Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/522

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. i. JUNE 25,

dub a Dominican or Franciscan friar a " monk " is simply a vulgar, although too prevalent, error.

M. C. is not more happy in lumping together " Vallombrosans, Olivetans, Car- thusians, &c.," as " reforms of Benedictines." Surely it is an elementary fact in monastic history that St. Bruno founded the Car- thusians, under the advice and protection of the saintly Bishop of Grenoble, as an entirely new institute certainly in no sense as a " reform " of any existing order.

OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B.

Fort Augustus, N.B.

ST. VIARS (9 th S. i. 448). Isaac Disraeli, in a chapter on 'Literary Blunders' in his
 * Curiosities of Literature,' says :

"Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious Spaniards, who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His Holiness, in the voluminous catalogue of his saints, was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his existence was this inscrip- tion :

s. VIAR.

An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar, by convincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for an ancient surveyor of the roads ; and he read their saintship thus :

PR^EFECTUS VIARUM."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

Nothing escapes ' N. & Q.' St. Viars has already made his appearance at 2 nd S. iii. 447, 495. W. C. B.

WATCH-BOXES (9 th S. i. 446). Mr. Walford mentions one of these belated watch-boxes when dealing with the parish of St. Clement Danes in his ' Old and New London ' (iii. 22) :

" Ascending northwards towards Carey Street was a flight of steps which led into New Bos well Court.

At the side of these steps might be seen to the

very last a curious relic of other days, a watch- man's box, the last relic of the old 'Charlies,' which was drawn up from the pavement during the day- time."

The Daily News of 28 Sept., 1889, reproduced a paragraph from the City Press announcing the death of the last survivor of the " Charlies " in the person of Mr. William Mason, cet. eighty- nine. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

SPIDER- WORT CALLED " TRINITY " (8 th S. viii. 109,177; ix. 511; x. 98). This flower (Trades- cantia virginica), of which I have pointed out the legend connected with Trinity Sun- day and the name consequent, bloomed on Trinity Sunday for the first time this year in this garden. It should continue through

all the Sundays in Trinity. My record is now of 1895, 1896, and 1898. C. SAYLE.

2, Harvey Road, Cambridge.

SPECTACLES FIFTY YEARS AGO (9 th S. i. 449). This reminds one of what Maundrell said of the Spaniards in 1697, that they wore spectacles "not for any necessity, but in affectation of gravity." (See 'A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem,' under date of 12 March.) BEN. WALKER.

Langstone, Erdington.

HALIFAX SHILLING : BLANDFORD FARTHING (8 th S. xi. 128, 396, 497). At the last reference your correspondent H. A. ST. J. M., in alluding to the above token, mentions that he owns a copper farthing of the " Burrough of Blandford," dated 1669.

This is undoubtedly one of the farthings issued by that borough at the time men- tioned, and forms one of a very numerous and interesting series of seventeenth-century tokens, that, to my mind, are much more valuable from an antiquarian point of view than those issued more than a century later.

These earlier ones were issued at a time when the want of a copper coinage made such small and " necessary change " very useful ; but on the issue of a copper coinage they were recalled by proclamation in 1672, having extended over a period of about a quarter of a century, the earliest known being about 1648.

Perhaps the following note, that, in sub- editing the Dorset section for the recent edition of Boyne's ' Seventeenth - Century Trade Tokens,' I made at vol. i. p. 171, under a description of this very token, may be of interest to your correspondent :

"In Mrs. Farquharson's MS. memoranda quoted by Hutchins ('History of Dorset,' i. 221) I find an entry alluding to the town farthings : ' 1623. This year the corporation accounted for farthings belong- ing to this town.' If the date is correctly given and, coming between an entry in 1617 and another in 1625, there seems no reason to doubt it this entry must refer to the farthings issued under the patent granted by King James I. to John Stan- hope, Baron Harington, whereby he delegated to him his prerogative of striking copper money for a money consideration, the patent being granted for farthings only.* Again, in 1673, the folio wing entry: ' The corporation farthings was returned in to the value of 11. 18s 1 . and placed in the council-house.' This no doubt was the result of the royal proclama- tion issued in 1672, whereby the further circulation of these tokens was put an end to."

I think H. A. ST. J. M. makes a slight mis- take in describing his token. If he looks

these early farthings, and should be glad to know of the existence of one.
 * I may add that I have never come across one of