236
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. m. AMML 15, 1905.
Upon the Restoration he grew melancholy, betook
himself to a recluse life ; made all other cloths in
the same manner as the shoe, lived by begging, but
never ask'd for anything but leather (which he
would immediately nail to his clothes), yet kept
three bottles that hung to his girdle, viz., one for
strong beer, another for small beer, and a 3 rd for
milk, which liquors us'd to be given, and sometimes
brought to him, as was his other sustenance, not-
withstanding he never ask'd for them.
"'I have heard several acc ts of this man, from those who well knew him ; some persons in the neighbourhood of Dinton have his picture drawn. He put off all his cloths at once, they being all fastened together, and so in like manner put them on. He was by relation very lewd, if he could entice women into his cave. (Mr. Grubb, of Horsington, tells me now that he well remembers him, and Sir Thomas Lee, of Hartwell, told me he had often been frighted by him when he was a little boy.) In the summer time he dwelt some months in Kimbell wood*, as I have been told. He was buried at Dinton, as I saw in that church register, Ap: 4, 1696.
" ' He was born Aprill 22, 1629. and buried Aprill 4, 1696.'
" This account is illustrated by paintings of John Bigg and his shoe
" In the painting of John Bigg the shoes he wears are represented as having very thick soles, whereas the shoes themselves, and also the painting, have no conspicuous soles. One of the shoes is still pre- served at the Hall, the other was given to the Ashmolean Library at Oxford, and an old shoe with patten of a different date was given in exchange.
"According to common report, John Bigg was jointly employed as clerk or secretary by Simon Mayne and Colonel Dick Ingoldsby, who had two mansions in this parish, viz., Walridge and Park End."
JOHN T. PAGE.
West Haddon, Northamptonshire.
On my visit to Dinton Hall, where the other shoe of John Bigg is preserved, the Rev. J. J. Goodall showed me the broadsword which Oliver Cromwell wore at the battle of Naseby in 1645, and left as an heirloom to the house of Dinton for ever. The cave or hermitage where Bigg dwelt has long since been levelled to the ground, but the place where it was situated was pointed out to me, and there is an engraved portrait of him yet in existence. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.
Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.
TOPOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIONS FOR COUNTIES. (See 8 th S. ix. 361, 497 ; x. 32 ; 9 th S. iv. 402.) I am sure many of your readers interested in general, as well as local, history will be glad to be referred to the excellent index which Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte has caused to be added to the ' Sixteenth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical MSS.'* re- cently issued. The 'Report' gives, in some
- 1904. Command Paper 2209. Price 9eZ.
120 pages, an account of the many collections
reported on since 1899 ; but to most students
the forty pages of index will bean acquisition
of far greater value, and prove a book which
they must constantly have at hand, since
they will there find the clue to the whole of
the volumes issued by the Commission up to
July, 1904.
There are two very great improvements on the index to the ' Fifteenth Report.' In the first place, the periods covered by the MSS. of the several collections are approximately stated. In the second, " the more consider- able groups of papers comprised in them" are indicated, as well as their places of deposit.
A third should perhaps also be mentioned, that the whole of the collections are indexed in one series, instead of the ' Family Collec- tions ' being separated from the ' Collections of Corporations, Collegiate Bodies, &c.'
The topographical index is, naturally, brought up to date. Q. V.
ALL FOOLS' DAY. It is fully half a cen- tury ago since I left school, but it is well within my recollection that the practice of playing pranks upon one's fellow-pupils on 1 April was not permissible after noontide. Then those who had been tricked by their companions were pointed at by the latter, and the following somewhat dense couplet hurled at them :
April 's gone, and May 's come ; You're a fool and I 'm none !
HARRY HEMS.
Fair Park, Exeter.
In Derbyshire April Fool Day ended at noon, and amongst children any one after that hour " trying it on " is greeted with :
April Fool Day past an' gone, You're ten fools for makin' me one !
Another saying is :
April Fool Day past an' gone, You the bigger for makin' me one ; Five shillings is a crown, You 're the biggest in the town !
THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.
SIR ROBERT SHIRLEY. The following particulars seem to have escaped the notice of Sir Robert's biographers.
After the death of Stephen Kakas de Zalankemeny (the Hungarian ambassador of the Emperor Rudolph II. to Shah Abbas I.) his servants, George Tectander von der Jabel and George Agelastes, continued the journey from Lanzan, where their master died and was buried on 26 October, 1603, to Kasbin in
