLIPS.

Haverfordwest.

Comenius, John Amos ; the Educational Re formator of the Seventeenth Century. This is one of the persons whose life is most faultily recorded even in the Biographic Universelle. It begins thus : " He was a Bohemian by origin, and was born in 1592 in the village of Comna, near Bru- men (!) in Moravia." After various fates, it was in Lissa, in Poland, where he published his Janua Linguarum, which, a rare example of literary success, had been, during the next twenty-six years, translated and printed in twelve different languages; besides Turkish, Arabian, Persian, and Mongolian translations, which circulated in MSS. In 1637, Comenius came to England ; and there has been printed in the same year an inter- esting tract at Oxford, entitled, Conatuum Come-

nianorum Prceludia. His fame and co nsideration must have been great here, as in 1648 an English work appeared in London, A Continua tion of M. John Amos Comenius School Endeavours. The British Museum Library possesses many of his works, printed in Holland and Germany, but none in the Czechian language printed in Lessna, Prague, &c.

I think the Polish Historical Society of Paris, presided over by Prince Adam Czartoryski, in- tends to issue a memoir of this important, and hitherto little known, Slavian luminary.

J. LOTSKY, Panslave.

15. Gower Street, London.

QUERIES ON A TOUR.

During a tour through Central Europe last year, whenever I was at a loss for information on any subject, I determined to seek for it on my return in the pages of " N. & Q. ;" and though I have, by after research, been able to satisfy my- self on most points, I shall feel greatly obliged if some one of your many able correspondents would answer the following questions :

1. Gotta Melata. In the Campo adjoining Sant' Antonio at Padua, a noble equestrian statue, inscribed " Opus Donatelli Flor," is said to represent a Gatta Melata, whose real name was Erasrno di Narni. Where is any account of him to be found ? He is probably to be looked for in the first half of the fifteenth century, as Donatelli died in 1466. This was the earliest public eques- trian statue erected in Italy after the revival of the arts. In reply to inquiries concerning it made on the spot, I could only obtain such answers as " Non so," and " E cosa d' Antichita ! "

2. Serraglia. How early was the word serra- glia, or serraglio, used in the sense of mura, walls, as the " Seraglio di Mantoua."

3. St. Richard. In the Silver Chapel at- tached to the Hof Kirche at Innsbruck, on a ledge against the wall, between the tombs of Ferdinand and his wife Philippina, are arranged some two dozen small bronze statues of saints, all of royal or noble lineage, and mostly allied to the House of Hapsburg, but including two English ones, St. Jodok and St. Richard : the latter, the guardian pertinaciously insisted, was our Ri- chard I. The lion-hearted king little dreamed of beatification, especially on Austrian territory. Query, When did St. Richard exist ?

4. Turkish Inscription. An inscription is said to be still visible at the entrance of the Turkish baths situated near the foot of the Blocksberg at Buda, but I looked for it in vain, and shall be glad of a copy, or of a reference where it is to be found.