Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853

    J. M. B.

Tunbridge Wells.

Longhi's Portraits of Guidiccioni.—The Count Alessandro Cappi of Ravenna is about to publish an elaborate life of his fellow-townsman Luca Longhi, with very copious illustrations from that painter's works.

He has ransacked Italy in vain for a portrait of Monsignor Giovanni Guidiccioni, President of Romagna, painted by Luca Longhi in 1540. This portrait possesses more than ordinary interest, since (to use the words of Armenini, author of Veri Precetti della Pittura) "fu predicato per maraviglioso in Roma da Michelangelo Buonarrotti." Count Cappi, supposing that the picture may have found its way to England, hopes by the publication of this notice to discover its whereabouts. Any correspondent who shall be kind enough to furnish him, through this journal, with the desired information, may be assured of his "più vera riconoscenza."

    W. G. C.

Sir George Carr.—Wanted, pedigree and arms, wife's name and family, of Sir George Carr, who was joint clerk of the council of Munster from 1620 to 1663, or thereabouts. Sir George had two sons at least, William and Thomas; William was alive in 1673. Whom did he marry, and what family had he?

    Y. S. M.

Dublin.

Dean Pratt.—Dr. Hessey will feel obliged to any reader of "N. & Q." who can answer the following questions.

At what College of what University did Dr. Samuel Pratt, Dean of Rochester, receive his education, and by whom was he ordained?

He was born in 1658, left Merchant Taylors' school (where he passed his early years) in 1677, and was created D.D. by royal mandate, at Cambridge, in 1697, but no college is attached to his name in the list of Cambridge graduates. Still, if he was of neither university, it seems difficult to account for his having had the successive preferments of Chaplain to the Princess of Denmark, Almoner to the Duke of Gloucester, Clerk of the Closet to the Queen, and in 1706 Dean of Rochester. He died in 1728, aged seventy-one.

    Merchant Taylors'.

Portrait of Franklin.—I have heard of a story to the effect that when Franklin left England, he presented a portrait of himself, by West, to Thurlow. I am exceedingly anxious to know if there is any foundation for this, as during the last week I saw in a shop near the chapel here, a portrait of the philosopher which I rather suspect to be the one alluded to.

    H. G. D.

Knightsbridge.

"Enquiry into the State of the Union."—A book of much importance has fallen into my hands, entitled—

"An Enquiry into the State of the Union of Great Britain. The past and present State of the public Revenues. By the Wednesday's Club in Friday Street. London: printed for A. and W. Bell, at the Cross Keys, Cornhill; J. Watts, in Bow Street, Covent Garden: and sold by B. Barker and C. King, in Westminster Hall; W. Mears and J. Brown, without Temple Bar; and W. Taylor, in Paternoster Row. 1717."

Can any of your correspondents throw a light upon this Wednesday's Club, in Friday Street? Was it a real club or fictitious?

By so doing you would greatly oblige me, and afford important information to this office.

    James A. Davies.

National Debt Office.

Minor Queries with Answers

Bishop of Oxford in 1164.—Among the names of the bishops who signed the Constitutions of Clarendon I see "Bartholomeus Oxoniensis Episcopus." How is this signature accounted for? There are no other signatures of suffragan or inferior bishops attached.

    W. Fraser.

Tor-Mohun.

[Clearly a misprint for Bartholomeus Exoniensis Episcopus, the celebrated Bartholomew Iscanus, the opponent of Thomas à Becket. Our correspondent should have given the title of the work where he found the signatures, as they are not appended to the "Constitutions" in Matthew Paris, Spelman, or Wilkins.]

Roman Inscription found at Battle Bridge.—I shall be very much obliged if any one of your numerous readers or correspondents will be so kind as to furnish me with an authentic copy of the inscription on the Roman stone which in July 1842 was found at Battle Bridge, St. Pancras, and also state where the original stone is to be seen. The account of the discovery of the stone is mentioned in a paragraph which appeared in The Times newspaper of the 30th July, 1842, in the following manner:

"Antiquities discovered.—A Roman inscription has within these few days past been discovered at Battle Bridge, otherwise, by an absurd change of denomination, known as King's Cross, New Road, St. Pancras. This discovery appears fully to justify the conjectures of Stukeley and other antiquaries, that the great battle between the Britons under Boadicea and the Romans under Suetonius Paulinus took place at this spot. Faithful tradition, in the absence of all decisive evidence, still pointed to the place by the appellation of Battle Bridge. The inscription, which in parts is much obliterated, bears distinctly the letters 'LEG. XX.' The writer of this notice has not yet had an opportunity personally to examine it, but speaks from the information of an antiquarian friend. The twentieth legion, it is well known, was one of the four which came into Britain in the reign of Claudius, and contributed to its subjugation: the vexillation of this legion was in the army of Suetonius Paulinus when he made that victorious stand in a fortified pass, with a forest in his rear, against the insurgent Britons. The position is sketched by Tacitus, and antiquaries well know that on the high ground above Battle Bridge there are vestiges of Roman works, and that the tract of land to the north was formerly a forest. The veracity of the following passage of Tacitus is therefore fully confirmed:—'Deligitque locum artis faucibus, et a tergo sylva clausum; satis cognito, nihil hostium, nisi in fronte, et apertam planitiem esse, sine metu insidiarum.' He further tells us that the force of Suetonius was composed of 'Quartadecima legio cum vexillariis vicessimariis et e proximis auxiliares.'"

    S. R.

[A sketch of this fragment of stone, discovered by Mr. E. B. Price, is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1842, p. 144.]

Blow-shoppes.—

"Wild bores, bulls, and falcons bredde there in times paste; now, for lakke of woodde, blow-shoppes decay there."—Leland's Itin., Hearne's edit., vol. vii. p. 42.

What is the meaning of blow-shoppe?

    J. B.

[Leland appears to refer to blacksmiths' forges, which decayed for lack of wood.]

Bishop Hesketh (Vol. vii., p 209.).—There is evidently an error in your note respecting the death of Bishop Hesketh, but it is one common to all the lists of Manx bishops to which I have access. You state that he died in 1510: it is certain that he was living in 1520.

He was a son of Robert Hesketh, of Rufford, co. Lanc., and his brother Richard Hesketh, "learned in the lawe," and who is stated by Kimber to have been Attorney-General to King Hen. VIII., by his will, dated 15th August, 1520, appointed his "trusty brethren Hugh, bishopp of Manne, and Thomas Hesketh, esquier," executors, and proceeded:

"I wyll that the said Bishopp shall haue a goblett of syluer w

a couir, and my said brothir Thomas to haue a pouncid bool of syluer, a counterpoynt, and a cordyn gemnete bedde w

the hangings, a paire of fustyan blanketts, and a paire of shetys, and a fether bedde that lyeth uppon the same bedde, for their labours."

So that the vacancy, if there really was any, between his death and the consecration of Bishop Stanley, is much less than is generally supposed.

    H. A.

[Our authority for the date of Bishop Hesketh's death was Bishop Hildesley's MS. list of the Manx bishops, which he presented to the British Museum, and which appears to have been carefully compiled. His words are, "Huan Hesketh died 1510, and was buried in his cathedral of St. Germans in Peel." It is clear, however, there is an error somewhere, which did not escape the notice of William Cole, the Cambridge antiquary; for in his MS. Collections, vol. xxvi. p. 24., he has the following entry:—"Huan Hesketh was living 13 Henry VIII., 1531, at which time Thomas Earl of Derby appointed, among others, Sir Hugh Hesketh, Bishop of Man, to be one of his executors. (See Collins's Peerage, vol. ii. p. 33.) Wolsey was appointed supervisor of the will, and is in it called Lord Chancellor: he was so made 1516, which proves that he was alive after 1510. The will of Richard Hesketh, Esq.—to be buried in his chapel at Rufford: executors, Hugh Hesketh, Bishop of Man, his brother; and Thomas Hesketh, Esq.—was proved Nov. 13, 1520. (In Reg. Manwaring, 3.) He continued bishop, I presume, forty-three years, from 1487 to 1530. It is plain he was so thirty-four years."]

Form of Prayer for Prisoners.—

"It is not, perhaps, generally known, that we have a form of prayer for prisoners, which is printed in the Irish Common Prayer-Book, though not in ours. Mrs. Berkeley, in whose preface of prefaces to her son's poems I first saw this mentioned, regrets the omission; observing, that the very fine prayer for those under sentence of death, might, being read by the children of the poor, at least keep them from the gallows. The remark is just."—Southey's Omniana, vol. i. p. 50.

What Irish Common Prayer-Book is here meant? I have the books issued by the late Ecclesiastical History Society, but do not see the service among them. Could the prayer referred to be transferred to "N. & Q.;" or where is the said Irish Prayer-Book to be found?

    Thomas Lawrence.

Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

[The Book of Common Prayer according to the use of the Church of Ireland, we believe, may frequently be met with. An edition in folio, 1740, is in the British Museum, containing "The Form of Prayer for the Visitation of Prisoners, treated upon by the Archbishops and Bishops, and the rest of the Clergy of Ireland, and agreed upon by Her Majesty's License in their Synod, holden at Dublin in the Year 1711." We are inclined to think that Mrs. Berkeley must have intended its beautiful exhortation—not the prayer—for the use of the poor. See "N. & Q.," Vol. vi., p. 246.]

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