conversed, or corresponded, about Catholicity with Dr. Hay, the then
vicar-apostolic of the Eastern District of Scotland.
Adamsoniana.--Is anything known of the family of Michel Adamson,
or Michael Adamson, the eminent naturalist and voyager to Senegal,
who, though born in France, is said to have been of Scottish extraction?
Where is the following poem to be met with?
"Ode in Collegium Bengalense, præmio dignata quod alumnis
collegiorum Aberdonensium proposuit vir reverendus C. Buchanan,
Coll. Bengalensis Præfectus Vicarius. Auctore Alexandro Adamson,
A.M., Coll. Marisch. Aberd. alumno."
Allow me to repeat a Query which was inserted in Vol. ii., p. 297.,
asking for any information respecting J. Adamson, the author of a rare
tract on Edward II.'s reign, published in 1732, in defence of the
Walpole administration from the attacks of the Craftsman.
Who was John Adamson, author of Fanny of Caernarvon, or the War
of the Roses, an historical romance, of which a French translation was
published in 1809 at Paris, in 2 vols. 12mo.?
E. H. A.
Canker or Brier Rose.--Can any of your correspondents tell me why the
brier or dog-rose was anciently called the canker? The brier is
particularly free from the disease so called, and the name does not
appear to have been used in disparagement. In Shakspeare's beautiful
Sonnet LIV. are the lines:
"The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture
of the roses."
In King Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 3., Hotspur says:
"Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in
times to come, That men of your nobility and power, Did 'gage them
both in an unjust behalf, (As both of you, God pardon it! have done) To
put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose And plant this thorn, this
canker Bolingbroke."
And again, Don John, in Much Ado about Nothing, Act I. Sc. 3.:
"I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in the grave."
ANON.
"Short red, god red."--In Roger of Wendover's Chronicle, Bohn's
edition, vol. i. p. 345., is a story how Walchere, Bishop of Durham, was
slain in his county court, A.D. 1075, by the suitors on the instigation of
one who cried out in his native tongue "Schort red, god red, slea ye the
bischop."
Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather (vol. i. p. 85.), tells the
same story of a Bishop of Caithness who was burned for enforcing
tithes in the reign of Alexander II. of Scotland (about 1220).
What authority is there for the latter story? Did Sir Walter confound the
two bishops, or did he add the circumstance for the amusement of
Hugh Littlejohn? Was this the formula usually adopted on such
occasions? How came the Caithness people to speak such good Saxon?
G.
Overseers of Wills.--I have copies of several wills of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, in {501} which one set of persons are appointed
executors and another overseers. What were the rights and duties of
these latter?
J. K.
Lepel's Regiment.--Can your correspondent MR. ARTHUR
HAMILTON inform me what is the regiment known in 1707 as Lepel's
Regiment? It was a cavalry regiment, I believe.
J. K.
Vincent Family.--Can any of your correspondents give me any
information respecting the descendants of Francis Vincent, grandson of
Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix Pursuivant at Arms. His sister
Elizabeth has, or had very lately, a representative in the person of
Francis Offley Edmunds of Worsborough, Yorkshire; but nowhere have
I been able to obtain any information respecting himself. If you could
give any information on this subject, you would much oblige
C. WILSON.
Passage in the First Part of Faust.--
"Faust. Es Klopft? Herein! Wer will mich wieder plagen?
Mephistopheles. Ich bin's. Faust. Herein! Mephis. Du musst es dreimal
sagen. Faust. Herein denn! Mephis. So gefällst du mir."
Why must he say it three times? Is this a superstition that can be traced
in other countries than Germany? In Horace we have Diana thus
addressed:
"Ter vocata audis, adimisque letho, Diva triformis."--Lib. iii. Ode 22.
But she is there the benign Diana, not Hecate.
Are we to understand the passage to mean, that the number three has a
magical influence in summoning spirits; or to teach that the power of
evil is so overruled by a higher Power, that he cannot approach to begin
his work of temptation and ruin unless he be, not once merely, or twice,
but three times, called by the free will and act of the individual who is
surrendering himself to his influence? The subject seems worthy of
elucidation.
W. FRASER.
Tor-Mohun.
Lady Anne Gray.--Who was the "Lady Anne Gray," or "Lady Gray,"
who was one of the attendants on Queen Elizabeth when princess, and
is mentioned first in Sir John Harrington's poem in praise of her ladies?
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