280
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. AI-HIL 2, 1901.
people to discuss the chances of immortality. One,
however, who has been fed on the best poetry cannot
fail to recognize failure on the part of " minor min-
strels " to come near the mark. Poetry is, in a sense,
and to the few, an exact science. Unhesitatingly,
then, we say that some of those from whom
Mrs. Swan freely quotes have no more claim to be
poets than had the Tupper of yesterday, or the
Mtevius of the day before. To a certain extent
the compiler disarms criticism, since she owns that,
while some who ought to be represented are not,
others occupy an undue space. We fail to find,
however, the poems for which we seek, such as
- lonica,' while the volume is filled up by the
commonplace utterances of bards of whom we have never heard, or whom we are anxious to forget. Many good passages from genuine poets will, how- ever, reward the explorer.
Devon Notes and Queries is making good pro gress. The number for October, 1903, is well illus" trated, and contains several valuable notes and replies. Local genealogy, we are glad to find, is a strong point. Mr. W. H. Thornton con- tributes an account, mainly gleaned from tradi- tion, of the murder of Gilbert Yarde, rector of Teigngrace, in 1783. No report of the trial of the murderer seems to be known ; we imagine that the depositions taken by the local magistrates must be in the custody of the Clerk of the Peace. If the depositions at the coroner's inquest have not perished they would also, we may assume, throw light on the tragedy. Mr. H. M. Whitley has fur- nished from the original in the Record Office a notice of the repairs carried on at Powderham Castle when in the king's hands (1539-40) on account of the attainder of Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter and Earl of Devon. Though short, it is useful .as furnishing means by which to make an estimate of the rate of wages of artisans at that time in the .South- West. Joanna Southcott was a Devon woman ; she has been dead hard upon ninety years, and but faint memories remain of her except in the minds of the few who study the vagaries of fanaticism. The wonderful thing about the poor woman's career is, that though she was undoubtedly mad, yet there were not a few people of education and well skilled in the conduct of the ordinary affairs of life who .accepted her teaching, and looked upon the turbid rhapsodies she uttered as divine revelations. One .of her practices was that of " sealing the faithful," .as it was called that is, issuing " certificates for themillennium." Oneof these curious documents has fallen into the hands of Mr. F. B. Dickinson. He has reproduced it with a very interesting note as an accompaniment. Thousands of these papers were sold to her credulous followers, most of them at a guinea each. We never saw one, and believe them to be at the present time great rarities, as almost all the purchasers would d<wtroy them when they discovered, on her death, that they had been deluded. .Joanna died in 1814, and was buried at St. John's Wood. The tombstone that marked her grave was shattered, Mr. Dickinson says, by the great gun- powder explosion in the Regent's Park Canal in 1874. We wonder whether it has been replaced. At that date she had still followers who looked forward to her return to life. The Morebath churchwardens' accounts are continued, and assuredly do not fail in interest. The young men's wardens and Our Lady's wardens still appear in 1539. These persons evidently were not the churchwardens, but officers
acting for some of the gilds. Perhaps the young
men served St. George, who had, we know, an
image in the church. Bees were possessed by the
church authorities. They were useful for producing
wax for candles ; but we remember only one other
instance of churchwardens keeping bees. In 1477
several hives belonged to the church authorities of
St. Edmund's, Salisbury.
THE Clarendon Press has for a number of years had in use Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford, drawn up by the Con- troller, Mr. Horace Hart, and revised by Dr. Murray and Dr. Bradley. Copies of these rules have been supplied gratuitously by the Controller to many persons ; and as additional requests are constantly being made, it has been thought advisable to publish the rules. The notes in the revised and enlarged edition make the booklet interesting reading, as in the case of Mr. Hart's discussion with Gladstone about the spelling forgo or forego.
DR. S. F. CRESWKLL, of whom there is an obituary
notice in the Times, 26 March, was a contributor to
'N. & Q.,' Second and Third Series. He was an
authority on Nottinghamshire bibliography.
WE must also notice the death of Henry J. Moule, an accomplished antiquary, who contributed fre- quently to our columns, and was for years curator of the County Museum at Dorchester. He was the eldest of the well-known family of brothers which includes the Bishop of Durham.
t0
We must call special attention to the following notices :
ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub- lication, but as a guarantee of good faith.
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To secure insertion of communications corre- spondents must observe the following rules. Let each note, query, or reply be written on a separate slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and such address as he wishes to appear. When answer- ing queries, or making notes with regard to previous entries in the paper, contributors are requested to put in parentheses, immediately after the exact heading, the series, volume, and page or pages to which they refer. Correspondents who repeat queries are requested to head the second com- munication " Duplicate."
T. STEVENS ("Skoal ! to the Northland ! Skoal !"). Last stanza of Longfellow's ' Skeleton in Armour.'
INDIANA ("An Austrian army"). These lines were printed in full in 3 rd S. iv. 88. Other refer- ences to periodicals in which they have appeared will be found ante, pp. 120, 211.
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