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NOTES AND 'QUERIES'. [12*. i. FEB. 19,
In 'The Pictorial History of England,' by
George L. Craik and Charles Macfarlane, ii.
f>17, it is stated that Queen Mary signed the
death warrant for Lady Jane Grey. Harri-
son Ainsworth was a learned antiquary, and
is generally correct upon important details of
this kind. It would be interesting to have
more information on the subject.
HORACE BLEACKLEY.
RICHARD WILSON (12 S. i. 90). The following extract, da.ted about 1815, would seem to apply to the Richard Wilson in- quired about :
" Wilson, Richard, Esq., a magistrate for the county of Tyrone, and some years ago member of Parliament for the borough of Barnstaple in Devonshire. He was bred to the bar, and prac- tised some time in the Court of Chancery ; but some disputes, and a separation from his wife, who was the daughter of the late Lord Rodney, occasioned his retirement into Ireland, where he now resides."
Crosby's ' Contested Elections,' 1838, gives Richard Wilson as successful at Barnstaple in 1796, and defeated there in 1790 and 1802. W. B. H.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION WANTED (12 S. i. 49). (1) Joannes Funccius, flor. 1550. A life of Johann Funck, the celebrated Protestant divine, is given, one may be sure, by the ' Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,' a work on the reference shelves of the British Museum Reading Room. But one has only to dip into books that deal with the history of the sixteenth century in Germany to glean particulars of his career. He was born in 1518 at Werden, near Niirnberg, married a daughter of the famous Osiander, and ac- companied his father-in-law to Prussia, then a duchy under its first secular ruler Albrecht, ft vassal of Poland, the Albrecht whose features are familiar to many from the title- pages of publications of the University of Konigsberg and from Carlyle's sketch:
"A man with high bald brow ; magnificent spade-beard ; air much pondering, almost gaunt, - gaunt kind of eyes especially, and a slight cast in them, which adds to his severity of aspect."
By Albrecht, Funccius was appointed Court preacher and, after he had recanted Osiander' s heresies, a ducal councillor. But politics proved his undoing. A prolonged dispute between Albrecht and the majority of his subjects resulted in a visit from a Polish commission, and Funccius, with two other " Rathe," was executed at Konigsberg on Oct. 28, 1566. Carlyle ('Frederick,' bk. iii. chap, vi.) has a brief reference to "one Funccius, a shining Niirnberg immigrant ... . .who from Theology got into Politics, had a^
last (1564 [this should be 1566]) to be beheaded 1
old Duke Albert himself ' bitterly weeping T
about him ; for it was none of Albert's doing." *
De Thou, ' Hist.,' lib. xxxviii. vol. ii. p. 475 r ed. 1733, gives an account of the transaction,. >
One of the charges brought against Funccius was that he had urged his sovereign: to take refuge with his kinsmen in Germany,. as he could trust none of his Prussian sub- jects :
" Funccio crimini inter alia datum, auod sent principi stolidi juxta et perniciosi consilii auctor , fuisset, ut, quando neminem in Borussia fidura. subditum haberet, ad gentileis suos in Germaniam se reciperet." De Thou, loc. cit.
Bayle, in his * Dictionnaire,' has a short but characteristic article on Funccius, in which he deals out corrections of Moreri and Vossius and Melchior Adam, who " s'est eloigne de 1' exactitude." The couplet referred to iir Bayle, and said to have been composed by Funccius shortly before his death, as a- warning not to meddle with what lies outside one's own sphere, is given by Pieter Burman the younger in his commentary on the ' Poemata ' of P. Lotichius Secundus,. lib. i. viii. 11 :
Disce meo exemplo, mandate munere fungi, Et fuge, ceu pestem, ri)v TroXi'Trpayfj-oa-vvriv.
Burman refers to Melchior Adam, ' Vitae- German. Theologorum.'p. 197.
Funccius was the author of commentaries on Daniel and the Apocalypse, and a, ' Chronologia ' and ' Commentarii Chrono- logici,' which, according to Bayle, started from the Creation and extended to A.D. 1552. In the ' Secunda Scaligeraiia ' we have the terse sentence : " Funcius. On fait estat d& lui, il est uii des meilleurs, mais cependant il est plat." EDWARD BENSLY.
University College, Aberystwyth.
(12 S. i. 11, 94.)
(5) and (6). M.A.Oxox. may like to know- that Foster's 'Judges and Barristers' was 1 never published. G. F. R. B.
METHODS OF WAKING A SLEEPER (11 S. xii. 440, 489). Apart from the reference to the legendary harp that woke King David every morning at daybreak, recorded in Chagiga, the only reference resembling in; some regards that ciled by your learned correspondent J. T. F. is to be found in Tamid, 27b and 28a, but the waking of the slumberer was by no means gentle. Every night (so runs the statement there) a special officer, accompanied by orderlies bearing torches, went the rounds of the city to discover whether the guards were at their.
