208
NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. x. SEPT. 12, im
there the corpse remains, sitting at the table, and
the candle burning before him unconsumed ; they
could not move him from the chair to bury him,
nor could they extinguish the candle. The house
has been deserted, as you will suppose, and there
till the day of judgment he will remain a sitting
miracle. It is a very fine story, and I should like
to know the rise and progress of the latter part of
it." Southey's ' Letters/ edited by J. W. Warter,
J806, vol. i. p. 366.
EDWABD PEACOCK.
ERASMUS WILLIAMS OF DORSET. I should be greatly obliged for any information about Erasmus Williams and the curious portrait of him published early in the seventeenth century, in which he is depicted half-length between two pillars crowned by a rainbow, with the sun in the left-hand corner, and the moon in the right-hand. At the side of the right-hand pillar are five groups of musical "and other instruments. Above the head is an angel and trumpet. From the latter proceeds a scroll inscribed " Arise you dead and com [sic] to judgment." At the base of a tablet concealing the greater part of the body are the words :
" Of the line of Sir John Williams of Dorsetshire and by the mother of the house of Sir William a Barowe in Hamp. He died A.D. 1608 March 30 .^Etatis suge 56."
On the tablet itself one reads : This does Erasmus Williams represent, Whome living all did love, deade all lament His humane Artes behind his backe attende, Whereon spare bowers he wisely chose to spend, And from Corinthiane Columne deck't with Artes, Now to the Temples Pillar him conuerts. Under the Rainebowes arche of Promise, where Of hoped blisse noe deluge he neede feare. He of this Church did a firme pillar Hue, T'whome dead his Wiue's loue doth these Pillars
giue. Contriued by his Schollar and his"!
frende, ! T> TT 11
Who wisht their loues and lines f K Ha y dock -
had made one ende. )
Erasmus Mores encomium sett forth ; Wee want a More to praise Erasmus worth.
Six texts are placed in various parts of the picture. The left-hand pillar supports a globe covered with tracery, and in its turn supporting a dove. Upon the Corinthian capital of the right-hand pillar is an owl encircled by clouds.
Has the plate any connexion with Free- masonry ? A. M. BROADLEY.
The Knapp, Bradpole, Bridport.
" FORISFACTURA." I have recently been transcribing the grant of the mill of Silsden to the canons of Embsay by the Countess of Romille. After granting the mill and all the corn-grinding rights of Silsden to
the Canons, and prohibiting the use of even
a hand-mill, the Countess adds :
" Si quis autem de predicta villa renuerit venire ad predictum molendinum ego et heredes mei com- pellemus eum illud sequi ita quod si repertus fuerit veniens ab alio molendino saccus et bladus erit canonicorum et equus et forisfactura erit mea et heredum meorum.
I am not at all sure of the force of forisfactura, especially with the et in front of it. Without the et, I take it that the horse would be the forfeiture ; but with the et I am at a loss, to know what the forfeiture would be. I should be very much obliged if corre- spondents could throw any light on the force of the word in this case. At the same time, may I ask whether bladus refers to the corn in the sack or to the growing corn in the field ? The whole deed is curious.
W. CLARIDGE.
Bradford.
" BOUGH-POT." At dinner the other day in a country house a gentleman mentioned a " bough-pot," and nobody but myself had ever heard the word before, or knew what it meant. I seem to have known it all my life, as a bouquet, a nosegay made up of mixed flowers. I shall be glad to be enlightened as to its history. P.
[The 'N.E.D.' says that the original meaning; was a pot for holding boughs, &c., for ornament. Pepys uses the word in this sense in his * Diary ' under 13 Sept., 1665. The change of sense is weU illustrated by Thackeray in * Vanity Fair ' : " ' We
have made her a bow-pot.' ' Say a bouquet 'tis.
more genteel.' "]
THE LION AND THE UNICORN. What are the origin and meaning of the well-known distich,
The lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown,
The lion beat the unicorn all round the town ?
I had always connected it with Scotland and England, and imagined that James I. added the unicorn as a support to the royal arms to show that the fight was over. A correspondent writes :
" In one of the rooms in the Borromeo Palace on the Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore are two large tapestries say 15 ft. by 12 ft. apparently of the sixteenth century or earlier. The first represents a lion and a unicorn engaged in combat for a crown lying between them. The second shows the lion chasing the unicorn round a mediaeval walled town, drawn quite small in the centre of the tapestry, the lion and the unicorn being on a much larger scale."
I have searched Brewer, Brand, Edwards, Hazlitt, Halliwell, Gomme, &c., but obtained no information. H. A. ST. J. M.
[MR. A. R. BAYLEY asked a similar question at 9 S. x. 168, but received no reply.]
