Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/493

 x. DEC. 20, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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with drapery that it is not possible for the most curious to espy anything beneath. The obscurity of the matter generally, arid the many errors that exist in accounts of it, must be my excuse for touching at length upon this subject. T. P. ARMSTRONG.

THE AUTHOR OF ' MYSTIFICATIONS.' In his third volume of 'Horse Subsecivse,' 1882, John Brown, author of 'Ri-b and his Friends,' includes some admirable essays on themes of a widely diverse character. He estimates Sir Henry Raeburn and John Leech, pays an exquisite tribute to Thackeray under the strong feeling stirred by the novelist's sudden death, admirably describes ' Minchmoor ' and 'The Enterkin,' and fitly memorializes the remarkable child Marjorie Fleming, and Miss Stirling Graham, author of ' Mystifica- tions.' Miss Graham was a nineteenth- century link with Viscount Dundee. As an impersonator she was wonderfully clever anc versatile, .her Lady Pitlyal fairly outwit- ting Lord Jeffrey and other prominent Edinburgh citizens. Scott once compli- mented her after a display of her powers with the characteristic remark, " Awa ! awa ! the deil 's ower grit wi' you ! " In his memorial notice of Miss Graham, Brown refers to her work ' The Bee Book,' published in 1829, and adds that she republished it "fifty years afterwards " (' John Leech and other Papers,' p. 173). But, as he himself shows, she died in 1877, two years short of the date men- tioned for the reissue. THOMAS BAYNE.

DE VERB. In Charlton Church I dis- covered a brass bearing certain quarterings which informed me that some distant rela- tive was entombed hard by Robert, third son of John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, buried 3 May, 1598 ; but finding nothing about De Vere in Banks that explained how these quarterings came in, I referred to Richard Carew's 'Survey of Cornwall' (ed. 1602), which reminded me that my ancestress Joan Courtenay, daughter and heiress of Philip (who brought in Talbot, L'Ercedekne, and Haccomb), married first "Sir Nicholas, Baron of Carew," and secondly "Sir Robert Vere," ancestor of the Earls of Oxford. Turn- ing to Milles (1610, p. 691), I found he con- firmed Carew, but styled Sir Nicholas " Lord Carew," a title that has been called ia ques- tion. He mentions the above Sir Robert Vere

on p. 698 without any enlargement. Richard Carew's story of Joan Courte*n'ay and her eldest son, Thomas Carew, falling " at square " and coming to blows which led to his dis- inheritance, is deprived of its romance by the epitaph on the historian's younger brother, I

Sir Matthew Carew, LL.D., who was buried in St. Dunstan's Church West, 2 August. 1618. At p. 124 (' Hundred of Blackheath ') is a Heralds' College pedigree of Robert Vere, in which his third wife is given simply

Joan, and her son John Vere (ancestor

of the Earls of Oxford), to whom she gave three manors, is omitted. Robert Vere had a son named. John by each of his three wives. I should here correct an error in my reply, ante, p. 314. It was my great-grand- father who expostulated with Bampfylde Moore Carew. H. H. DRAKE.

'' GROVELLING." This word is used in a striking manner in a ' Device for the Corona- tion of King Henry VII.,' which is published among the Rutland Papers (Camden Society, 1842). After the offering of a pall and a pound of gold, come

"xxiiij 11 in coigne, which shalbe delyuerid vnto hym by the Chamberlayn ; and forth with, the paveament afore ^he high aulter worshipfully arraied with carpetts and quisshens, the King shall

ther lye downe groveling, whils the Cardinall as

archbisshoppe saye vppon him, Deus huniilium."

Later on it was prescribed that the king should make a solemn oath upon the Sacra- ment to observe all that he had promised. " That done, the Cardinal kneling, and the King lying grovelyng afor the high aulter as aboue," the 'Veni Creator Spiritus' was to be sung, and a litany and prayers offered until, " thise orisons so ended, the King, that all this while hath layn grouelyng, shall rise and sit in the cheire before the Cardinall." When the queen's turn came she was to "lie prostrat as the king dud afor."

I do not, know whether this " device " was drawn on by the writers of any of the recent articles on coronation ceremonies, but it contains much that is of interest. The regu- iatiohs about the fashioning of the king's garments to facilitate the anointing are very ipt. Breast, back, shoulders, elbows, and lead were to be touched with the holy oil.

ST. SWITHIN.

" OUR GOD, OUR HELP IN AGES PAST." Allu- sion was made ante, p. 291, to this hymn. On looking into the third edition of Watts's ' Psalms,' 1722, 1 find the words are as given above. So they are in Julian's ' Hymnology,' p. 920, where the hymn is spoken of as one of the choicest pieces written by Watts. Some interesting remarks upon the hymn are to be found in 'Hymns that have Helped,' p. 76, where the same version is given. The author's words are also to be found in the ' Hymnary ' which is in use in the Church of Scotland, but in 'Hymns Ancient and Modern,' the