Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/117

 9<s. VIIL AUG. 3, IDOL] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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death, made the astounding discovery of the sex of his patient.

About the year 1858, I as a girl and my mother were staying with some old friends in the country, and our hostess begged us to regard leniently the waspish, caustic temper of Dr. Barry, her only other visitor. She evi- dently had some misgiving as to the view the doctor might take of his fellow-guests, and, after many years, I recall with pleasure that both my mother and I, to the relief of our kind hostess, made a not unfavourable im- pression on the crotchety gentleman. How well I remember him ! a small, irritable man. I can still see his tiny hands. He had a pale, almost ashen, countenance, with aquiline features, pinched and wizened, and crowned with an unmistakable flaxen wig. There was a daguerreotype portrait of him I forget if it much resembled the original, but it is probably still in existence. He spoke in a squeaky, querulous voice, both well and wittily ; and his constant companion was a small white dog, almost as cross as its master. He had a black servant, arrayed in European dress.

There is a story told of a son of the ducal house of Beaufort, governor or military com- mander in some West Indian station, who, seeing fit to disagree with Dr. Barry, and the argument waxing hot, was seized by the doctor and flung out of the window. Humour charged the doctor with other scrapes and escapades, but whatever predicament he found himself in, he was always befriended by some powerful unknown hand, and he never lacked money.

About twenty years ago a German news- paper contained many details of Dr. Barry's life, and most of us know Mark Twain's graphic notice of him in 'New Tramps Abroad.' R. A.

SUSANNA HOPTON, DEVOTIONAL WRITER, 1627-1709 (9 th S. vii. 509). This lady was a daughter of Sir Simon Harvey, of Whitton, and of St. Martin's-in-the Fields, co. Middle- sex, Knt., by Ursula his wife, second daughter of Richard Wiseman, citizen and merchant and goldsmith of London (who died 12 De- cember, 1618), and Mary his wife, daughter of Robert Browne, of London, Esq. She was baptized in the parish of St. Martin-in-the- Fields, 27 October, 1627, and was married 25 June, 1655 (after three publications), by Tobias Leslie, Esq., at St. Andrew's, Holborn, co. Middlesex, to Richard Hopton, son of Sir Richard Hopton, of Canon Froome, co. Here- ford, the father of each of the parties being then deceased. She died at Hereford 12 July,

and was buried at Bishop's Froome, same county, 14 July, 1709. Her husband, who appears to have been born circa 1610, was of the Inner Temple, barrister-at-law, and a Welsh judge 1682 -P He died s.p. 28 Novem- ber, arid was buried in Bishop's Froome Church 11 December, 1696 (M.I.). Mr. Williams, in the work to which E. C. alludes, deals with Hopton at some length, and I do not deem it necessary for j~our correspondent's purpose to state more respecting him. The family of Wiseman (as above) was of Terrell's Hall, co. Essex. I am unaware of any satis- factory evidence in support of the statement that Susanna Hopton's father was "of an ancient Staffordshire family," although myself the present head of a branch of the family of Harvey of that county temp. Elizabeth (then represented by William, father of Sir James Harvey, Lord Mayor of London) and the historian of the several important families of the name. Sir Simon Harvey was knighted by James I. at Theobalds, 3 October, 1623, and buried at Isleworth, co. Middlesex, 4 December, 1628, his nuncupative will of the 15th of the previous month Deing proved on the 9th (P.C.C. Barrington 109). He appears to have been brother to Sir John Harvey, of London, knighted by Charles I. at Southwick 16 August, 1628, whose will, dated 15 Sep- tember, 1646, was proved 16 July, 1650 (P.C.C. Pembroke 113). His relict must have married again, and died before 5 April, 1671, when administration of her effects as "Ursula Leighton al's Dame Ursula Harvey, of Gattertop, in parish of Hope -under -Din- more, co. Hereford," was granted by P.C.C. to her said daughter Susanna Hopton (Act Book, 1671, fo. 49 b). W. 1. R, V.

DOWSING (9 th S. viii. 40). Has any one ever been prosecuted for using the divining rod 1 I am led to ask this question because a writer in the Literary World (28 December, 1900), in reviewing part xxxviii. vol. xv. of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, says, "Some of the best known of them [the " dowsers "] have been threatened with prosecution under the Vagrant Act." In December, 1897, the Rev. Dr. Cox gave a "talk" at the Town Hall, Northampton, on ' Water Divining and Water Diviners.' From a report of the " talk " which appeared in the Northampton Mercurj/ of 17 December, 1897, it appears that Dr Cox criticized the then recently issued report on the subject by the Society for Psychical Research :

" He asserted, on the authority of his friend Prof. Boyd Dawkins, that there was not an ounce of scientific evidence in the report from beginning to end. It was a collection of newspaper cuttings and