Notes and Queries, Number 06, December 8, 1849 | Page 8

roads in Sussex in the 18th century being much in the condition of the roads in England generally in the 17th. "Sowsexe," according to the old proverb, has always been "full of dirt and mier."
"From hence (Eastbourne) it was that, turning north, and traversing the deep, dirty, but rich part of these two counties (Kent and Sussex), I had the curiosity to see the great foundries, or ironworks, which are in this county (Sussex), and where they are carried on at such a prodigious expense of wood, that even in a county almost all overrun with timber, they begin to complain of their consuming it for those furnaces and leaving the next age to want timber for building their navies. I must own, however, that I found that complaint perfectly groundless, the three counties of _Kent_, _Sussex_, and Hampshire (all which lye contiguous to one another), being one inexhaustible storehouse of timber, never to be destroyed, but by a general conflagration, and able, at this time, to supply timber to rebuild all the royal navies in Europe, if they were all to be destroyed, and set about the building them together.
"I left Tunbridge ... and came to _Lewes_, through the deepest, dirtiest, but many ways the richest and most profitable country in all that part of England. {88}
"The timber I saw here was prodigious, as well in quantity as in bigness, and seem'd in some places to be suffered to grow only because it was so far off of any navigation, that it was not worth cutting down and carrying away; in dry summers, indeed a great deal is carried away to Maidstone and other parts on the Medway; and sometimes I have seen one tree on a carriage, which they call here a _tug_, drawn by two-and-twenty oxen, and even then this carried so little a way, and then thrown down and left for other tugs to take up and carry on, that sometimes it is two or three years before it gets to Chatham; for if once the rains come in it stirs no more that year, and sometimes a whole summer is not dry enough to make the roads passable. Here I had a sight which, indeed, I never saw in any other part of England, namely, that going to church at a country village, not far from _Lewes_, I saw an ancient lady, and a lady of very good quality, I assure you, drawn to church in her coach with six oxen; nor was it done in frolic or humour, but mere necessity, the way being so stiff and deep that no horses could go in it."--A Tour through Great Britain by a Gentleman. London, 1724. Vol. i. p. 54. Letter II.
Factotum
"He was so farre the dominus fac totum in this juncto that his words were laws, all things being acted according to his desire."--p. 76. of Foulis' _Hist. of Plots of our Pretended Saints_, 2nd edit. 1674
F.M.
Birthplace of Andrew Borde
Hearne says, in Wood's _Athen?_, "that the Doctor was not born at Pevensey or Pensey, but at Boonds-hill in Holmsdayle, in Sussex."
Should we not read "Borde-hill?" That place belonged to the family of Borde for many generations. It is in Cuckfield parish. The house may be seen from the Ouse-Valley Viaduct.
J.F.M.
Order of Minerva
"We are informed that his Majesty is about to institute a new order of knighthood, called _The Order of Minerva_, for the encouragement of literature, the fine arts, and learned professions. The new order is to consist of twenty-four knights and the Sovereign; and is to be next in dignity to the military Order of the Bath. The knights are to wear a silver star with nine points, and a straw-coloured riband from the right shoulder to the left. A figure of Minerva is to be embroidered in the centre of the star, with this motto, 'Omnia posthabita Scienti?.' Many men eminent in literature, in the fine arts, and in physic, and law, are already thought of to fill the Order, which, it is said, will be instituted before the meeting of parliament."--_Perth Magazine_, July, 1772.
SCOTUS.
Flaws of Wind
The parish church of Dun-Nechtan, now Dunnichen, was dedicated to St. Causlan, whose festival was held in March. Snow showers in March are locally called "St. Causlan's flaws."
SCOTUS.
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QUERIES ANSWERED.
DORNE THE BOOKSELLER AND HENNO RUSTICUS.
Sir,--Circumstances imperatively oblige me to do that from which I should willingly be excused--reply to the observations of J.I., inserted in page 75. of the last Saturday's Number of the "NOTES AND QUERIES."
The subject of these are three questions proposed by me in your first number to the following effect:--1. Whether any thing was known, especially from the writings of Erasmus, of a bookseller and publisher of the Low Countries named Dorne, who lived at the beginning of the sixteenth