126
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XL FEB. u, iocs.
an error in type-setting, but that there might
be here a case of a "concealed" dedicatee.
Mr. Lee gladly found time to reply to my
letter, and stated that he did not know of a
similar case of concealment, t>ut that he
" should be glad to discover a sound one." I
am tempted therefore to ask your readers if
they can supply what Mr. Lee desires.
W. E. WILSON. Hawick.
FOOTPRINT OF THE PROPHET. Mr. H- Blochmann has mentioned, among other Mohammedan inscriptions, the following, which records a curious superstition applied elsewhere to Buddha and other teachers :
"God Almighty says, 'He who brings the good deed will be rewarded tenfold' (Qoron, vi. 161). This pure dais and its stone, on which is the foot- print of the Prophet may God bless him ! were Eut up by the great, generous king, the son of a ing, Nagirudduny& waddln Abul Muzaffar Nugrat Shah, the king, son of Husain Shah, the king, son of Sayyid Ashraf ul Husaini may God perpetuate his kingdom and rule, and elevate his condition and dignity !-in the year 937 A.H. [A.D. 1530-1]."
This is given in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xli. part i. p. 339 (Cal- cutta, 1872). I give the date as it appears in Mr. Blochmann's article. The miraculous element in the legends that have gathered round the history of the Prophet is all the more remarkable since he disclaimed thauma- turgical powers. WILLIAM E. A. AXON.
Manchester.
[Several lengthy articles on footprints of the gods have recently been printed in ' N. & Q.' See 9 th S iv. 306, 463 ; vi. 163, 223, 322, 391 ; vii 233.]
THE ORIGINAL DIOCESE OF NEW ZEALAND. Mr. E. S. Armstrong's highly interesting work 'The History of the Melanesian Mis- sion' (Isbister & Co.) concludes in fact with the jubilee of that mission in 1898, early in which year the second bishop of the mission, John Richardson Selwyn (son of George Augustus Selwyn, the first Bishop of New Zealand), died. He had, however, been com- pelled by ill health to retire from his diocese in 1891, and two years afterwards he was succeeded by Cecil Wilson, the present bishop. George Augustus Selwyn, appointed first bishop of New Zealand in 1841, began visit- ing in the Melanesian Islands in 1848, thus founding the mission there. Mr. Armstrong remarks that the stimulus thus to extend the sphere of his labours arose from an odd mistake in his letters patent :
"Through some clerical error or oversight they
jxtended his diocese from 50 south to latitude 34
orth, thus placing under his episcopal care a wedge of the globe extending well nigh from Ant- arctic to Arctic Ocean.
If the letters patent thus extended the juris-
diction far beyond what was intended, Mr.
Armstrong's description extends it much
further still. New Zealand, intended to com-
prise the whole of the diocese, could not be
better defined geographically than between
34 and 50 south latitude, and between 165
and 180 east longitude. But whilst the
whole of this is in the South Pacific Ocean,
the extension of the region to 34 north
latitude (about those of Fez, Damascus,
Bagdad, Yokohama, and Columbia in South
Carolina) would fall far short of extending
to the Arctic Ocean, though it is true enough
that beyond that latitude, and between the
above limits of longitude, there is no land
till we come to the islands bounding Behring
Sea. W. T. LYNN.
Blackheath.
LACONIC PRAYER. For a sample of a com- mendably short prayer see 'Iliad,' xxiii. 770 : K\v6i, #(, ayaOr) /xoi tTTippoOos eX.0 iroSouv
goddess, hear, prosper me in the race, a line evidently imitated by Virgil in the ' ^Eneid,' ix. 404 :
Tu, dea, tu prsesens nostro succurre labori. It is said that Assheton Smith, the mighty fox-hunter, once described a jump so high and so wide that one of the riders who " took " it a devout man, and withal in a terrible funk said the Lord's Prayer in the air between "taking off" and "landing" on the other side. Well, we may take leave to doubt the possibility of that exploit, but unquestionably either of these laconic peti- tions of Horner and Virgil might have been got through in the course of that jump.
PATRICK MAXWELL.
Bath.
[For other laconic prayers, including one ascribed by Camden to St. Augustine, see 8 th S. viii. 518.]
CORNISH WRECKERS. That Cornish wreck- ing, if extinct, is still regretted, even by people passing for religious, is shown by the following naive exposure of public opinion at Appledore. On Monday, 29 December last, a Christmas treat was given to the children connected with the Bible Christian Chapel at that place. The principal feature of the entertainment was a boat converted into a full-rigged ship by willing volunteers ; this was filled with useful presents, princi- pally garments for the children. We are told that this vessel "was called the John and Lily by request of some of the helpers, be- cause she was filled with presents for the children." The report of the meeting, in the Exeter Evening Express of 3 January, goes,
