n s. vi. NOV. 2, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
345
granite pedestal, and represents the Parlia-
mentarian general standing erect, bareheaded,
with right hand resting upon his sword, and
left hand outstretched.
St. Ives, Hunts. A statue of Cromwell was erected in the Market -Place in 1901. It was unveiled by Lord Edmond Fitz- maurice on 23 Oct. The sculptor was Mr.
F. W. Pomeroy, who has represented Cromwell in the dress of a yeoman farmer of the period. He wears a broad-brimmed, high-crowned hat, bandolier, and sword, and under his right arm carries a Bible.
Warrington. A cast-iron statue of Cronr well was presented to the town by Mr- Frederick Monks, and erected in front of the Old Academy in 1899, the tercentenary of the Protector's birth. It was cast, from the design of John Bell executed in 1862. by the local firm of Monks, Hall & Co., and was for some time exhibited at the Crystal Palace. At the foot of the statue is " O. Cromwell " in autograph facsimile. Cromwell is represented standing erect, bare- headed, with long, flowing cloak thrown back over his shoulders. In his left arm he clasps a Bible and naked sword, and points downwards with his right hand.
My thanks are due to THE RIGHT HON.
G. W. E. RUSSELL, MB. J. G. BRADFORD, MR. A. RHODES, and others for much valued help.
May I again appeal for references to statues and memorials which may be considered to lie outside the beaten track ? JOHN T. PAGE.
Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
BODLEY'S SMALLEST MS.: A RELIC OF
JEREMIAH RICH. For over two and a half
centuries the Bodleian Library has contained
a very small MS., written in almost illegibly
minute shorthand, numbered 30511, and
described in Mr. Falconer Madan's ' Sum-
mary Catalogue ' (1905), v. 822, as :
" In English, on paper : written in the 17th cent. (?) : Jin.xfin., 27 leaves: binding, black leather with silver corners and centre pieces, attached to a chain (late 17th cent. ?) : in a red leather box 3| X 2| X f in. A shorthand volume, believed to contain English prayers. The smallest MS. in the Library."
From before 1674 all clue to the origin and contents of this tiny treasure (which, it may be noted, is chained) had been lost, and although it has for a long time been on exhibition in one of the library show-eases, it has only quite recently been identified.
Shortly after 1654 Jeremiah Rich issued
a small poster advertising his " Semigraphy,"
and puffing the author's qualifications as
the exponent of the system. A specimen
of this poster, which is no doubt the only
one extant, is preserved in the Bagford
Collection, and this was reproduced at
p. 57 of ' Jeremiah Rich : Semigrapher of
the Commonwealth,' 1911, by Mr. Alex. T.
Wright. In this poster Rich boasts that
he could write so small that his pen could
be scarcely seen to move, and he asserts
that he
wrote a Sermon in little more then the Two and thirtieth part of a sheet of Paper, in a Book containing the breadth of a single penny, being now shown in the Public Library in Oxford, which is a Mystery to the World and was never done by any but himself, since the use of the Pen was known."
Examination of the curious and interesting book in the Bodleian Library by the light of the republished poster has at last estab- lished again the identity of this example of Jeremiah Rich's penmanship.
There was apparently another somewhat similar little MS., which is, perhaps, still in existence, and may yet be identified by your readers. William Leybourn, writing in 1690 from a memory liable to lapses and lacunae, states in his ' Pleasure with Profit ' (at p. 28 of the ' Mechanical Recrea- tions ' section) that Rich took down a sermon delivered before Charles II. at White- hall by a bishop, that he read it to the bishop (who testified to its accuracy), and that the bishop requested him to present a specimen of his art to the King. Thereupon Rich
" wrote the same Sermon in a little Book of Six Leaves of Fine Paper, and had it bound in Crimson Sarcenet, with Silver Clasps and Corners upon the Cover ; all which Book and Cover was less than the nail of his little Finger ; which Book he afterwards presented to the King." Charles may not have attached exceptional importance to a bishop's sermon, even in a form illegible to him; but among those about him there may well have been one who cared for curiosities, and, as such, this one may yet be carefully preserved.
A. T. W.
" GEOTROPOSCOPE/' Leon Foucault's in- genious invention of an apparatus by which he proved the earth's rotation around its axis, called a " gyroscope," now commonly used for navigation instead of a ship's magnetic compass, is sometimes also de- scribed by the synonymous and more
