Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/159

 =

9th S. III. FEB. 25, '99.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

153

fusing any confidences when I state that his descendants are still desirous of ascertain- ing his burial-place. Hidden at first for fear of American insults, it is now lost to Ame- rican friendliness.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

The following extract from the obituary notices for 14 June in the Gent. Mag., part i. p. 580, will be of interest to MR. ABBATT :

( "At his house in Gloucester Place, Brigadier- General Arnold. His remains were interred on the 21st at Brompton. Seven mourning coaches and

ur state carriages formed the cavalcade."

G. F. B, B.

DEAD FOLD (9 th S. iii. 68). MR. WARD'S own explanation of the thing signified by this term, viz., "the sheltered fold prepared as lambing quarters for the ewes," seems to give clearly enough the meaning of the term a fence impervious to the cold wind, at which

it is stopped, its keenness deadened inside the 1. This is often the meaning of "dead " in

fold.

composition, as "dead-heat," a race where two horses pass the winning-post exactly abreast of one another, not an inch between their two heads, not enough to let a breath of wind through. W. II. TATE.

Walpole Vicarage, Halesworth.

A wall built without mortar is in some parts of England called a " dead wall." If the sheltered folds prepared for lambing quarters for ewes are built in this way it might give rise to the expression. JAMES PEACOCK.

Sunderland.

[Ye fall like small birds beaten by a storm Against a dead wall, dead.

Bailey, 'Festus,' p. 129, ed. 1864.]

THE PAPAL BULL AGAINST A COMET (4 th S. iv. 437. 523 ; v. 213 ; 9 th S. ii. 477, 517). I have hunted through the 'Bullarium'at the British Museum without success in the search for the bull said to have been launched against a comet by Calixtus III. The ' Bullarium,' how- ever, only professes to contain most of the Papal bulls, so that some such bull may exist ; but it is remarkable that even in those bulls where the Pope refers to the Turks (and on this subject he expatiates with much ful- ness) no reference is made to the comet whose appearance was supposed to be connected in some mysterious way with their advance.

It is noteworthy that all the authors cited some years ago in 'N. & Q.' in proof of this incident were scientific men, who presumably did not go, as an historian might have done, to the original authorities. To these second- hand quotations I can add a passage from

'The Intellectual Development of Europe (ii. 245) by one Draper, an American :

"From his seat, invisible to it in Italy, the sovereign pontiff, Calixtus III., issued his ecclesi- astical i'ulminations, but the comet in the heavens, like the Sultan on the earth, pursued its course undeterred. In vain were all the bells in Europe ordered to be rung to scare it away ; in vain was it anathematized ; in vain were prayers put up in all

lesson for the meditations of every religious man." It is only necessary to read the above pas- sage to understand the eagerness with which the author would seize upon an incident of this sort, the delight that it would cause him, and the diligence with which he would em- bellish it, regardless of accuracy. And of this embellishment we have a proof in the statement that " the comet in the heavens, like the Sultan on the earth, pursued its course undeterred." What happened to the comet I do not profess to know, but the Pope was able to assure the faithful that on St. Mary Magdalene's Day the Sultan was defeated with a loss of 40,000 men.

The incident is picturesque, and it is not desirable that it should be disproved out of existence. Let us hope that some future contributor will help us to assign to it its exact dimensions by pointing out the source from which it comes. T. P. ARMSTRONG.

Putney.

MRS. YOUNGER = JOHN FINCH (9 th S. iii. 69). I cannot give URBAN the information he seeks as regards the marriage of "Mrs." Younger with John Finch, brother of the seventh Earl of Winchilsea, having myself sought for years in vain for the same. I can, however, give him a good many particulars concerning the lady if he care to put himself into communication with me. Does he know that she and her sister, Mrs. Bicknell, were the daughters of James Younger and Mar- garet Keith, married 1693-4; that James Younger had served under King William in Flanders, and that his wife was a near rela- tion of Keith, Earl Marshal of Scotland 1 E, G. YOUNGER, M.D.

19, Mecklenburgh Square, W.C.

The Hon. John Finch, fourth son (not third, as Collins says) of Daniel, second Earl of Nottingham and sixth Earl of Winchilsea, died on 12 February, 1763. By "his wife

Elizabeth, daughter of Younger, who died

24 November, 1762, he had a daughter Eliza- beth, wedded on 2 June, 1757, to John Mason, Esq., of Greenwich" (Collins's 'Peerage,' 1812, vol. iii. 403). G. F. R. B.