Minor Notes
Nonsuch Palace.—Our antiquarian friends may not be aware that traces of this old residence of Elizabeth are still to be seen near Ewell. Traditions of it exist in the neighbourhood and Hansetown, and Elizabethan coins are frequently dug up near the foundations of the "Banquetting House," now inclosed in a cherry orchard not far from the avenue that joins Ewell to Cheam. In a field at some distance is an old elm, which the villagers say once stood in the court-yard of the kitchen. Near this is a deep trench, now filled with water, and hedged by bushes, which is called "Diana's Dyke," now in the midst of a broad ploughed field, but formerly the site of a statue of the Grecian goddess, which served as a fountain in an age when water-works were found in every palace-garden, evincing in their subjects proofs of the revival of classical learning. The elm above-mentioned measures thirty feet in the girth, immediately below the parting of the branches. Its age is "frosty but kindly;" some two or three hundred summers have passed over its old head, which, as yet, is unscathed by heavens fire, and unriven by its bolt. The ground here swells unequally and artificially, and in an adjoining field, long called, no one knew why, "the Conduit Field," pipes that brought the water to the palace have lately been found, and may be seen intersected by the embankments of the Epsom railway.
The avenue itself is one of the old approaches to the palace, and was the scene of a skirmish during the civil wars.
Your readers may, perhaps, forget that this palace was the scene of the fatal disgrace of young Essex.
Ferrar and Benlowes.—The preface to that very singular poem, Theophila: Love's Sacrifice. Lond. 1652, by Edw. Benlowes, contains a passage so closely resembling the inscription "in the great parlour" at Little Gidding (Peckard's Life of Nic. Ferrar, p. 234), that the coincidence cannot have been accidental, and, if it has not been elsewhere pointed out, may be worth record. As the inscription, thought not dated, was set up during the life of Ferrar, who died in 1637, the imitation was evidently not his. Only so much of the inscription is here given as is requisite to show the parallel.
"He who (by reproof of our errors, and remonstrance of that which is more perfect) seeks to make us better, is welcome as an Angel of God: and he who (by a cheerful participation of that which is good) confirms us in the same, is welcome as a Christian friend. But he who faults us in absence, for that which in presence he made show to approve of, doth by a double guilt of flattery and slander violate the bands both of friendship and charity."
Thus writes Benlowes:
"He who shall contribute to the improvement of the author, either by a prudent detection of an errour, or a sober communication of an irrefragable truth, deserves the venerable esteem and welcome of a good Angel. And he who by a candid adherence unto, and a fruitful participation of, what is good and pious, confirms him therein, merits the honourable entertainment of a faithful friend: but he who shall traduce him in absence for what in presence he would seem to applaud, incurres the double guilt of flattery and slander: and he who wounds him with ill reading and misprision, does execution on him before judgement."
Traditions from remote Periods through few Links (Vol. iii., p. 206.).—The communication of H. J. B., showing how a subject of our beloved Queen Victoria can, with the intervention, as a lawyer would say, of "three lives," connect herself with one who was a liegeman of that very dissimilar monarch, Richard III., reminds me of a fact which I have long determined in some way to commit to record. It is this: My father, who is only sixty-eight years old, is connected in a similar mode with a person who had the plague during the prevalence of that awful scourge in the metropolis in the year 1665, with the intervention of one life only. My grandfather, John Lower of Alfriston, co. Sussex, distinctly remembered an aged woman, who died at the adjacent village of Berwick at about ninety, and who had, in her fourth year, recovered from that frightful disease. Should it please Providence to spare my father's life to see his eighty-third birthday, the recollections of three persons will thus connect events separated by a period of two centuries.
I may take this opportunity of mentioning a fact which may interest such of the readers of "Notes and Queries" as are students of natural history. My grandfather, who was born in the year 1735 (being the son of Henry Lower, born on the night of the memorable storm of November, 1703), was among the very last of those who engaged in the sport of bustard-hunting in the South Downs. This bird has been extinct, on at least the eastern portion of that range, for upwards of a century. The sport was carried on by means of dogs which hunted down the poor birds, and the sticks of the human (or inhuman?) pursuers did the rest. My ancestor was "in at the death" of the last of the bustards, somewhere about 1747, being then twelve years old.
Lewes.
Longevity.—Some few years since I had occasion to search the parish registers of Evercreech in Somersetshire, in one of which I met with the following astounding entry:—
"1588. 20th Dec., Jane Britton of Evercriche, a Maidden, as she afirmed of the age of 200 years, was buried."
I can scarcely believe my own note, made however, with the register before me.
The Thirty-nine Articles.—The following MS. note is in a copy which I have (4to. 1683):
"Sept. 13. 1702.
"Memor. That Mr. Thomas King did then Read publickly and distinctly, in a full Congregation during the Time of Divine Service, the nine and thirty Articles of Religion, and Declare his Assent and Consent, &c., according as is Required in the Act of Uniformity, In the Parish Church of Ellesmere, In the Presence of Us, who had the said Articles printed before Us.
E. Kynaston.
Tho. Eyton.
Ar. Langford.
Will. Swanwick."
Emendation of a Passage in Virgil.—Allow me to send you an emendation of the usual readings of the 513th line of the first Georgic, which occurred to me many years ago, and which still appears to me more satisfactory than any which have hitherto been suggested.
"Ut, cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigæ,
Ac sunt in spatio,—en frustra retinacula tendens,
Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas."
"When the chariots have passed the barriers,
And are now in the open course,—
Lo, the charioteer vainly pulling the
Reins, is carried along by the steeds."
The usual readings are "addunt in spatio," or "addunt in spatia," which are difficult to be explained or understood. The emendation which I suggest is, I think, simple, easy, and intelligible; and I can imagine how the word "addunt" arose from the mistake of a transcriber, by supposing that the MS. was written thus:—ac
Poems discovered among the Papers of Sir K. Digby.—In page 18. of your current volume is a poem of