Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/508

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

^ s. NO 25., JUNE 21. '56.

I found that each page of the old Missal had two columns, each being 13 in. high, by 3 wide. Each column contained thirty-nine lines, and of course in each page there were seventy-eight. The letters were f th of an inch high, just double the height of those copied by LX. Each line of a column took me ten minutes to write in letters like those of the original, being f th of an inch high. A large proportion of these were to be in red, and some were in blue. Thus each page on an average would occupy thirteen hours ; but much depended upon the number of initial letters, these being in the Lombardic character, and either in red, blue, or burnished gold. Besides the forming of the letters, there were many large initial letters to be illuminated, some in borders of two inches square, and others smaller, with endless devices of flowers, flourishes, and painted borders. The whole is executed on vellum, and matches the original Missal with tolerable success. It is now complete, and very valuable. F. C. H.

Person referred to by Pascal (2 nd S. i. 412.) The original of Pascal is as follows:

" Qui aurait eu 1'amitie du roi d'Angleterre, du roi de Pologne, et de la reine de Suede, aurait-il cru pouvoir manquer de retraite et d'asile au monde? "

A foot-note indicates the three sovereigns as follows :

" Pascal fait ici allusion sans doute a Charles I cr . . . force de se retirer dans 1'ile de Wight en 1647 ; a. Jean Casimir . . . oblige de chercher un asile en Silesie en 1655 ; enfin a la reine Christine, qui abdiqua en 1654." Pensees Diverses, No. xxix.

It is clear that Pascal did not allude to any real individual, but merely to a possible case. The Edinburgh translation conveys the idea that there was a man who was the friend of these three so- vereigns, and who notwithstanding was reduced to destitution at last. Pascal wrote :

" He who should have had the friendship of, &c., would he have believed it possible that he could want a refuge and an asylum on earth ? "

The moral is, that three cotemporary sovereigns were actually so helpless themselves, that a man might have possessed the friendship of all three, and yet have been utterly destitute. C. H. S.

Punishment in England (2 nd S. i. 411.) In reply to R. W. HACKWOOD the following extract from No. 674. of the Universal Spectator may serve to show that the punishment of " pressing " was not often resorted to, even in the reign of George II., and it was quite abolished by the 12th of George III. c. 20., which provides that all per- sons refusing to plead shall be held to be guilty :

" Sep. 5, 1741. On Tuesday was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, Henry Cook, the shoemaker of Stratford, for robbing Mr. Zachary, on the highway. On Cook's re- fusing to plead, there was a new press made, and fixed in the proper place in the pressyard, there having been no

person pressed since the famous Spiggot the highwayman, which is above twenty years ago. Burnworth, alias Frasier, was pressed at Kingston, in Surrey, about six- teen years ago.

J. DE W.

There is no hoax at all in the case. The " Peine forte et dure " or pressing to death, as described by R. W. HACKWOOD, was well known to the English law. It first appears on the statute books 8 Henry IV., and was abolished by statute 12 George III. c. 20., which enacts that persons standing mute, shall be convicted of the offence charged. See Blackstone's Commentaries, under the head of Arraignment and its incidents, and Hale's Pleas of the Crown, ii. 329. *

W. J. BERNHARD SMITH.

Temple.

" The Tune the old Cow died of" (2 nd S. i. 375.) I beg to offer another version of the song, which is the one I have always heard, and which throws a little more light on this grave question :

" Jacky Whaley had a cow,

And he had nought to feed her ; He took his pipe, and pla3 T ed her a tune, And bid the cow conseeder.

" The cow considered very well, And gave the piper a penny, To play the same tune over again, And ' Corn riggs are bonnie.' "

Now, though the first tune is still a desidera- tum, we may fairly infer that the cow died of one of the two, and so far a step is gained in the inquiry. F. C. H.

Cliefden House (2 nd S. i. 432.)

" Cliefden House was built by Charles Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Charles II. That nobleman died in the latter end of the last (seventeenth) century, and in 1706 it was purchased by the first Earl of Orkney, who very much improved it, and from whom it descended by marriage to the Earl of Inchiquin."

See Boydell's Hist, of the River Thames, fol., Lond. 1794. R. S. CHARNOCK.

Major Andre (1 st S. passim ; 2 nd S. i. 255.) Since writing my last note, which appeared in " N. & Q." under date of March 29, 1 have seen a copy of the National Intelligencer, published at Washington, March 25, giving a brief notice of a work just issued from the press, and bearing the following title :

" ' Life of Capt, Nathan Hale, the Martyr Spy of the American Revolution. By J. W. Stuart : Hartford, F. A. Brown, 1856.'

" This work has its origin in a praiseworthy attempt on the part of its author to throw around the name of Hale that pitying tenderness and regret which have embalmed alike in the hearts of friends and foes the memory of the unfortunate Andre". Of equally melancholy fate, the British and the American spy have not been sharers either of equal commiseration or of equal renown. Eng- land sent an embassy across the seas to reclaim from a