from mental affliction. At the conclusion of peace

between England and France in 1815 another large pie was baked, containing half a sheep, twenty fowls, and half a peck of flour. The 'Repeal Pie,' as it is locally called, was made on August 29, 1846, and was drawn through the village with thirty-one horses, headed by three bands of music. The pie was 7 feet in diameter, 1 foot 10 inches deep, and contained forty stones of flour. It was served in the presence of an estimated crowd of 60,000 people. On the occasion of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria another monster pie was provided on August 27, 1887. The pie was baked in a dish weighing 15 cwt. The pie was 8 feet in diameter and 2 feet deep. The total weight was over two tons, and the cost was put down at 250l. It was drawn by ten horses. The pie when cut into was gamey, and few could eat it. A smaller pie was made on September 3, 1887, and fully 2,000 persons dined off it. The coming pie will be 6 feet 6 inches in width, 10 feet 6 inches in length. Owing to the large crowds which assemble, arrangements are being made for mounted and other police. Barriers will be erected to prevent undue crushing, and prevent accidents which might easily occur.'

Norwich.

JAMES HOOPER.

"TWOULD A SAINT PROVOKE."-At Grinton in Swaledale, says Cooke's 'Guide to Richmond,' &c. (p. 82),

"the parish registers begin with the year 1640. In the north aisle lies Ann Barker. As is well known, all persons had in the olden time to be buried in wool, in

default of which a fine was levied on the next of kin. It is said that Ann Barker was the last person in England in respect of whose burial such a fine was charged, she having been buried in linen, contrary to the statute. The document levying the fine is dated 2 May, 1692." ST. SWITHIN.

[See Indexes to 'N. & Q.,' passim.] COLLINS'S PEERAGE.'-In a letter of 20 Dec., 1735, from the Hon. Edward Southwell to Dr. Marmaduke Coghill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ireland, which was formerly in the possession of Thos. Thorpe, the bookseller, of London, it is stated:

"Collins his great book [i. e. the 'Peerage of England,' first published, in 3 vols. 8vo., same year is only from a manuscript he bought, and these kind of claims [referring to his (Southwell's) claim to the lapsed barony of Cromwell] do not seem to be the works of his own study and profession."

Southwell was personally acquainted with Collins, and there seems no reason to doubt that the statement was well founded. It would therefore appear that the latter was not the real author of the 'Peerage' which goes by his name.

W. I. R. V. BRASS AT COWFOLD, SUSSEX.-The attention of archeologists should, I think, be drawn to the following paragraph in the Chichester Diocesan Gazette for May, in order that means may be taken, before it is too late, to prevent the removel from its proper place on the floor of so fine a specimen of a monumental brass. The motive may be good; but, covered as it is by mat

ting, there seems no sufficient reason why this wellpreserved brass should be removed from the position it has occupied for more than four and a half centuries :

"A suggestion was made at the Easter Vestry for the preservation of the splendid brass to Thomas Nelond, Prior of Lewes (ob. 1433), now to be seen in the floor of the nave, though covered by matting. It is getting very much worn, and Mr. Churchwarden Godman suggested that it might be removed and placed on one of the walls, and a cross put to mark the spot it had occupied. No action, however, was taken." E. H. W. D.

"BECHATTED."-This word, with the sense of "bewitched," is said to be used in Lincolnshire and Devonshire. I should be glad to be informed whether the word is in use in any other part of Great Britain. THE EDITOR OF

'THE ENGLISH DIALECT DICTIONARY.' The Clarendon Press, Oxford.

JOURNAL OF THE REV. JOHN BERRY, M.A.-I am anxious to ascertain whether the journal of the Rev. John Berry, M. A., mentioned in Calamy's History of the Nonconformists,' is still in existence, and in the possession of any of his descendants, of whom I am one. He was one of the ministers ejected on St. Bartholomew's Day, 24 Aug., 1662, formerly a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and then Rector of East Down, near Barnstaple. MARIA POOLE.

15, Nottingham Place, W.

THE "REIGN OF RECTORS.-Over the porch of the church of Mouzkildi (=sproutery in Basque), Basses Pyrénées, the following inscription shows the desire of an ecclesiastic to magnify his office: “Cet ovvrage a este fait av comancem' dv regne

THORNFIELD desires a reference to these words, said to have been spoken by Sheridan: "Referring to a political opponent, a needy place-hunter, known to have been a pupil [of a baker or of one who lived at a baker's shop], said, 'the right honourable gentleman went to the baker for his eloquence and to the House of Commons for his bread."" If Sheridan ever uttered these words, the right honourable gentleman must have been Burke, who, in his earlier years, in common with many others who afterwards made their mark, was a member of the Robin Hood Society, which met in Essex Street and was called by Horace Walpole "the Oratorical Club." The chairman of the society was a speaker of remarkable ability, and he summed up the debate. I do not see any point in the remark that "the right honourable gentleman went to the baker for his eloquence," or the additional one that he had also gone "to the House of Commons for his bread." But did Sheridan ever utter the words? There is no trace of them in 'The Parliamentary History,' or in the collected edition of his speeches. They are to be found, it is true, in 'Sheridaniana,' among other things which, as I have written in my Biography of Sheridan,' he never did nor uttered. They have been reproduced in 'Bon Mots,' edited by W. Jerrold, but I am not one of those who maintain that a mis-statement gains credibility by repetition. A few words in the passage are

"Mr. Sheridan then expressed his surprise at the manner in which Mr. Burke had talked of the conduct of parties, who had long since stated that he was unconnected with any party, who had gone from the living Whigs to the dead, and whom, having quitted the camp as a deserter, he never suspected of returning to it as a spy."-Speeches,' vol. ii. p. 178.

This is the record of what Sheridan said. I fear that THORNFIELD will never be supplied with an authority for the added words in 'Sheridaniana.' W. FRASER RAE.

The Reform Club.

THORNFIELD is not quite correct as regards the facts put forward in his query, if my authority speaks truthfully. In 'Sheridaniana; or, Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, his Table Talk and Bon Mots,' London, Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street, 1826, p. 278, the following is given as the anecdote referred to:

"It is, of course, known that Mr. Burke, in the early part of his life, enlisted under the banners of Opposition, and was a constant frequenter of the house of a baker of the name of Tarcome, where the aspirants for fame, on that side of the question, used to meet, and debate certain proposed questions; the baker himself was eventually constituted perpetual president of the wellknown Robin Hood Society; such was the estimation in which he was held by the disciples of Whiggery. Upon a memorable occasion, Mr. Burke, in the House of Commons, exclaimed, I quit the camp,' and suddenly crossed the House, and having seated himself on the brilliant speech in opposition to his ci-devant friends Ministerial Benches, shortly after rose, and made a most and adherents. Sheridan was a good deal nettled at what he considered a needless defection, and replied with something like asperity to Mr. Burke's attack, and concluded his speech with nearly these words: 'The has "quitted the camp," he will recollect that he quitted honourable gentleman, to quote his own expression, it as a deserter, and I sincerely hope he will never attempt to return as a spy; but I, for one, cannot sympathise in the astonishment with which an act of apostacy the honourable gentleman have forgotten whence he so flagrant has electrified the house; for neither I nor obtained the weapons which he now uses against us; so far from being at all astonished at the honourable gentleman's tergiversation, I consider it not only characteristic but consistent, that he who in the outset of life made so extraordinary a blunder as to go to a baker's for eloHouse of Commons to get bread.'" quence, should finish such a career by coming to the

J. FINLAY SWEETING.

SAMUEL PEPYS (8th S. ix. 307, 489; x. 33).The nature of MR. DAVEY'S corrections might, in the case of a less-known name, suggest an incomplete acquaintance with D'Avenant's works. Certainly they are not corrective in any single sense. I

gave in my notes a list of the composers who

wrote the music to the first part of The Siege of Rhodes.' MR. DAVEY repeats my list, and adds the arrangement of the acts; in other words, merely confirms my statement, leaving the matter exactly where it was.

The two parts of the 'Siege' are widely enough separated—in matter, and above all in style-to warrant our regarding them as different plays; indeed, it is difficult to see how they could have been combined effectively. Combined, however, they were, forming the third and last stage of the opera. When MR. DAVEY speaks of the complete score of the 'Siege' being in existence, one would suppose that the combined work is referred to. In this case it would not be difficult to discover the original setting of the words "Beauty, retire!" to which Pepys had apparently added some music himself. But, after mentioning "complete copies" of the work, MR. DAVEY adds a list of composers who collaborated in the music of the first part only; and in this not only the words referred to, but the character to whom they are addressed, do

not even exist!

The first part (1656), in five acts, concludes with the ridiculous "coffee" chorus; the second (1661), also in five acts, reflects more credit on D'Avenant, is well knit, and superior from a dramatic point of view to the first, though less full of musical concessions; the third (1661-2) appears to have been merely a combination of the first and second. If MR. DAVEY is acquainted with the music to the second part, he certainly does not mention the fact. Nor do different opinions of Lawes, Cooke, and Locke help the matter very much. Hawkins dubs Cooke "but a dry composer "; and "dry" is a mild term for the few songs of his which appear in Playford's collections.

Burney certainly has the misfortune to be "more than one hundred years old"; but how MR. DAVEY arrives at the conclusion that I have founded my remarks on the sands of his History' I cannot imagine. I made but one allusion to Burney, merely to show that doubts have existed as to the thoroughly operatic" nature of the work as advertised by D'Avenant in his prefaces. In the absence of any approved contradiction or alternative theory by MR. DAVEY, I may repeat my suggestion that Cooke, rather than Lawes or Locke, was responsible for the greater part of the music in the later productions of The Siege of Rhodes.' GEORGE MARSHALL.

Sefton Park, Liverpool.

COINCIDENCES (8th S. viii. 124, 177, 270, 334). -The following occurs in the Illustrated Carpenter and Builder for 13 Dec., 1895:

"Many of the occurrences in actual life are stranger than the most unlikely dreams of novelists. The truth of the following curious incident is guaranteed. In September, 1892, the daughter of the blacksmith in Canna, in the far Hebrides, was wandering on the shore,

gathering driftwood for fuel, when in a small bay, about 100 yards distant from her father's house, she picked up Lachlan Campbell, Bilbao, March 23, 1892. On taking a piece of wood bearing the inscription, cut with a knife, it to her mother she became much concerned, as this was the name of her own son, who was a boiler-maker in Spain, and, as would be the case with most peoplecertainly with Highlanders-she could not get over the superstitious dread that this message from the sea was the harbinger of evil tidings regarding her son. Her friends did their best to calm her terror, exhorting her to wait for an explanation. When writing to her son she told him of what had happened, and was greatly being, but was astonished to learn that he perfectly relieved on receiving a reply assuring her of his wellremembered how, when on a holiday, he had cut, as described, on a piece of wood, and had idly thrown it into the sea from a rock near Bilbao. We all know the power of ocean currents, and need not be surprised at this piece of wood having been carried for six months; but the marvellous-and, except for undoubted evidence, the incredible-circumstance in this case is, that this piece of wood, after its long wandering, should have been washed on the shore within 100 yards of where the writer's mother lived, and that it should be picked up by one of his own family and taken home.”

I remember, a few years ago, when in the Arctic Regions, seeing a buoy, that had got loose and drifted from the Goodwins, beached high and dry of the ways of ocean currents is as nothing to the

on shore near Tromso. But that erratic instance

above.

Fair Park, Exeter.

HARRY HEMS.

FLAT-IRONS (8th S. viii. 428, 510; ix. 96, 174). The following, from the Diary' of John Evelyn, under date 8 Oct., 1672, is perhaps earlier than any note made by previous correspondents :

"Richardson, the famous Fire-eater......also tooke up a thick piece of yron, such as laundresses use to put in their smoothing boxes, when it was fiery hot, held it between his teeth," &c. GILBERT H. F. VANE.

The Rectory, Wem, Salop.