154
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. AUG. 23, 1913.
Diller, a Dutch or German chemist who came to this country in 1788, and exhibited his light at the Lyceum. He died at Clifton, Bristol, in 1789, but the exhibition was continued by his pupils for some years afterwards. During the passage of the Gas Light and Coke Company's Bill through Parliament, a pamphlet was published in which Murdock was accused of appropriating Diller's invention. Murdock replied in 'A Letter to a Member of Parliament,' dated 4 May, 1809, which is of considerable interest and is very rare, my copy being the only one I ever saw or heard of. I reprinted the Letter in 1892, with a prefatory note containing some particulars about Diller. I have a few copies left, and shall be happy to send one to any of your readers who are interested in the subject of gas-lighting if they will notify their desire on a postcard. R. B. Prosser.
THE RED HAND OF ULSTER : BURIAL-PLACE
OF THE DISRAELIS (US. vii. 189, 275, 334,
373, 434 ; viii. 14, 95). As no authoritative
statement seems to be forthcoming on the
question whether the Red Hand should be
right or left, I would suggest the possibility
that this was considered a point of no
importance in old heraldry. Dealing with
the blazon of the hand, Mr. Barren
writes :
" A man's hand is drawn cut off at the wrist and palm forward, but couped at the icrist and appaumee are needless, nor need it be noted whether the hand be dexter or sinister save in a case where the punning blazon of such a name as Poingdestre must be brought in." Ancestor, i. 55.
With regard to the Red Hand in Turkey, the earliest stamps issued by that country (1863) bore a crescent surmounted by a mystic tangle which is said to contain the names and titles of the Sultan, arranged in a shape which represents in a conventional fashion the imprint of Mohammed II. 's hand on the column of St. Sophia. I remember reading that an earlier Sultan, Murad I. (1360-89), being unable to write, signed a treaty by dipping his hand in ink and pressing it on the document.
G. H. WHITE.
St. Cross, Harleston, Norfolk.
Referring to MR. BRADBROOK'S reply, ante, p. 95, Lord Beaconsfield's father does not lie " in the cemetery of Spanish and Portuguese Jews .... in the Mile End Road, next to St. Benet's Church," and the ceme- tery is not " next to St. Benet's Church." The cemetery meant is behind the Beth
Holim, now being rebuilt considerably
westward of St. Benet's Church. Benjamin
Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield's grandfather,
who died 22 Nov., 1816, is buried in that
Sephardic cemetery. Isaac Disraeli, the
only issue of this Benjamin Disraeli's
second marriage, was not qualified for burial
with Jewish rites. When he died at Braden-
ham, in January, 1848, at the age of 82,
he was buried in the parish church there.
The cemetery behind the Beth Holim was
first used in 1657, soon after the permitted
return of the Jews to this country. It is
full of the exalted Iberian names assumed
by those immigrant Jews who made the
history of the modern English Ghetto.
CHARLES MC^AUGHT.
RALPH WALLIS (11 S. viii. 1, 71). Three of the tracts mentioned by Sir Roger L'Estrange are in the British Museum :
1. " Felo de se ; or, the bishops condemned out of their own mouthes. Confessing their politick devices and unjust practices to settle and maintain their lordly dignities and private interests, to the impoverishing and mine of the nations wherein such idle and unprofitable drones are suffered to domineer," &c.
" By a mourner for the poor nations, that are enslaved under prelatical tyranny, and one that was once of this black fac'd hierarchy (as Luther was of the Popish) but is now wonderfully delivered from them Printed in the year of Hope, 1668."
This tract consists of forty-four pages of scurrilous abuse, in the form of a dialogue between bishops and their tenants. It is libellous, but does not mention so many bishops and clergymen by name as ' Room for the Cobler.'
2. ' Omnia concessa a Belo ' is a mis- reading in the ' Calendar of State Papers ' for * Omnia comesta a Bello ; or, an answer out of the West to a question out of the North,' &c., printed in 1667. This is another attack on the bishops, deans and chapters, &c., but is neither so scurrilous nor so libellous as the preceding. The tract does not (as far as I am aware) appear in the British Museum printed Catalogues, but is to be found in the Newspaper Room, bound up in a volume of papers in the Burney Collection (vol. 67. A.).
3. " The Saints freedom from tyranny vindicated or, the power of pagan Caesars and antichristian kings examined, and they condemned by the pro- phets and apostles as no magistrates of God to be
obeyed by Saints for the Lord's sake By a lover
of truth London, printed in the year 1667."
The ' Epistle to the Reader ' is signed "A. B." This is a seditious Fifth Monarchy tract. - T B WILLIAMS.
