Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/113

 9>s.xtLAua.8,i903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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some of our almanacs seem to have made the same mistake as Cruden. In the Jewish calendar the thirty-third day of the offering of the omer, or sheaf, is marked ; this in the ' British Almanac ' for the current year (when it fell on 15 May) is called "33 of the Homer." I need hardly remark that in Hebrew Homer would mean "the sheaf." It is difficult to account for Cruden's con- fusion. W. T. LYNN. Blackheath.

THE CAMERLENGO'S SILVER HAMMER. The following; paragraph (which was pub- lished in the Times of 21 July) may be worth preserving in ' N. & Q.' :

accordance with which the Cardinal Camerlengo is said to strike three light blows on the temple of the dead Pope with a silver hammer, pour constater le deces, our Roman correspondent states that the Pontifical Masters of the Ceremonies have said definitely that no such office would be performed on the death of Leo XIII. All standard authorities on the ceremonial of the Vatican and its recent history, such as Lucius Lector, Monsignor de T" Serclaes, and Moroni ('Dictionary of Eccle- siastical Erudition ; ), appear to testify to the exist- ence of the ceremony; but the pronouncement of the Masters of the Ceremonies with regard to it being final, it may be presumed that it has not been carried out at the deathbed of the late Pope."
 * With reference to the traditional ceremony in

TEMPORUM LECTOR.

" PEONAGE." The definition of peonage in the 'Century Dictionary' is U A form of servitude existing in Spanish America. It prevailed especially in Mexico." There is yet time for 'N.E.D.' to include its newer meaning, that being the holding of negroes in semi-servitude in the Southern portion of the United States. The heading ' Peonage in America' was given in the Standard of 18 July to a telegram from its New York correspondent, thus describing the system : "The Grand Jury of Montgomery, Alabama, which has been investigating the charges of peonage brought against landowners, planters, and Justices of the Peace, for conspiring to hold hundreds of negroes as slaves, has made a final Report of a most sensational character. The evidence showed that atrocities are practised exceeding those of Siberia. Many negroes have been whipped to death. Sand has been rubbed into their lacerated and bleed- ing backs, which have been smeared with axle- grease and sulphur. The slaves' clothing has been stolen and worn by their masters."

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

' HENRY VI.' AND TACITUS. To the follow- ing passage in ' 3 Henry VI.' a parallel may be found in the history of Tacitus. What is mentioned by Tacitus is said to have hap- pened at the battle of Cremona, where the army of Vespasian defeated that of Vitellius.

The lines which I quote from * Henry VL' are supposed by Malone not to have been written by Shakspeare. The resemblance between them and the passage in Tacitus is not remarked in the editions of Shakspeare which I have seen. Perhaps it has escaped the notice of all the commentators. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody. This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight, May be possessed with some store of crowns... Who 's this ? God ! it is my father's face, Whom in this conflict I un wares have killed... And I, who at his hands received my life, Have by my hands of life bereaved him. Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did ! And pardon, father, for I knew not thee ! " lulius Mansuetus, borne in Spaine, and called to serue in the Legion surnamed Rapax, left a sonne at home vnder yeeres, who growing afterwards to mans estate, and being enrolled by Galba into the seuenth Legion, by meere misfortune heere met and encountred with his owne father ; and hauing wounded him deadly, going about to rifle him, came into knowledge of him, and was likewise known by him againe. Whereupon embracing the corpes, which now was without sense or life, with teares and lamentable voice he besought his father's ghost, not to impute this impiety vnto him, nor abhorre and detest him as a parricide."

I copy the passage in Tacitus from the fifth edition of Sir Henry Sayile's translation of Tacitus, which was originally published in 1581, and the author or authors of ' Henry VI.' might have read this translation.

E. YARDLEY.

ENGLISH CARDINALS. In 3 rd S. xii. 2, 71, was given a list of English cardinals since the Conquest, which, from the date of its publication (1867), necessarily did not include the names of Manning, Newman, and Vaughan. It would assist, therefore, to make that list complete if there were added : Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, created by Pius IX., 1875, died 14 January, 1892, set. eighty-three ; John Henry Newman, created by Leo XIII., 1879, died 11 August, 1890, set. eighty-nine ; Herbert Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster, created by Leo XIII., 1893, died 20 January, 1903, aet. seventy-one. ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

RALEIGH IN AMERICA. Some one had the audacity to make, a short time ago at a meeting of the Royal Society, the astounding declaration that Sir Walter Raleigh was never in North America, whereas he made no fewer than five voyages to Virginia, which was so named by Queen Elizabeth, the former name of the country being Wigandacsa, and we know that he introduced tobacco from his new colony, which still produces the best. The first child born in the colony was called Virginia, in honour of the country in which it