Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 | Page 9

Wilkes.--Where are the original letters addressed by Junius to Mr. Wilkes? The editor of the Grenville Papers says, "It is uncertain in whose custody the letters now remain, many unsuccessful attempts having been recently made to ascertain the place of their deposit."
D. G.
The Reformer's Elm.--What was the origin of the name of "The Reformer's Elm?" Where and what was it?
C. M. T.
Oare.
How to take Paint off old Oak.--Can any of your correspondents inform me of some way to take paint off old oak?
F. M. MIDDLETON.
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Minor Queries with Answers.
Cadenus and Vanessa.--What author is referred to in the lines in Swift's "Cadenus and Vanessa,"--
"He proves as sure as GOD's in Gloster, That Moses was a grand impostor; That all his miracles were tricks," &c.?
W. FRASER.
Tor-Mohun.
[These lines occur in the Dean's verses "On the Death of Dr. Swift," and refer to Thomas Woolston, the celebrated heterodox divine, who, as stated in a note quoted in Scott's edition, "for want of bread hath, in several treatises, in the most blasphemous manner, attempted to turn our Saviour's miracles in ridicule."]
Boom.--Is there an English verb active to boom, and what is the precise meaning of it? Sir Walter Scott uses the participle:
"The bittern booming from the sedgy shallow." Lady of the Lake, canto i. 31.
VOGEL.
[Richardson defines BOOM, v., applied as bumble by Chaucer, and bump by Dryden, to the noise of the bittern, and quotes from Cotton's Night's Quatrains,--
"Philomel chants it whilst it bleeds, The bittern booms it in the reeds," &c.]
"A Letter to a Member of Parliament."--Who was the author of A Letter to a Member of Parliament, occasioned by A Letter to a Convocation Man: W. Rogers, London, 1697?
W. FRASER.
Tor-Mohun.
[Attributed to Mr. Wright, a gentleman of the Bar, who maintains the same opinions with Dr. Wake.]
Ancient Chessmen.--I should be glad to learn, through the medium of "N. & Q.," some particulars relative to the sixty-four chessmen and fourteen draughtsmen, made of walrus tusk, found in the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, and now in case 94. Medi?val Collection of the British Museum?
HORNOWAY.
[See Arch?ologia, vol. xxiv. p. 203., for a valuable article, entitled "Historical Remarks on the introduction of the Game of Chess into Europe, and on the ancient Chessmen discovered in the Isle of Lewis, by Frederick Madden, Esq., F.R.S., in a Letter addressed to Henry Ellis, Esq., F.R.S., Secretary."]
Guthryisms.--In a work entitled Select Trials at the Old Bailey is an account of the trial and execution of Robert Hallam, for murder, in the year 1731. Narrating the execution of the criminal, and mentioning some papers which he had prepared, the writer says: "We will not tire the reader's patience with transcribing these prayers, in which we can see nothing more than commonplace phrases and unmeaning Guthryisms." What {621} is the meaning of this last word, and to whom does it refer?
S. S. S.
[James Guthrie was chaplain of Newgate in 1731; and the phrase Guthryisms, we conjecture, agrees in common parlance with a later saying, that of "stuffing Cotton in the prisoner's ears."]
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Replies.
CORRESPONDENCE OF CRANMER AND CALVIN.
(Vol. vii., p. 501.)
The question put by C. D., respecting the existence of letters said to have passed between Archbishop Cranmer and Calvin, and to exist in print at Geneva, upon the seeming sanction given by our liturgy to the belief that baptism confers regeneration, is a revival of an inquiry made by several persons about ten years ago. It then induced M. Merle d'Aubigné to make the search of which C. D. has heard; and the result of that search was given in a communication from the Protestant historian to the editor of the Record, bearing date April 22, 1843.
I have that communication before me, as a cutting from the Record; but have not preserved the date of the number in which it appeared[2], though likely to be soon after its receipt by the editor. Merle d'Aubigné says, in his letter, that both the printed and manuscript correspondence of Calvin, in the public library of Geneva, had been examined in vain by himself, and by Professor Diodati the librarian, for any such topic; but he declares himself disposed to believe that the assertion, respecting which C. D. inquires, arose from the following passage in a letter from Calvin to the English primate:
"Sic correct? sunt extern? superstitiones, ut residui maneant innumeri surculi, qui assidue pullulent. Imo ex corruptelis papatus audio relictum esse congeriem, qu? non obscuret modo, sed propemodum obruat purum et genuinum Dei cultum."
Part of this letter, but with important omissions, had been published by Dean Jenkyns in 1833. (Cranmer's Remains, vol. i. p. 347.) M. d'Aubigné's communication gave the whole of it; and it ought to have appeared in the Parker Society volume of original letters relative to the English Reformation. That volume contains one of Calvin's letters