Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/63

 9»s. iv. JULY 15, m] NOTES AND QUERIES. 43 What powerful charm Can death disarm? Your long, your iron slumbers break * By Jove, oy fame, By George's name, Awake! awake! awake! awake! Really, there is not the difference of " the splitting of a splinter" between them! But from Young the singer, Young the critic is a bird of a totally different colour. T. HUTCHINSON. BIBLIOGRAPHY: JOHN SELLER. (Concluded from p. 24.J THE plates, exclusive of the frontispiece, are eleven in number, and I may here say, with reference to the apparently qualifying remark in my MS. note as to costume, that the engravings are evidently from contem- porary drawings, and the costume, and pre- sumably the scenery of the locality (London and its neighbourhood).accurate of the period 1678-88. And now for details of the respective plates. Plate i. represents a drunkard sitting with one foot exposed, the leg secured in one of the four circular orifices of a pair of stocks, and gazed at by miscellaneous individuals, some women and children among them, de- riding the captive. This coercive structure is peculiar and somewhat pretentious in de- sign. The operative part of the machine, which is made to secure two subjects, con- nects two stone or compost faced brick .pillars, each surmounted by scrollwork enclosing a tympanum. The pilaster on the right of the plate is evidently intended to be used as a whipping - post, there being contrivances attached for securing the legs and arms of the sufferers. On the tympanum between the scrolls adorning the capital of this column is carved the date "1678, and this has evi- dently misled the annotator I have assumed to correct, inducing him thoughtlessly to substitute the numerals for the two words " no date " struck through with his pen. The scroll on the capital to the left of this plate has the tympanum blank. As to this, how- ever, see post my remarks on plate iv. The plate now under consideration (i.) is under- written " The punishment of the Stocks for Drunkerds [sic] and other Vnruly persons." Plate ii. represents (presumably) vagrants in a cage exposed to the gaze of wayfarers in a public thoroughfare. Plate iii. shows us men and women in an apartment of a gaol beating hemp. , Plate i v. depicts vagrants and beggars being whipped in public, and is underwritten " The Punishment of the Whipping post for Va- grants and sturdy Beggars." The elaborately carved pillar utilized as a whipping-post, apparently one of those flanking the stocks on the left, as in plate i., has its scroll tym- panum occupied by an oval shield blazoned with the St. George's cross and St. Paul's sword (dexter chief), the well-known arms of the City of London, denoting, of course, that the street, the scene of the infliction, is within the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor. It repre- sents, probably, the reverse of the blank tympanum capital in plate i. Plate v. shows a manoeing publicly whipped at the cart's tail (" tayle " sic). Plate vi. delineates the pillory, two offenders exposed : over the one on the left is a placard inscribed "For perjury"; over his companion in shame on the right a corresponding in- timation " For cheating." Plate vii. exhibits an execution at Tyburn. Six convicts have just been " turned on," and the cart is drawing away from beneath their clinging feet between the supporting posts of the old "three-legged mare." A few figures immediately under the swaying bodies appear to be meant for children, and may indicate the prevalence of the superstitious practice of the attendance of juvenile sufferers from skin and scrofulous affections for the pur- pose of having the ailing surfaces stroked by the dead hands of the convicts. This plate is subscribed J. D. /. (the D cannot be mistaken for an S), which, it will be observed, are not the initials of the author and asserted designer. Plate viii. is a semi-rural scene, presumably in the environs of the metropolis. A hand- some coach is drawn up for the purpose of enabling its occupants to inspect the body of a man, the head and upper part of the torso enclosed in an iron framework hanging from a gibbet. This gemmace,* however, would appear to be peculiar, inasmuch as it termi- nates at the waist, the legs dangling un- confined by metal. Underwritten is "The manner of Gibbeting of Notorious murderers," &c., and the illustration is signed " Sn Moore, fecit," again, be it observed, not the name of the designer advertised on the title-page. Plate ix. is described as "Burning of women for Petty and high treason " (capitals and " smalls" sic), and is occupied by the gruesome portraiture of a woman chained to a stake consisting of a length of the un- trimmed trunk of a tree, the cord used, or " hung in chains." See ' N. & Q.,' 8'" S. ii. 69, 138, 252, 370; iii. 37. One or two specimens have during the past twelve months been sold as relics by public auction in London.
 * Gemmace-tho iron cage enclosing the corpse