Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/590

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. ui. JUNE 24, im


' Memorials of the Scottish Family of Glen ' <1888), p. 13 ; but in neither is the date of his death given. He was the elder of the two sons of Alexander Glen, of Longcroft, Lin- 'lithgowshire, provost of Linlithgow, and was born before 1702. On 12 February, 1715, he received a royal charter in life-rent of the lands of Bonningtoun, and was on 22 August, 1722, served heir-general to his father. He was elected F.S.A. on 23 January, 1729. In August, 1741, he sailed for South Carolina as .-governor of that province, taking with him for his secretary a brother Scot and fellow- antiquary in the person of Alexander Gordon, -author of ' Itirierarium Septentrionale.' Glen was recalled in January, 1755. To him has -been ascribed 'A Description of South Caro- lina, containing many Curious and Interest- ing Particulars relating to the Civil, Natural, and Commercial History of that Colony,' pp. viii, 110, 8vo, issued anonymously in 1761 'by R. & J. Dodsley from "Tally's Head " in 'Pall Mall ; but the real author was more probably Gordon, who had previously com- municated an elaborate description of the natural history of the province to the Royal Society. This valuable essay was included in vol. ii. of B. It Carroll's ' Historical Col- lections of South Carolina' (8vo, New York, 1836). Glen died in Golden Square, London, on 18 July, 1777 (Scots Magazine, xxxix. 390). By will dated 18 February, and proved 10 September, 1777 (P.C.C., 386 Collier), he bequeathed the bulk of his ample fortune to bis niece Elizabeth, only child of his younger brother Andrew. She had married in 1767 George, eighth Earl of Dalhousie, and died in 1807. GORDON GOODWIN.

ST. PIRAN'S ORATORY, CORNWALL. In Mr. Wall's 'Shrines of British Saints' ("The Antiquary's Books "), p. 87, is an account of this oratory, in which are repeated false and foolish statements that have been contra- dicted over and over again : " Beneath the altar slab were three headless skeletons, one was of a woman," &c. " The altar of the oratory was found to be placed in the position of a tomb, the length extending east and west." The originator of this silly account was the Rev. William Haslam, who first arrived in Cornwall in 1842 seven years, that is, after the church had been excavated by Mr. Mitchell of Comprigney. Mr. Mit- chell's contemporary account, with detailed measurements, and his original plan are in the library of the Royal Institution of Corn- wall at Truro. They are printed in full (with a copy of the plan) in the Institution's Journal, vol. xvi. (1904), and contradict Mr. Haslam and Mr. Wall (who has evidently


merely copied Haslam) in almost every par- ticular. That this wonderful altar should find record in so important a series as " The Antiquary's Books " is a serious matter, and there is no excuse for it. If Mr. Wall never saw the local paper, The West Briton of 24 January, 1895, where much of Mitchell's paper is reproduced and the falsehoods ex- posed, he should at any rate have been acquainted with Mr. Hingeston- Randolph's edition of Bp. Grandison's ' Register ' (see vol. ii. p 607). YGREC.

"BLOODY WARRIORS." The profusion of wallflowers in my grounds just now reminds me that country folk in Devon almost in- variably refer to them as " bloody warriors. 1 ' " Us has agot a 'mazing crap ov bliddy waryers thease yer'," is the universally expressed opinion of every cottager hereabouts when speaking of gardening matters.

HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

" His MAJESTY'S OPPOSITION." We have it on the authority of " H. M. B." (Henry Montagu Butler), given in a recent letter to The Times, that Sir John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards Lord Broughton) was the first to use the phrase in a debate in the House of Commons. Lord Broughton told Dr. Montagu Butler that Mr. Canning immediately good- naturedly congratulated him on having made himself immortal. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that John Cam Hob- house was the soul of honour and of un- impeachable veracity.

RICHARD EDGCUMBE.

[See 9 th S. i. 312 and the references there given.]

EVANGELICAL ZOOLOGY AT VITORIA. One of the most interesting churches in Spain is the once-cathedral church of Armentia, about a mile from the now-cathedral church of Vitoria, the capital of the province of Alava. If Ruskin had visited Spain and seen it (and it is a great pity that he never did, as it is also that there is no society for the protection of the ancient buildings of the Peninsula, where the " modernistas " have barbarously destroyed so many quite re- cently), he would no doubt have described its romanesque exterior carvings, of about the year 1100 apparently. A few years ago it was discovered that in the lantern, above the false vaulting of the centre of the "cross" or transept, there exist in the four corners carvings symbolical of the four Evan- gelists, in stone, coeval with the foundation of the " templo." I have lately seen them ; and photographs of them may be obtained from Don Julian de Apraiz, Director del