Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/195

 9" s. ix. MAR s.1902.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

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has often been accorded it in print. This house is the mucli older and greatly superior "Four Crosses" at Hatherton, on the old Chester road, near Cannock a road Swift certainly would also have travelled on his journeys between London, Chester, and Holy- head, on his way to or from Dublin. He also probably stayed there. (There are, by the way, four cross-roads at that point.) The inn at Willoughby was always a very humble one, and were it not that Swift is known to have enjoyed visiting the pot- houses on the way to listen to the talk of the waggoners and others, we might think it too mean a place for that dignitary of the Church to have honoured.

The lines have almost always been egre- giously misquoted, probably by writers fol- lowing the incorrect version given in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1819. It would be of the greatest interest if any light could be thrown upon the circumstances that led to Swift writing this ; and, moreover, if it can be reconciled with the apparently irrecon- cilable, i.e., the invariable statements of all Swift's biographers that his last visit to Eng- land was in 1727. And while we are about it, what has become of the epigram he simi- larly scratched on a window-pane at Chester : something to the effect that the churches and the clergy of that city were alike unfurnished within? CHARLES G. HARPER.

Petersham, Surrey.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

METEMPSYCHOSIS AMONG THE SWEDES. The Illuminati, who were influential in Swedish society during the reign of Gusta- yus III. and subsequently, held, I have been informed, among other tenets, that the souls of certain great men passed into the bodies of other persons endowed with similar great qualities of genius or courage. I shall be glad to know where references to this belief of theirs can be found. SEARCHER.

KING CHARLES I. AT THE NEW GALLERY. One of the most interesting pictures in the Winter Exhibition at the New Gallery is that marked No. 104, although, by a curious over- sight, the compilers of the catalogue have omitted to record the point that makes it famous. It is a seated figure of King Charles I., and portrays him as he sat at

his trial in the High Court of Justice the latter fact unnoticed in the catalogue. His beard is worn full and quite grey ; in his right hand he holds the historic ebony cane, whose silver top fell off during one of the sittings ; and his head is covered by a high- crowned black hat, a royal prerogative which the king resolutely maintained during the memorable scene. The picture must have been painted from memory after the trial, but it makes Charles I. look considerably older than in his usual and better-known portraits, while the grizzled beard, less care- fully trimmed than of yore, imparts a touch- ing and lifelike aspect to the whole.

The chair, with its covering of red velvet, is still extant, preserved in a cottage hospital at Moreton - in - the - Marsh, Gloucestershire. It was on view in the Stuart Exhibition some years ago. What a pity it cannot be acquired for the nation, and placed either in Westminster or Whitehall ! Similar pictures, of various sizes, may yet be found in the possession of old Jacobite families, and some rough copies on glass, with an inscription below, can occasionally be pur- chased in curiosity shops ; but all Stuart relics

att Temple Bar, 1648." PERCY CLARK.

[For Bower see Bryan's 'Diet.,' 1885, under his name.]

CHAPMAN FAMILY. Information is desired as to the parentage and descendants of John Chapman, who lived at Checkley Hall in the first half of the nineteenth century. Where is Checkley Hall ? In Yorkshire 1 The person in question was of the Chapmans of Whitby.

B. P. SCATTERGOOD. Moorside, Far Headingley, Leeds.

" I DOE LOVE THESE AUNCYENT ABBAYES."-

Who is the author of the following lines 1 I doe love these auncyeiit abbayes ; We never tread within them but we set Our foote upon some reverend historic.

JOHN A. RANDOLPH. 128, Alexandra Road, Wimbledon, S.W. [" Abbayes " is a mistake. The lines run : I do love these ancient ruins ; We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some reverend history. They occur in 'The Duchess of Malfi,' V. iii. (Webster's 'Works,' ed. Hazlitt, 1857, vol. ii. p. 270).]

WARREN AND CLEGG. Can you tell me if Esther Clegg, who was born 15 September, 1693, and who married Jonathan Warren, of Limehurst, at Ashtou-under-Lyne, on 2 April,