Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/420

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

414


NOTES AND QUERIES. in s. ix. MAY 23, 191*.


DIARIES (11 S. vii. 109). Does such a thing exist as a chronological list of all known diaries of date anterior to c. 1700, distin- guishing such as are of purely local or family interest from those of public concern, and specifying such as have been printed in whole or in part ? W. M. M.

WILLIAM BROMLEY (11 S. ix. 348). ? William Davenport Bromley, s. William Throgmorton of Bagginton, co. Warwick, arm. Christ Church, matric. 21 Nov., 1780, aged 17. A. R. BAYLEY.

ROLANDSAULEN (11 S. viii. 145, 273). When hunting for something else in a volume of * The Encyclopaedia Britannica,' I came on some information about Rolandsaulen which interested me, and may be of service to others who noticed the articles above referred to. The statues are probably symbolical of the rights ceded to the town- folk :

"The earliest known allusion to a status Rolandi, under this name, occurs in a privilegium granted by Henry V. to the town of Bremen (1111). The word Bolandsaule is perhaps a piece of folk-etymology for an earlier Rothland- saule, or red-land pillar, i.e. the before-named figure or pillar, which signified that the state in which it stood had the power of life and death, an other words was a Blutgerichtstatte. Grimm suspects a connexion between Roland statues and the old Teutonic pillars of which the Irminsul destroyed by Charlemagne is the best-known example. These Roland statues are sometimes in the open air, as at Bremen or Magdeburg ; or against the town-house, as at Halberstadt ; or in the church, as formerly at Gottingen. Some- times they ride on horseback, as at Haldensleben, near Magdeburg, but more generally they are to be found standing upright. They always bear & sword in their right hand, and very frequently a shield in their left," &c.

I should like to express penitence for writing about a " decapitated head " (US. viii. 145). I cannot forgive myself.

DEATH FOLK-LORE (11 S. ix. 128, 196, 236, 278, 296, 350, sub ' Tying Legs after Death'). If ROCKINGHAM w T ill refer to the .second of these references, he will find that his theory has been anticipated. MB. M. L. R. BRESLAR'S account of Hebrew customs in England is valuable ; but I seem to remember a novel of Mr. Zangwill's which mentions an observance or two proper to a death- chamber that he does not include. Chap. ix. of ' Count Teleki ' records some striking points of ritual, but they were carried out in Warsaw, and may not have been imported into this country. Have Quakers any peculiar mode of treating their dead ?

ST. SWITHIN.


DICK TURPIN'S PISTOL (US. vi. 107, 316, 456) MR. JAMES CURTIS, at the first refer- ence, gives a quotation from The Times in which this pistol is described as bearing the inscription, "Presented to Dick Turpin at ' The White Bear Inn,' Drury Lane, Feb. 7th, 1735."

In the Old Bailey Sessions Papers for March, 1735, Case No. 36 is the trial of Field, Rose, Walker, Bush alias Saunders, " with Richard Turpin and Samuel Gregory not yet taken," for burglary at Mr. Francis's house on 7 Feb.

John Wheeler, King's evidence, deposed that

"the prisoners, and I and Richard Turpin and Samuel Gregory, met at the White Hart Inn, the upper end of Drury Lane, about five in the evening [of that day]."

The party had about fifteen pistols be- tween them, besides a pair they stole at the house burgled. ' The Newgate Calendar ' speaks of the inn as " The White Bear " ; but the prosecution, as well as Wheeler, spoke of the inn, according to the Sessions Papers, as " The White Hart," the landlord of which it seems, had run away rather than be an evidence in the case.

There may well have been two inns in the Lane, but there is no mention of a visit on this day to " The White Bear."

ERIC R. WATSON.

WALLER'S * PANEGYRICK ' (US. ix. 327). When B. B. says we neither got nor needed foodstuffs from the Indies in Waller's time, he has surely forgotten rice " so generally eaten and so valuable," as Sir Thomas Herbert says. Rice is mentioned in many of the early reports made by their agents to the East India Company : by Finch, for instance, and Capts. Saris and Knox, to name no others. Tavernier says a great deal about it, and names Bengal as its chief geographical source. He says Bengal sup- plies " very remote countries," and " fur- nishes the Ships of Europe with excellent biscuits " as well.

SAFFRON WALDEN (11 S. ix. 87, 177, 217, 295, 334). I am much obliged to your corre spondents on this subject, but none of them has succeeded in finding an answer to my question. I have discovered inde- pendently that " Chipping Walden " occurs in charters of Henry VIII. 's time; and " Saffron Walden " is, of course, familiar in the title of Nashe's pamphlet. It is really curious that nobody appears to have re- corded the first appearance of this name.

C. C. B.