26
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. m. JAN. u,
others, were endeavouring to perfect the
clergy in regularity of life, uniformity of
officiating, and all variety of learning.
Edmund Hickeringill, rector of All Saints', Colchester, in his 'Gregory Father -Grey- beard,' 1673, being a reply to Andrew Mar- veil's 'Rehearsal Transposed,' reproves that author for " speaking lies of our glorious martyrs Charles I. and Archbishop Laud (p. 254).
Edward Felling, Prebendary of Westmin- ster, preaching before the judges in West- minster Abbey, 30 January, 1683/4, stated that the Romanists helped to destroy Charles I. because he would not accept the Roman Church (p. 39), on which subject there is a confirmatory note in Wordsworth's 'Eccles. Biog.,' 1818, v. 370.
Bishop Beveridge, preaching before the Lords in Westminster Abbey, 30 January, 1705/6, showed that the Parliament and the Church reckoned Charles a martyr (p._l_4).
William Law, in his ' Christian Perfection,' 1726, shows that the 30th of January was commonly observed as a fast, and the church service was usually attended (' Works,' 1893, iii. 113). W. C. B.
MR. GLADSTONE ON SHAKSPEARE. May I be permitted in *N. & Q.' to call attention to the fact that, according to a letter in the Spectator of 3 December, 1898, Mr. Gladstone was of the opinion that the three greatest men who ever lived were Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, and that Shakespeare was the greatest of them all ?
Mr. Gladstone said that
" Homer created a people, a language, and a religion. Dante created a people and a language, but not a religion. Shakespeare did not create any of the three, out his reputation will increase, and in another century he may be universally acknow- ledged to be the greatest man who ever lived."
HENRY GERALD HOPE. Clapham, S.W.
A CHILD'S CAUL. The following folk-lore is from Liphook, Hants. A child oorn in a caul will always be a wanderer so long as the caul is kept, and, moreover, being unable to sink in water, cannot be drowned. An old woman told my niece lately of her brother who was so born, and so potent was the influence of the caul that wnen his mother tried to bathe him he sat on the surface of the water, and if forced down, came up again like a cork. There seems no doubt that this was fully believed and related in all serious- ness. The mother had kept the caul stretched on a sheet of note-paper, and whenever
her son was in danger it became wet and
soft, but it remained dry and like a dried
bladder so long as he was safe. It got
destroyed somehow, and soon after the
brother, a sailor, was shipwrecked and
drowned. J- T. F.
Winterton, Doncaster.
OLD LONDON. An interesting suggestion as to memorials of old London has been originated by Mr. John Latey, of the Penny Illustrated Paper. Mr. Latey proposes that, in order to preserve the finest specimens of architecture, as they are taken down for necessary alterations they should be sent to the garden at the South Kensington Museum, and there be reset sp as to form a street. Mr. Latey regrets that Temple Bar r the old "Bell" inn in Holborn, and the ancient "Tabard" should have been lost to London, but states that "time-honoured buildings enough yet remain the row of gabled houses in Holborn by Staple Inn, St. John's Gate, and Cardinal Wolsey's Palace in Fleet Street to form, when time is ripe tx> remove them, a desirable Old London street."
N. S. S.
WE must request correspondents desiring infor-
mation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries^
in order that the answers may be addressed to-
them direct.
"AN ICE." This expression, as in "have an ice," appears to be recent. I shall be glad of a few quotations for it, sent directly to me (address simply " Oxford "). It can, no doubt, be found in novels. In French the plural glaces, in the sense of ice-creams or water-ices,, was admitted by the Academy in 1762 ; but une glace, " an ice," was condemned as late as 1825, the proper equivalent being given as " une tasse de glace." A friend tells me that he remembers the time when "an ice " sounded as slangy as "a brandy-soda" or "a bread- and-butter." J. A. H. MURRAY.
Oxford.
WlTHYCOMBE CHURCH STRUCK BY LlGHT-
NING. In Baxter's ' Saints' Everlasting Rest,' pt. iii. chap. iv. sect. 10, he refers to a thunder- storm which burst upon the church of Withy- combe, in Devonshire, "when the lightning broke in, and scorched and burnt the people, and left the brains and hair upon the pillars," so that it would seem that the catastrophe occurred during the time of divine service. Is there any record of the date and parti- culars of this calamity *? According to the
