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NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. IL SEPT. 17, t

The work does not appear to be very com- plete, so that this official may have been over- looked. In my volume 'England in the Days of Old 'I state:

" We learn from the Report of the Royal Com- mission issued in 1837 that the election of Mayor of Wycombe was enacted with not a little ceremony. The great bell of the church tolled for an hour, then a merry peal was rung. The retiring mayor and aldermen proceeded to the church, and after service walked in procession to the Guildhall, preceded by a woman strewing flowers, and a drummer beating a drum."

I shall be pleased to learn if a drummer was a town official in any other borough in Eng- land, and if so, the nature of his duties. In America the drum was frequently used as a signal for gathering for public worship. See Alice Morse Earle (New York, 1891).
 * The Sabbath in Puritan New England,' by

WILLIAM ANDREWS. The Hull Press, Hull.

THE ORGAN. What is the date of the organ ; and is it particularly a Protestant instrument 1 Mr. G. Moore in his novel 'Evelyn Innes' says at the beginning of chap. xvii. :

"As they -went to church he told her about Monsignor Mostyn. Evelyn remembered that the very day she went away, he had had an appointment with the prelate, and while trying to recall the words he had used at the time how Monsignor believed that a revival of Palestrina would advance the Catholic cause in England she heard her father say that no one except Monsignor could have suc- ceeded in so difficult an enterprise as the reformation of church music in England. The organ is a Pro testant instrument, and in organ music the London churches do very well ; the Protestant congregations are, musically, more enlightened ; the flattest de gradation is found among the English Catholics .and he instanced the Oratory as an extraordinary disgrace to a civilized country, relating how he hac heard the great mass of Pope Marcellus given then by an operatic choir of twenty singers."

But is this true ? I thought it was the other way, and music was usually good in Roman Catholic churches and moderate in Protestant

W. B.

[About thirty-six columns are devoted to th organ in Grove's 'Dictionary of Music and Musi cians,' ed. 1880.]

PRINCESS LOUISE OF BOHEMIA AND FREDERICE WILLIAM, THE "GREAT ELECTOR" OF BRANDEN BURG. Had the Princess Louise, daughter o Elizabeth, ex-Queen of Bohemia, and after wards Abbess of Maubuisson, any issue by he cousin Frederick William, the "Great Elector of Brandenburg ? Her mother, writing to Si Thomas Roe, in speaking of the Elector desire to " match with the Princess Louise, says, " He has had it ^ever since he was her

at the Hague], but now it begins to come out, nd has made me a grandmother " (see State >apers). Mrs. Everett Green does not men- ion any scandal. J. M. B.

FOUNTAIN - INKHORNS : FOUNTAIN - PENS. Matthew Henry, in his commentary on the

ision of the "candlestick all of gold

nd two olive trees by it," mentions " foun- ain-inkhorns " and "fountain-pens." What vere they ? He says :

"This candlestick had one bowl, or common re- eiver, on the top, into which oil was continually Topping, and from it, by seven secret pipes, or massages, it was diffused to the seven lamps, bo hat, without any further care, they received oil as ast as they wasted it (as in those which we call ountain-inkhorns or fountain-pens); they never wanted, nor were ever glutted, and so kept always turning clear."

JOHNSON BAILY.

Ryton Rectory.

REV. EDWARD ASHBURNER, M.A. I am anxious to ascertain his parentage and his descendants. He was born at Olney, co. Bucks, 1734, and was pastor at Poole, co. Dorset, for thirty-five years, where he died, and was buried 6 July, 1804. I believe his 'amily had resided at Olney for some genera- ions, his father being a grazier (or according maker) there. Was he related to the Ashburners of Kent's Bank, Lancashire ; of Bombay and Calcutta ; of Dublin ; of Sillwood, Tasmania ; or to those of London, which latter family were buried in St. Lawrence Pountney Churchyard, where their three altar-tombs still remain? Any information regarding him or his family will be most acceptable. I have seen the Mis. Gen. et Her., vol. ii., Second Series, also vol. iii., New Series ; and the Evangelical Magazine for 1804. C. H. C.
 * o some authorities a hemp-dresser and rope-

South Hackney.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED.

Not a tree,

Not a plant, a leaf, a blossom, but contains A folio volume. We may read and read, And read again, and still find something new, Something to please, and something to instruct.

SCOUT.

The Present is the life of man.

PERTINAX.

In green old garden hidden away From thought of revel and sound of strife, Here have I leisure to breathe and move And to do my work in a nobler way, To sing my songs and to say my say, To dream my dreams and to love my love, To hold my faith and to live my life, Making the most of its shadowy day.

C. SUTEK.

"His slumber, when he slumbers, is not sleep, but a continuance of enduring thought." EL VAN.