Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853

    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?

    N. A.

Continental Brasses.—At a recent meeting of the Archæological Institute, Mr. Nesbitt exhibited rubbings of some fine brasses at Bamberg, Naumberg, Meissen, and Erfurt. Mr. Nesbitt would confer a favour on the readers of "N. & Q." by stating the names and dates of those sepulchral memorials, and the churches from which he obtained the rubbings, and thus aid in carrying out Mr. W. Sparrow Simpson's excellent suggestion for obtaining a complete list of monumental brasses on the Continent.

    William W. King.

Peter Beaver.—In the early part of the last century, a gentleman named Peter Beaver, whose daughter was married in 1739 to Latham Blacker, Esq., of Rathescar, lived in the old and fashionable town of Drogheda. Can any one inform me as to the year of his death, and whether he left a son? The name has disappeared in Drogheda. I would likewise be glad to know the origin of the name; and, if it be a corruption of Beauvoir, at what time, and for what reason, was it changed? The crest is the animal of the same name.

    Abhba.

Cremonas.—Can any of your numerous correspondents kindly supply me with a list of the earliest and the latest of the instruments of each of the famous cremona makers? Such a list would be a valuable contribution to "N. & Q."

Mr. Dubourg's work on the Violin, excellent as it is in many respects, contains but a meagre account of the instrument itself, and is sadly deficient on the subject of my Query. May I ask him, and I have reason for so doing, on what authority he gives 1664 as the year of the birth of Antonius Stradivarius, in his last edition?

    H. C. K.

Cranmer and Calvin.—In the Christian Observer for March 1827 (No. 303. p. 150.) it is stated that the late Rev. T. Brock, of Guernsey, had been assured by an eminent scholar of Geneva, afterwards a clergyman in our church, that he had met with, in a public library at Geneva, a printed correspondence in Latin between Archbishop Cranmer and Calvin, in which the latter forewarned the former, that though he perfectly understood the meaning of the baptismal service, yet "the time would come when" it "would be misconceived, and received as implying that baptism absolutely conveyed regeneration;" and that Cranmer replied, "that it is not possible such a construction can be put upon the passage, the church having sufficiently explained her meaning in the Articles and elsewhere." I have heard that search was made for these documents by M. D'Aubigné and others, but without success; one of the reports being, that "the documents had been apparently cut out." Mr. Brock's informant, I hear, was a Rev. Marc De Joux, who afterwards became an Irvingite, left Guernsey, and went to the Mauritius, where it is believed he still resides. With the theological question I wish not here to meddle, or to express an opinion. But I should be glad if you will kindly permit me to inquire whether any of your readers can give any information as to the existence of the supposed "printed" correspondence referred to? whether or not it does exist? and, if so, where?

    C. D.

Minor Queries with Answers

"A Letter to a Convocation Man" (Vol. vii., pp. 358. 415.).—I beg to thank "N. & Q." for the answer to my inquiry respecting the authorship of this letter. I should be very glad to learn further particulars respecting Sir Bartholomew Shower. Was he a member of the House of Commons, as the author of the Letter intimates that he himself was? I shall also be very thankful if Tyro, or any other correspondent, will answer for me these Queries, suggested by the same Letter.

"It was the opinion, indeed, of a late great preacher, that Christians under a Mahometan or Pagan government, ought to value the peace of the country above the conversion of the people there."

Who is the preacher here referred to?

Who were the authors, and what were the titles of the many Defences of Sherlock's Vindication of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity, and The Divinity and Death of Christ?[2 - The titles of nearly twenty works relating to Sherlock's Trinitarian Controversy will be found s. v. in the Bodleian Catalogue, vol. iii. p. 462. See also Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica.† A long account of Mr. Papin is given in Rose's as well as in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary.‡ Sir George Treby was Chief Justice of Common Pleas in 1697.§ Bishop Trelawney, it appears, suspended Dr. Arthur Bury from the rectorship of Exeter College for some heterodox notions in his work, The Naked Gospel. The affair was carried by appeal from the King's Bench to the House of Lords, when Bishop Stillingfleet delivered a speech on the "Case of Visitation of Colleges," printed in his Ecclesiastical Cases, part ii. p. 411. Wood states that Dr. Bury was soon after restored. For an account of this controversy, and the works relating to it, see Gough's British Topography, vol. ii. p. 147., and Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), vol. iv. p. 483.Any farther communications on the above Queries shall be forwarded to the correspondent.]

And what farther is to be learned of Mr. Papin, a Socinian, who jointed the Church of Rome about that period? †

Who was Chief Justice in 1697? Was it Chief Justice Treby? ‡

Trelawney, Bishop of Exeter, excommunicated Dr. Bury. When was the living the latter enjoyed "untouched and even unquestioned by another bishop?" §

In case the answers to these should not appear of sufficient importance to be put into type, I enclose an envelope.

    W. Fraser.

Tor-Mohun.

P.S.—The misprint you point out, Vol. vii., p. 409., of Oxoniensis for Exoniensis, occurred in the Appendix to Wake's State of the Church and Clergy of England, p. 4.

Prester John.—I should be glad, through the medium of "N. & Q.," to be favoured with some information relative to this mysterious personage.

    Strath Clyde.

[The history of Prester John, or of the individuals bearing that appellation, appears involved in considerable confusion and obscurity. Most of our Encyclopædias contain notices of this mysterious personage, especially Rees's, and Collier's Great Historical Dictionary. "The fame of Prester or Presbyter John," says Gibbon, "a khan, whose power was vainly magnified by the Nestorian missionaries, and who is said to have received at their hands the rite of baptism, and even of ordination, has long amused the credulity of Europe. In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome, &c., the story of Prester John evaporated into a monstrous fable, of which some features have been borrowed from the Lama of Thibet (Hist. Généaologique des Tartares, part ii. p. 42.; Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 31. &c.), and were ignorantly transferred by the Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia (Ludolph. Hist. Æthop. Comment. l. ii. c. 1.). Yet is is probable that, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed in the horde of the Keraites."]

Homer's Iliad in a Nut.—On the tomb of those celebrated gardeners, Tradescant father and son, these lines occur in the course of the inscription:

"Whilst they (as Homer's Iliad in a nut),
A World of Wonders in one closet shut."

Will you explain the comparison implied in the words "as Homer's Iliad in a nut?"

    David.

[It refers to the account given by Pliny, vii. 21., that the Iliad was copied in so small a hand, that the whole work could lie in a walnut-shell: "In nuce inclusam Iliada Homeri carmen, in membrana scriptum tradidit Cicero." Pliny's authority is Cicero apvd Gellium, ix. 421. See M. Huet's account of a similar experiment in Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxxix. p. 347.]

Monogram of Parker Society.—What is the meaning of the monogram adopted by the Parker Society on all their publications?

    Tyro.

[The monogram is "Matthew Parker," Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.]

The Five Alls.—Can any of your readers give me an interpretation of a sign on an inn in Oxford, which bears this inscription?