534
NOTES AND Q UERIES. [ii s. iv. DEC. so, 1911.
" He nodded His question seemed to rouse
memories in her, for she looked into the depths of the glowing peat fire before she went on, as if she saw pictures there.
' ' Sixty years ago on Midsummer Eve my man and I plighted our troth there. It's this way, sir. If ye tak' a lass there, and your hands meet through the holed stone, it's as good as being marrit in the kirk.' ....
" ' But I suppose you were married at the kirk afterwards,' he said, smiling gently.
" ' Ay, sir, my man was fond o' the kirk. He was an elder. But it would ha' been no sin for us to live together if we hadna' gone to the kirk at all, as we were man and wife. Our island folk plighted their troth there long before the first kirk was built.'
- ' Then it was really regarded as binding,' he
said gravely.
" ' Sairtainly. I'm no saying that the young folk nowadays would, for since the steamers came here and the touriks asking your pardon, sir I hardly ken the auld place. But there's nae descendant o' old Nancy Moffat that would break their troth if they plighted it through the stone.' "
T. H. BARBOW.
HENBY FIELDING AND THE CIVIL POWEB (11 S. iii. 486; iv. 58, 277, 336, 419). The quotation given by MB. ROBBINS from the London newspaper of October, 1751, must certainly refer to Henry Fielding, for the ' D.N.B.' states that in his capacity as magistrate at Bow Street he was carrying on an active crusade against crime down to the year 1753. On one occasion he raided a gambling club in the hope of arresting- some notorious highwaymen. His half- brother John only became assistant magis- trate towards the end of 1751. In 1753 Henry, after producing an elaborate scheme of poor-law relief, received a summons from the Duke of Newcastle, when about to start for Bath to drink the waters, and was detained in London to advise the Govern- ment as to the best means for putting a stop to the frequency of robberies.
Fanny Burney, too, had evidently the author of ' Tom Jones ' in mind, as a dis- tinguished brother - craftsman, when she wrote in ' Evelina,' letter xiv. :
" 'Let me go, villain that you are. Let me go, or I'll promise you I'll get you put in prison for this usage ; I'm no common person, I assure you, and, ma foi, I'll go to Justice Fielding about you ; for I'm a person of fashion, and I'll make you know it, or my name isn't Duval.' "
New York.
N. W. HILL.
FELICIA HEMANS (US. iv. 468). There
should be no difficulty in discovering the year of Mrs. Hemans's death. The accre- dited textbooks all give 1835, the majority of them not specifying month and day.
Neglecting this safe practice, Prof. George
Saintsbury ( ' Nineteenth - Century Litera-
ture,' p. 112) ventures a guess, and guesses
wrong. Offering no ground for his surmise,
he simply states that " she did not live to
old age, dying on 26th April, 1835." The
correct date, as stated by the querists, is
16 May. The final authority for the poet's
career is the ' Memoir ' by her sister, Mrs.
Hughes, prepared for the collective edition
of the ' Poems,' 7 vols., 1839. H. F. Chor-
ley's ' Memorials of Mrs. Hemans,' largely
devoted to the writer's correspondence and
her literary work, had appeared in 1837.
Mr. W. M. Rossetti utilizes these records in
his chapter on Mrs. Hemans (' Lives of
Famous Poets,' p. 331). It may be added
that the full date is given in the note to
Wordsworth's 'Extempore Effusion upon
the Death of James Hogg,' in which the poet,
eulogizing Mrs. Hemans, says she was
" sweet as the spring, as ocean deep." This
poem was written in November, 1835.
THOMAS BAYNE.
Mrs. Hemans died in Dublin, 16 May, 1835. Surely nobody seriously considers her our greatest English poetess ? She has, however, as it seems to me, been unduly depreciated. Wordsworth spoke highly of her poems, but she has no place in our more select anthologies : Palgrave and Trench and even Grant Duff ! ignore her. Dennis quotes two of her sonnets, but speaks grudgingly of them. They are certainly equal to a good many of those in ' Sonnets of this Century ' (" Canterbury Poets "), but they are not there. Main, in his col- lection, gives five, which is over-generous.
C. C. B.
There is a marble tablet erected to Mrs. Hemans's memory in the parish church of St. Ann, Dawson Street, Dublin, and I believe she is buried in the vaults of that church. I have also seen a tablet to her in some church in Wales St. Asaph's Cathe- dral or some church in its vicinity, I think.
L. A. W.
Dublin.
Lucius (US. iv. 449). As to the fictitious letter said to have been sent by the real second-century Pope, Eleutherus, to the fictitious British king Lucius, the Rev. A. W. Haddan and Bishop Stubbs write (' Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland,' vol. i., Oxford, 1869, p. 26) as follows :
" Finally, the fictitious letter of Eleutherus (apud Spelman, i. 31, and Wilkins, iv. Appendix,
