96
NOTES AND QUERIES. 111 s. m. FEB. 4, 1911.
Miss Clerke did not adhere to the same
measure throughout the poem. The last
stanza given in ' Women's Voices ' is as
follows :
A wraith along the deep she goes,
Till nearing swift and pale, Upon the fated wreck she throws
The shadow of her sail. And through the storm with hollow chime
A spectral hail they hear, " How goes the world ? Methinks 'twere time
That Doomsday should appear ! "
W. S. S.
SPIDER'S WEB AND FEVER (US. ii. 109, 194). The spider was efficacious as a cure not only for whooping cough, but also for ague. I have in my library a well-marked book which Dr. Johnson said made him get out of bed earlier than usual to read. It has not had that effect upon me, but it has caused me to sit up later than usual to read a portion. Needless to say, I refer to Burton's ' Anatomy of Melancholy.' The author is dealing with amulets :
" A ring, made of the hoofe of an asses right forefoot, carried about, &e., I say with Renodeus, they are not altogether to be rejected. Piony doth cure epilepsie; pretious stones most diseases ; a wolfs dung, born with one, helps the colick ; a spider an ague, &c. Being in the country in the vacation time not many years since, at Lindly in Leicestershire, my fathers house, I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell lapped in silke, &c., so applied for an ague by my mother : whom although I knew to have excellent skill in chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, &c. and such experimental medicines, as all the country where she dwelt can witness, to have done many famous and good cures upon divers poor folks, that were otherwise destitute of help yet, among all other experiments, this, me- thought, was most absurd and ridiculous : I could see no warrant for it. Quid aranecK cum febre? For what antipathy? till at length, rambling amongst authors (as often I do), I found this very medicine in Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Aldrovandus, cap. de Araned, lib. dc inserhs. I began to have a better opinion of it, and to give more credit to amulets, when I saw it m some parties answer to experience." Part. 2, sec. 5, mem. 1, sub. 5.
I am quoting from p. 459 of the seven- teenth edition, which is not in the British Museum Library, but seems only a large - paper copy of the sixteenth. A. RHODES.
CORONER OF THE VERGE (11 S. iii. 30). The verge or virge (virgata) was the compass ot the King's Court, comprehending a circuit oi 12 miles round the residence of the King's Courts (13 Ric. II. c. 3). Ancientlv at Common Law the Coroner of the Verge" had an exempt jurisdiction within the verge, to the exclusion of the county coroner (4 Rep.
But owing to the King's Court being
3, great delay and failure of justice
46 b.).
movable,
often arose, and many felonies committed within the verge remained unpunished. The statute Articuli super Cartas (28 Edw. I. c. 3) was therefore passed. It provided that the county coroner should be associated with the Coroner of the Verge. By 33 Hen. VIII. c. 12 deaths within the precincts of the King's palace were to be inquired into by the Coroner of the King's Household alone ; while those without the precincts, but within the verge, were to be held, as before, by the two coroners. By the Coroners Act, 1887 (50 and 51 Viet. c. 71, sch. 3), repealing 28 Edw. I. c. 3, the jurisdic- tion of the verge is entirely abolished, and becomes absorbed in that of the county coroner, while the precincts of the palace remain as before. Sec. 29 provides for the appointment of the Coroner of the King's Household by the Lord Steward, his jurisdic- tion, and the procedure of his courts in nine elaborate subsections.
WYNNE E. BAXTER.
For information concerning the Coroner of the Verge Britton may be consulted (vol. i. p. 4 of Mr. F. M. Nichols's edition) ; as also the Introductions to vols. ix. and xxiv. of ' the publications of the Selden Society. The office still survives, and J. R. Mellor, Esq., the Senior Master of the Supreme Court, is the present incumbent.
W. C. BOLLAND. Lincoln's Inn.
Bacon wrote a paper on this subject, printed (if I remember rightly) in a posthum- ous collection entitled ' Resuscitatio.'
W. C. B.
Helpful N. Bailey supplies :
" Verge (of the Court), the compass or extent of the King's Court, formerly of twelve miles extent within the jurisdiction of the Lord High Steward of the King's Houshold, called so from the Verge or staff which the Marshal bears."
In Saxon times the privilege of the King's palace extended from its gate to the distance of 3 miles, 3 fur longs 3 acres 9 feet, 9 palms, and 9 barleycorns (Thoms's 'Book of the Court,' p. 302 n., citing Blackstone's * Com- mentaries,' Book III. c. 6, s. iv.).
ST. SWITHIN.
CLUB ETRANGER AT HANOVER SQUARE (11 S. ii. 407, 477). MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS is, no doubt, correct in connecting " La Salle du Festino " with the Queen's Concert, or (as they were more familiarly known) the Hanover Square, Rooms, so famous for
