Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/130

 124

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. HI. FEB. is, m

day in Easter-week then at half hour past five til S fc Giles's feast.

When y e Masters term & exercise ends. Act term they collate thursdays & dispute Saturdays, as soon as it is full term : till tis asked off for y e vacation [the thursday & Saturday after y e vac. begins & lasts till y e thursday before y e under],* then ends. Michaelmas term begins y e thursday after full term, & continues till y e thursday before term goes out. Batchelors term all ways ends y very last fryday before y e term ends in y University, it begins y e same day in lent & lasts till egg Saturday.

Egg Saturday has been noticed in ' N. & Q 8 th S. ix. 247, 431 ; and in Brand's ' Popular Antiquities,' Bohn, 1849, i. 172. See 'H.E.D., iii. 58.

John Hyde, of Brasenose, was M.A. 1694, B.D. 1705 ; Thomas Smith, of Brasenose, was M.A. 1679, B.D. 1697.

Thomas Beconsall, Fellow of Brasenose, was M.A. 1686, B.D. 1697. His Easter sermon, from St. John v. 28, 29, asserting the resur- rection of the same body, was printed in 4to., Oxori, 1697. This point of identity was one much debated at that time> against Locke; see, e.g., ' N. & Q.,' 8 th S. i. 310 ; iv. 385 ; vii. 283.

Mr. Beconsall was also the author of these two:

1. The Christian Belief, wherein is asserted and proved, that as there is nothing in the Gospel con- trary to reason, yet there are some doctrines in it above reason ; and these being necessarily enjoyn'd us to believe, are properly called Mysteries, in answer to a Book intituled, 'Christianity not Mysterious' [by John Toland, 1696]. The second edition. Price 2s.

2. The Ground and Foundation of Natural Re- ligion, discovered in the principal branches of it, in opposition to the prevailing notions of the modern Scepticks, and Latitudinarians. With an Intro- duction concerning the necessity of Reveal'd Religion.

Both these were printed for A. Bosvile, at the Dial against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street, between 1696 and 1700.

W. C. B.

DECOLLATION OF CHARLES I. It is some years since it was settled to the general satis- faction of readers of 'N. & Q.' that the block, if block it can be called, used for this purpose was the billet of wood over which the pros- trate victim just stretched his neck for the convenience of the headsman. The bigger pattern, better adapted for flogging, looks as if it had been invented after the phrase about bringing people to the block, in order that there might be a visible block to which to bring them. The belief in this pattern is likely to have been spread recently by its


 * Struck out.

appearance twice over in Sir John Skelton's sumptuous 'Life of Charles I.,' though no opinion is expressed of the correctness of the detail in the engravings in which it appears. The first is from the well-known print at p. 185 of the 'Tragicum Theatrum,' published at Amsterdam in 1649, the second from the painting by Weesop in the collection of the Earl of Rosebery at Dalmeny. The first print has been reproduced elsewhere. In the version given in Mr. Fellowes's ' Historical Sketches of Charles I.,' &c., 1828, the king's head has got the beard with which the illustrator of the Amsterdam book failed to provide him. There are slight alterations in the disposal of the figures. Weesop's picture has a different arrangement, but the number of the figures is the same. Weesop left England in 1649, saying that he would never live in a country where they cut off their king's head and were not ashamed of the action. His selection of the subiect is therefore matter for surprise. It is to be regretted that Sir John Skelton, in giving two illustrations, did not select one of them with the low block. It does not get a fair chance. Mr. Crofts's Academy picture of nine years ago must have left an impression of a high block on thousands of eyes of the present generation. KILLIGREW.

HICKORY. Under this name in the ' H.E.D.' there is a note : " Shortened from pohickery, recorded as the native Virginian name in seventeenth century." The native name ap- pears in another form, and with a different signification, in Smith's 'Map of Virginia,' &c. (1612), and again in his 'General His- torie.' The passage referred to in the former work runs tnus :

"Of these naturall fruites they Hue a great part of the yeare, which they vse in this manner. The Walnuts, Chesmits, Acornes, and Chechinquamens are dryed to keepe. When they need them, they breake them between e two stones, yet some part of the walnut shels will cleaue to the fruit. Then doe they dry them againe vpon a mat ouer a hurdle. After, they put it into a morter of wood, and beat it very small : that done they mix it with water, that the shels may sinke to the bottome. This water will be coloured as milke ; which they cal Paiccohiscora, and keepe it for their vse."

The passage in the later work is virtually a reprint of the above, but there the name of the drink is spelt Pawcohiccora. See Arbor's reprint, pp. 57 and 353. C. C. B.

AYLWIN.' The title of Mr. Watts-Dunton's powerful work is so uncommon that one might pardonably hold it likely to be sui generis. Yet within the range of our literature there is a predecessor which it closely resembles, and with which it might be quite readily con-