A notice of Seriman's life may be found in the Biographie Universelle.
Gloucester Alarm.—In the archives of Lyme Regis is this entry:
"Town Accompt Book.
"1661. For the four soldiers and drummers for service on the Gloucester alarm and candles, 10s. 0d."
What was the "Gloucester alarm?"
Where is Criston, County Somerset?—Mr. Vaughan, a young man who was to have joined the Duke of Monmouth, was of that house or place.
"There was a Maid of Westmoreland."—"Some fifty summers past," I was in the habit of hearing sung a simple ballad, which commenced—
"There was a maid of Westmoreland,
Who built her house upon the sand:"
and the conclusion of which was, that, however desolate and exposed a situation that might be for her dwelling, it was better than in "the haunts of men." This was said to have been written by the late Mr. Thomas Sheridan. I never heard by whom the music to it, which was very pretty, was composed; nor whether or not it was published.
Can any of your correspondents supply the words of this old ballad, and state the name of the composer of the music to it? Also whether it was published, and, if so, by whom?
Anthony Bridges.—In the Hampshire Visitation of 1622, Harl. MS. 1544. fo. 25., appears the marriage of Barbara, second daughter of Sir Richard Pexsall, of Beaurepaire, in co. Southampton, by Ellinor his wife, daughter of William Pawlett, Marquis of Winchester, to "Anthony Bridges." That Sir Richard Pexsall died in 1571, is the only clue I have to the date of the match.
Query, Who was this Anthony Bridges, and did he leave issue?
Is it possible that this is the identical Anthony, third surviving son of Sir John Bridges, first Baron Chandos of Sudeley, respecting whose fate there is so much uncertainty? He is presumed to have married a daughter of Fortescue of Essex, but the collateral evidence on which the supposition is founded is too slight to be satisfactory. Little is known but that he was born before 1532; that he was living in 1584 (in which year he was presented to the living of Meysey Hampton in Gloucestershire, the county in which he resided); and that he had a son Robert, upon a presumed descent from whom the late Sir Egerton Brydges founded his well-known claim to the barony of Chandos of Sudeley.
Barlaam and Josaphat (Vol. iii., p. 135.).—I was much interested in Mr. Stephens' remarks on the Rev. W. Adams's beautiful allegory, and would be glad to know from him, or some other of your learned correspondents, what English translations there are of this "spiritual romance in Greek;" where I may find an account or notice of the work, or get a copy of it.
"Stick at Nothing."—The expression "stop at nothing" occurs in the following couplet in Dryden's Aurengzebe:
"The world is made for the bold impious man,
Who stops at nothing, seizes all he can."
And Pope, in one of his letters, has the expression "stick at nothing," where he says:
"The three chief qualifications of party-writers are, to stick at nothing, to delight in flinging dirt, and to slander in the dark by guess."
Can any of your correspondents explain the origin of the word "stick" in the sense in which it is used by Pope; and how it came to supplant altogether the more intelligible word "stop," as employed by Dryden?
St. Lucia, January, 1851.
"Ejusdem Farinæ."—Your readers are acquainted with the expression "ejusdem farinæ," and the derogatory sense in which it is employed to describe things or characters of the same calibre. It was in common use among clerical disputants after the Reformation; and Leland has it in the following remarks respecting certain fabulous interpolations in the Black Book at Cambridge:
"Centum sunt ibi, præterea, ejusdem farinæ fabulæ."
I have no doubt, however, that the origin of the expression may be traced to the scholastic doctors and casuists of the Middle Ages.
Will any of your correspondents be good enough to explain the circumstances which gave rise to the adoption of "farina" as a term expressive of baseness and disparagement?
St. Lucia, January, 1851.
Batail.—Favine, in his Theatre of Honour (b. ii. c. 13), in speaking of a bell at Menda, says of the clapper of a bell, that "it is a Bataill in Armes." Was this word ever introduced into English heraldry? The only instances of bells in English arms that I can discover in the books to which I have access at present are in the coats of Bell, Porter, Osney, and Richbell.
The Knights of Malta.—On the stone corbels which support the roof of one of the aisles of a church in my neighbourhood, there are carved the armorial badges of persons who are supposed to have contributed to the building of the church, which was erected in the thirteenth century. On one of the corbels (the nearest to the altar, and therefore in the most honourable place) there is a lamb bearing a flag. The lamb has a nimbus round its head, and the staff of the flag terminates in a cross like the head of a processional cross. The device, I have reason to think, was the badge of the knights of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem, who had a preceptory in this neighbourhood during the thirteenth century. In the history of these knights, first of Jerusalem, then of Rhodes, and afterwards of Malta, I find it stated, that in the year 1130 Pope Innocent II. commanded that the standard of the knights (at that time settled at Jerusalem) should be "gules, a full cross argent."
Will any of your correspondents be so kind as to inform me if the device on the corbel was the badge of the knights of the order of St. John of Jerusalem? and if so, at what time they first assumed it?
General Pardons.—Has any example of a general pardon under the great seal been ever printed at length? particularly any of those granted after the restoration of Charles II.?
"Too wise to err."—You will oblige many of your readers if you will inform them from whence the words
"Too wise to err, too good to be unkind,"
are quoted.
Replies
THOMAS MAY
Thomas May, famous amongst the busy characters of his age, both as a politician and a poet, was the eldest son of Sir Thos. May, Knt., of Mayfield, in Sussex, where he was born in 1595. At the usual period of life, he was admitted a fellow-commoner of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; and having taken the degree of B.A. he entered himself at Gray's Inn, with the intention of studying the law, which, however, it is uncertain whether he ever pursued as a profession. Whilst he was a student of the law, he made the acquaintance of Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon; and became the intimate associate of Ben Jonson, Selden, Cotton, Sir K. Digby, Thos. Carew1, "and some others of eminent faculties in their several ways."
"His