Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/483

 9* 8. XI. JUNK 13, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

475

haith pacyfied the wrath of god Justlye conceyved against man & that there is no sanctaficac'on no redempcon nor purgac'on of synne but onlye by the merits of the Christs deaith & passion & all u l? er8tlt108 & feyned cattells only deuised e

i

to illud the symple and vnlerned as y e vile abuses or y sea ot Rome I vtterlye detest & abhore and as tuchmge my last will and testament ffyrst 1 bequeth my soull to almightie godd and my bodye to^be buryed within my p ? ishe churche of gatished,"

So far as these wills are concerned, the first to depart from the old custom of leaving the soul to God, the Blessed Virgin, and all the celestial company of heaven was Robert Gower, an officer of Berwick garrison, who in 1545, acknowledging Henry VIII. to be

in the erthe sup'me head of this churche of England and Ireland imediately under god," bequeathed his soul " vnto god Almyghtye," and his body to be buried "where it shall please god." But it was not till some years afterwards that the practice became general of thus trusting the soul to God alone.

RICHARD WELFOED.

The Rev. T. C. Phillips, vicar of Skewen by Neath, Glamorgan, an enthusiastic Welsh scholar, told me in the summer of 1901 that the sign of the cross was in use among Pro- testants in Wales in the early part of the nineteenth century, before the influence of the Oxford movement had reached them. He derived the word croesaw= welcome from Latin cruce, through some such word as cruciata or cruciolata, because blessing was accompanied by the sign of the cross, and used for welcoming guests.

E. S. DODGSON. Oxford.

MR. RICKWORD is apparently under the impression that the pre - Reformation -wills were written by or at the dictation of the testators themselves. I have copied several hundreds of wills of the earlier half of the sixteenth century relating to Leeds and dis- trict, and my opinion is that they were written by the parish priest according to precedent, as the wills of the same village are in the same common form and often in nearly the same words. They were usually witnessed by the clergy of the parish, in a similar manner to that in which a solicitor now witnesses the wills he has drawn. They were generally made a short time previously to the testator's death, and probably expressed more the wishes of the priest with regard to religious bequests than of the testator. Later, the clergy almost ceased to appear as witnesses, and no doubt they also gradually ceased to draw the wills, consequent^ the religious bequests became rarer, but the charitable be-

quests were given more according to the feelings of the testator. As a rule, wills have been always written according to precedent. After the dissolution of the monasteries wealth became more common, education more general, and wills increased greatly in number and length.

G. D. LUMB.

MILTON'S 'HYMN ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY ' (9 th S. xi. 88, 193). I do not know whether it has been noticed that Dr. Johnson in his dictionary punctuates the passage thus :

Nature, in awe to him,

Had doff'd her gaudy trim,

With her great master so to sympathize. In my copy of Milton's poetry, published in 1807, the only comma is after trim. The punctuation of Dr. Johnson and that in my book seem to me to be equally right.

Nature, in awe, to him

Had doff'd her gaudy trim.

I doubt whether this expresses Milton's meaning. E. YARDLEY.

MOURNING SUNDAY (9 th S. ix. 366, 390, 497 ; x. 72, 155, 297 ; xi. 15). It was certainly the custom in the rural parts of Surrey during the period 1845-70 for the mourners at a funeral during the week to attend the village church on the Sunday following, wearing the long streaming hatbands and scarves then used at funerals. Those who were relatives of the person buried wore crape scarves and streamers ; those who were friends, uncon- nected by ties of relationship, wore silk.

F. DE H. L.

Requiem masses are prohibited on all Sundays. The omission of a comma ante, p. 15, might leave that doubtful.

W. F. P. S.

Ottawa.

" SLEEP THE SLEEP OF THE JUST " (9 th S. xi. 429). It may perhaps be interesting in con- nexion with this question (although not helping the matter as regards the origin of the English expression) to remark that "le sommeil du juste" appears to exist as a pro- verbial phrase in French, both in the sense of the sleep of a person with a clear conscience and the sleep of the tomb. Bescherelle's dictionary (but not Littre or Larousse) also pves as a quotation from Racine the follow- ing line :

Elle s'endormit du sommeil des justes. Can any one quote chapter and verse? (I mean, of course, play, act, and scene.)

E. LATHAM.

61, Friends' Road, E. Croydon.