co. Leicester, Knt., and widow of Arthur Brocke, Maxey, Market Deeping. Frances, daughter of Thomas Dove, of Upton, co. Northants, was great-granddaughter of Thomas Dove, Bishop of Peterborough. The bishop died Aug. 30, 1630, aged seventy-four, and was buried in Peterborough Cathedral. REGINALD STEWART BODDINGTON. Beaconsfield Club, Pall Mall. T. L. PEACOCK (6th S. ix. 204, 317).-Is it any consolation to A. J. M. to know that there is some one else who reads Peacock, at all events sufficiently to observe three mistakes in A. J. M.'s four-line extract from "The War-Song of Dinas Vawr"? My copy of the first edition of The Misfortunes of Elphin reads : "The mountain sheep are sweeter, The position of the first period of seven years of life in English law is a matter of folk-lore, and has not, I think, been generally noticed. At seven marriage is lawful, fourteen is the age of puberty, and twenty-one full age. Under gavelkind tenure the full age of a male is fourteen, and he can then convey land. The customs of Bosham Manor, Sussex (a manor of ancient demesne), fixed full age of a male at eighteen and a female at sixteen. FREDERICK E. SAWYER. Brighton. NONSUCH PALACE (6th S. viii. 448; ix. 90, 154, 178, 233, 256, 315). "Ecce iterum!" But perhaps MR. EDWARD WALFORD and his Greater London may like to be reminded that there is at least one link between Nonsuch Palace and Stratford-on-Avon. The largest and most elaborate of the Clopton tombs in Stratford Church is that Earl. It is at the eastern end of the north aisle ; of the Countess of Totnes and her husband the and close beside it, sheltered by those huge grotesque recumbent figures of his lordship and my lady, lies in modest repose the body of Mistress Amy Smith, "being of about ye Age of 60 Yeares and a Maide." Mistress Amy, having by the space of forty years served her lady, to wit, the countess aforesaid, at Nonsuch and elsewhere, did earnestly desire to be laid after her death in that place wherein also her said good lady should happen to be buried. To which desire of hers, the right honourable countess duly condescended; and the said Amy dying-at Nonsuch, if I remember rightly, about 1625-the said right honourable, having a good resentment toward so faithful servant, did thereupon, for an evident Toaken of the same, not only cause the body of the said Amy to be removed to Stratford, where she herself (being of the house of Clopton) should lie, but also did procure to be edified there that fair memorial of the maiden deceased, which unto this day is of all beholders to be seen. These things are set forth in order (though I vouch not for every word, being as I write from memory) on the memorial stone; which is set upon the wall, and is not much unlike to that of Master Shakespeare in the chancel hard by. Howbeit, in the stead of trans-busto or coat-armour, this one beareth the lively portraiture in little of Mistress Amy; clad in white lawn and gown of sober black, and standing by what seemeth to be perchance a faldstool. Another trifle. Sir Henry Cole's edition of Peacock appeared more than five or six years ago; it is dated 1875. Perhaps it contains "all" that is best worth preserving of Peacock's work, but it is not a complete edition. H. BUXTON FORMAN. HAIR SUDDENLY TURNING WHITE (6th S. vi. 86, 134, 329; vii. 37; viii. 97).—In the Babylonian Talmud, treatise Berachoth, fol. 28a, the election of Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah to the presidentship of the Synhedrin is described. At the time of his accession to this dignity he was only seventeen years of age; but (so the Talmud relates) during the night his hair turned white. He hence says of himself on one occasion, "Behold, I am like a man seventy years old," i. e., in appearance, though not in reality. The phrase rendered in the Talmud as a man seventy years old" can also be lated " a man about seventy years old." But the story is surely interesting in the present connexion. I. ABRAHAMS. London Institution. This same epitaph on Amy Smith is the oldes found; except, indeed, a Latin one, of the eighth memorial of a faithful servant that I have yet or ninth century, which I copied two years ago in the narthex of the lower church of St. Clemente at Rome. A. J. M. COMING OF AGE (6th S. ix. 169).—The period of majority has varied considerably. Under Roman law it was fixed at twenty-five years, and some persons in England still endeavour to perpetuate this usage. The selection of twenty-one as the age in England is probably due to that number being IT (6th S. ix. 306).-Leviticus xxv. 5, begins, climacteric number, as the product of the climac-"That which groweth of its own accord." Bishop ric numbers three and seven when multiplied. Wordsworth's note is as follows: "This is the only place in our version where its (not his) occurs; and here the original edition of 1611 has 'it owne.' I remember being quite taken aback on coming across the word in this verse very soon after I had been boldly saying that its did not occur in the English Bible, until I read the above note. It would be interesting to know in which edition the change was first made. ERNEST B. SAVAGE. St. Thomas, Douglas, Isle of Man. BIRTH OF CHRIST (6th S. ix. 301).-MR. LYNN states that Scaliger calls attention to a total eclipse of the moon on the night of January 9-10, B.C. 1. This might well be, as the moon that year was full on January 9; but the eclipse of Josephus, March 12, "three years before," was not possible, as the moon was new on that day. In regard to the years of crucifixion: A.D. 33, Good Friday was April 3; the new moon was March 25, and the full moon would have been April 8-9. On A.D. 30, Good Friday was April 7, and the full moon would have been April 11-12. In regard to Christmas Day, there is not the slightest likelihood that it occurred in December, when the cold of Palestine would be far too intense for shepherds to be in the fields watching their flocks by night. E. COBHAM BREWER. of the last century. It is certain that we owe to those old controversies some of our present liberties; but no plots and counterplots of the days of Bolingbroke and one will be ever able to infuse a deep interest into the Swift, such as all of us feel for the revolutionary periods of our history. Addison has suffered by his not being connected with great events which the imagination can easily realize, and by having written poetry of a kind which is out of harmony with our present feelings. There was a time when everybody who read anything beyond the weekly newspaper and the Bible had some knowledge of the Spectator. Now we suspect that, if we except the distinctly literary class, there are very few persons who have done more than dip into it here and there. The taste for style has changed so much that it does not surprise us when we hear Addison and Johnson spoken of The statement is not true as regards Johnson without in the same breath as corrupters of the English tongue. great limitations; but when made as to Addison it is simply false. He was a good Latin scholar, and to any one who reads his graver writings with attention it becomes evident that classical models had affected his style of thought to an extent which we do not find in modern literature; but it was the thought rather than the expression that was tinged. If any reader will take the trouble of comparing a few pages of Addison's prose with a similar quantity of printed matter of any of his seventeenth century predecessors except Dryden, he will find that Addison is much freer from Latin constructions than they, and that his ear was usually a safe guide, causing him to reject the long, pompous words of which Bishop Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne were so fond. We believe that this was done for the most part clear idea as to the superiority of the Teutonic over the unconsciously. It is not probable that Addison had any French and Latin elements of our vocabulary. Mr. Courthope is evidently not only familiar with everything that Addison has written, but with the general literature of the time. He is, consequently, in a position to sketch firmly and faithfully what Addison's work was, and how far he succeeded in carrying out his own ideal. We cordially agree with almost all Mr. Courthope says concerning Addison's prose; it would, in fact, not be the very low form of commendation which he gives easy to praise it too highly; but we cannot accept even to the verse. The quotation from Rosamond, where King Henry II. is represented seeing in vision the future glories of the Duke of Marlborough's palace at Blenheim, will seem to most persons pure burlesque. Mr. Courthope thinks it "graceful enough," though he admits that the words are not fitted to be wedded to music of a serious kind. Addison's services must not be measured by his literary merits alone. As Mr. Courthope shows, he was the chief agent in building up a healthy public opinion. Whatever may be true or false of the great Puritan revolution, it is certain that the austereness of the persons in power, though it has been much exaggerated, had a most damaging effect on life and morals. Perhaps it alone made the saturnalia of the restored Stuart monarchy possible. As a matter of fact, when Puritanism fell it seemed as if, for a time, moral conviction, and even natural instinct, had been discarded with the Commonwealth. A literature arose, not fouler than has some. times existed elsewhere, but singular in this respect, that it drew forth hardly any protests against its exceeding grossness. It seems, moreover, to have so satisfied the imaginations of the reading public that the older books were forgotten, or only mentioned to be contrasted unfavourably with the court dramatists. The standards of honour, virtue, and beauty had become so utterly Notices to Correspondents. We must call special attention to the following notices: ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. distorted that it required a strong and wary hand to ad- We have received a small volume of verse, containing Twelve Sonnets and an Epilogue, written by Mr. T. Westwood in anticipation of the two-hundredth anniversary of Isaac Walton's death. The book, which is tastily got up, is published by Mr. Wm. Satchell, and dedicated by the author to Mr. Thomas Satchell, his fellow-worker in the fields of piscatorial lore. THE Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Parts II, and III. for 1883 (June-Dec.), contain articles on many subjects of scientific interest. We notice, amongst others, a paper in part ii., by the Rev. H. C. M'Cook, D.D., on the intelligence of the American turret spider, a subject which the same writer has illustrated in a less technical manner in the pages of the Continent, under the quaint title of "Tenants of an Old Farm." In part iii. Dr. M'Cook treats of "The Occident Ant in Dakota," which takes its name from inhabiting the entire western side of the valley of the Missouri, while avoiding the eastern division. Why this curious selection is made we do not know; but it would seem that a state boundary could scarcely be better defined. Mr. Meehan discusses the favourable influence of the climate of Alaska on its vegetation, and contributes some interesting notes on the longevity of trees, both of which should attract attention in this country in connexion with the Edinburgh Forestry Exhibition. A NEW edition of The Life and Adventures of Arminius Vámbéry is on the point of being published, in a popular form and at a reduced price, by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, The work has already run through three editions. WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately. P. Z. ROUND.-Pia de' Tolomei, commonly known as Madonna Pia, was the wife of Nello de' Panocceschi, a nobleman of Siena, who resided with her at a castle in the Maremma. With no known cause he slew her, the means of death employed consisting in dropping her, by the hands of a servant, from a window. The motive has been variously supposed to be jealousy and desire to contract a new marriage. The episode, Purgatorio, canto v. 133 et seq., is one of the most impressive and familiar in Dante (see Notes on Cayley's translation of the Divine Comedy, vol. iv. p. 144, ed. 1855). Longfellow, in the notes to his translation of the same poem, adopts the more familiar supposition that no violence was used, and that the husband, never speaking to her or listening to her, kept his wife in confinement till the pestilential air brought about dissolution. He states, however, that some chroniclers say that he used the dagger to hasten her death (Notes to Il Purgatorio, p. 374). These statements Dayman, p. 306, ed. 1865, repeats. Of the Italian commen. tators, Vellutello says that La Pia" fu gentildonna Senese de la famiglia de Tolomei, e maritata a Messer Nello de la Pietra da Siena, Laquale, come fu creduto, essendo trouata in sallo dal marito la condusse in Maremma a certe sue possessioni, e quiui secretamete l'occise, o la fece occidere, ma come no si seppe mai." The account given by Landino agrees with this (see Dante con l' Espo sitioni di Christoforo Landino et d' Alessandro Vellutello, &c. Per Francesco Sansouino Fiorentino. Venetia, Appresso Giouambatista, Marchio Sessa e Fratelli, 1578). A drama on this subject, entitled Put to the Test, translated by Dr. Westland Marston from the French, was played at the Olympic in February, 1873, with Miss Ada Cavendish as the heroine. The original of this, entitled La Malaria, by le Marquis A. de Belloy, was given at the Théâtre Français, Feb. 25, 1853. The continued representation of this was, for some inscrutable reason, forbidden in France. Signora Ristori played in London La Pia in an Italian play, doubtless derived from the same source. In W. A. M. B. ("Newton of Cheadle Heath").-You neglect to say whence the extract you send is taken. F. J. BUTT.-The Fairy Bower; or, the History of a Month, 1841, and The Lost Brooch; or, the History of another Month, 1841, are by Mrs. H. Mozley. Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions, &c., 1821, is by Samuel Bailey. X.-We are unable to read the name of the family concerning which you say you are in a position to give information. A CONSTANT SUBSCRIBER.— "Upon the great world's altar stairs NOTICE. 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