Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 | Page 7

Butler takes no notice of this Thomas.
"Incipit narratiuncula e libro vingto, cui titular _Vita atq. Gesta B. Thom? Regiolapidensis, ex ordine FF. Pr?dicatorum_, excerpta.
"Quum ver�� pr?dicator indefensus, missionum ecclesiasticarum causa, in borealibus versaretur partibus, miraculum ibi stupendum san�� patravit. Conspexit enim taurum ingentem, vaccarum (sicut po?ta quidam ex ethnicis ait) 'magna comitante caterva,' in prato quodam graminoso ferocientem, maceria tantum bassa inter se et belluam istam horrendam interposita. Constitit Thomas, constitit et bos, horribiliter rugiens, cauda erecta, cornibus immaniter s?viens, ore spumam, naribus vaporem, oculis fulgur emittens, maceriam transsilire, in virum sanctum irruere, corpusque ejus venerabile in a?ra jactitare, visibiliter nimis paratus. {407} Thomas autem, eapta occasione, oculos in monstrum obfirmat, signumque crucis magneticum in modum indesinenter ducere aggreditur, En portentum inauditum! geminis belluae luminibus illico palpebrae obducuntur, titubat taurus, cadit, ac, signo magnetico sopitus, prim�� raucum stertens, mox infantiliter placidum trahens halitum, humi pronus recumbit. Nec moratus donec hostis iste cornutus somnum excuteret, viv sanctus ad hospitium se propinquum laetus inde incolumisque recepit."
RUSTICUS.
"_Her Brow was fair._"--Can any of your many readers inform me of the author of the following lines, which I copy as I found them quoted in Dr. Armstrong's _Lectures_:
"Her brow was fair, but very pale, And looked like stainless marble; a touch methought would soil Its whiteness. On her temple, one blue vein Ran like a tendril; one through her shadowy hand Branched like the fibre of a leaf away."
J.M.B.
_Hoods warn by Doctors of Divinity of Aberdeen._--Will you allow me to inquire, through the pages of your publication, of what colour and material the exterior and lining of hoods were composed which Doctors in Divinity, who had graduated at Aberdeen, Glasgow, and St. Andrew's, prior to the Reformation, were accustomed to wear? I imagine, the same as those worn by Doctors who had graduated at Paris: but what hoods they wore I know not. I trust that some of your correspondents will enlighten me upon this subject.
LL.D.
_Irish Brigade._--Where can I find any account of the institution and history of the Irish brigade, a part of the army of France under the Bourbons?
J.D.
Bath.
_Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception._--In the charge delivered by the Bishop of London to his clergy, on the 2nd instant, the following passage occurs:
"It is not easy to say what the members of that Church [the Church of Rome] are required to believe now; it is impossible for men to foresee what they may be called upon to admit as an article of faith next year, or in any future year: for instance, till of late it was open to a Roman Catholic to believe or not, as he might see reason, the fanciful notion of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin; but the present Bishop of Rome has seen fit to make it an article of their faith; and no member of his church can henceforth question it without denying the infallibility of his spiritual sovereign, and so hazarding, as it is asserted, his own salvation."
Can any of your correspondents inform me where the papal decision on this point is to be found?
L.
_Gospel Oak Tree at Kentish Town._--Can you inform me why an ancient oak tree, in a field at Kentish Town, is called the "Gospel Oak Tree." It is situated and grows in the field called the "Gospel Oak Field," Kentish Town, St. Pancras, Middlesex. Tradition says Saint Augustine, or one of the ancient Fathers of the Church, preached under its branches.
STEPHEN.
_Arminian Nunnery in Huntingdonshire._--Where can I find an account of a religious academy called the _Arminian Nunnery_, founded by the family of the FERRARS, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire? I have seen some MS. collections of Francis Peck on the subject, but they are formed in a bad spirit. Has not Thomas Hearne left us something about this institution?
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
_Ruding's Annotated Langbaine._--Can any of your readers inform me who possesses the copy of Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatic Poets with MS. additions, and copious continuations, by the REV. ROGERS RUDING? In one of his notes, speaking of the Garrick collection of old plays, that industrious antiquary observes:
"This noble collection has lately (1784) been mutilated by tearing out such single plays as were duplicates to others in the Sloane Library. The folio editions of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Jonson, have likewise been taken from it for the same reason."
This is a sad complaint against the Museum authorities of former times.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
_Mrs. Tempest._--Can any of your correspondents give me any account of Mrs. (or, in our present style, Miss) Tempest, a young lady who died the day of the great storm in Nov., 1703, in honour of whom Pope's early friend Walshe wrote an elegiac pastoral, and invited Pope to give his "winter" pastoral "a turn to her memory." In the note on Pope's pastoral it is said that