Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/194

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL MARCH 9, 1901.

takyn at dystaffe lane, vssynge an other mans wyffe as his owne, whiche was dawghtafr to ser myles partryge & wyffe to wyllyam stokebrege grosar, & he beyne: so takyn at y dede doynge (havynge a wyffe of his owne) was caryed to bryd- well thrughe all the stretes, his breche hangynge aboute his knes, his gowne & his (ky var knave) hatt borne afftar hym w fc myche honor, but he lay not longe ther, but was delyveryd w fc owt punyshment, & styll Inioyed his beneffysis, they were greatly blamed that aprehended hym, and comitted hym."

The "parson " referred to was George Bar- ton, A.M., appointed to the rectory of St. Mary Abchurch by Queen Elizabeth, 12 March, 1560/1, and deprived of the same May, 1567. He was rector of St. Swithin, London, from some time after 19 April, 1554, until 1561, and of St. Martin Pomeroy, London, 1560-68.

I may add that, having collated the extract from the Camden Society's edition as above with the original (imperfect) entry, I find in the printed text several errors both of com- mission and omission. W. I. R. V.

SOUTHEY AND SWEDENBORG. Writing to

his friend Grosvenor C. Bedford under date 6 July, 1805, Robert Sou they treated his correspondent to a supposed extract from the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, with comments, more suo, by the transcriber. On the same day Sou they wrote from Keswick to Miss Barker informing her that he was "studying Sweden borgianism for Don Manuel," i.e., for his book which appeared anonymously in 1807, in three volumes, as " Letters from England, by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, translated from the Spanish," wherein letter Ixii. is headed 'Account of Svvedenborgianism.' The ad- herents of Swedenborg appear to have ignored the letter at the time of its appear- ance, and, indeed, throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century ! But in the open- ing months of the new century this defect has been remedied by the Rev. James Hyde, librarian to the Swedenborg Society and com- piler of the coming * Bibliography of Sweden- borg,' who, in the New Church weekly journal Morning Light for 19 and 26 January and 2 February, " goes for " Don Manuel and his "translator" in due form. This task involves notice of the sources of Southey's informa- tionor misinformation including some of the few known facts concerning an obscure little society of illumines "formed in the north of Europe during the year 1779," but removed later, by "instructions from heaven," to Avignon in the south of France. The threefold article well deserves perusal by those interested in such byways of religious history and controversy.

CHARLES HICHAM.

IRELAND AND FROGS. Most people are aware that Ireland can boast a complete im- munity from all venomous reptiles, even the comparatively unobjectionable specimens, such as adders, snakes, slow-worms, and toads, which abound in England, being un- known in the sister isle. But it is not so generally known that this really remarkable exemption (traditionally ascribed to the exer- tions of Ireland's patron saint, St. Patrick) formerly extended to that harmless, but scarcely necessary animal, the common frog. Frogs were actually unknown in Ireland, at least during historic times, before the begin- ning of the eighteenth century. About that period a certain Dr. Gwyther, a physician and Fellow of Dublin University, and pro- bably an Englishman, brought over with him from England a number of frogs, in order to introduce the species into Ireland.

These he established in the ditches of the university park, but apparently they shared the dislike to living in Ireland then almost universal amongst natives of England. At any rate, they did not thrive in their new abode, and soon all died, leaving no offspring behind them.

The indefatigable Dr. Gwyther then sent to England for some bottles of frog -spawn, which he threw into the same ditches. This second experiment was crowned with a suc- cess which it scarcely deserved. The spawn developed duly into frogs, which lived and multiplied, though not at first with great quickness. So late, indeed, as the year 1720 not a frog was to be seen anywhere in Ire- land except in the neighbourhood of that cradle of their race, the university park. But within six or seven years more they had spread over a space of fifty miles, and by degrees they took possession of the whole country. The writer, being Irish, can testify that at the present day they are quite as abundant in Ireland as in any other part of the British Isles.

Dean Swift in his works alludes more than" once to the rapid spread of what he calls " the colony of frogs." In a poem written in 1726 he represents the shade of St. Patrick as lamenting over Irish degeneracy, and de- claring that the frogs had been sent by him as a national judgment :

As you grew more degenerate and base, I sent you millions of the croaking race.

Ireland has certainly no great cause for gratitude to Dr. Gwyther, who was probably influenced by that misguided species of patriotism which introduced the rabbit into Australia and the sparrow into America, with deplorable results in both cases. His