Replies.

CROMWELL'S HEAD.

(cl. 100, 155, 210, 283, 318, 353, 392, 407). MY Y sense of humour is aroused by the perusal of the proceedings of April 5, 1911, set out in vol. lxviii. of the Archæological Journal. These opened by the reading of letters of apology for nonattendance from Professor (now Sir Charles) Firth, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher and Mr. Keith, of the Royal College of Surgeons. Thus, the stage was set, the gravedigger and the skull were ready, but Hamlet refused to moralise about the latter "" property.' But MR. ANDREW's replies compel me to point out that what puzzled me in his logic was his recourse to what is known as "" ignoratio elenchi -a process which he now re-iterates, and thus obscures the real issues. 1. It is not accurate to say that I described Sir Henry Howorth's general statement about the time Cromwell had been dead, or buried, as a "serious error." The two serious errors," pointed out by me on p. 210, as occurring on p. 238 of the Archaological Journal, vol. Ixviii., were the assertion that Cromwell's periodical was Mercurius Publicus and the citation of the bogus Commonwealth Mercury. If Sir Henry Howorth knew so little about the periodicals of the times as to make these two bad mistakes, he had not qualified himself to discuss the matters of which the real periodicals, Mercurius Politicus and the Publik Intelligencer treat. I am not impeaching his scholarship in other fields and in this instance he seems to have followed Dean Stanley. The blind led the blind" and the two fell into the ditch.

3.

MR. ANDREW states that he "has explained" that, "in Cromwell's time the head was opened." He must forgive me for commenting that this also is misleading. We have no evidence that Cromwell's, or any other head was sawn asunder in any way, and to argue that because the claimant" head is sawn asunder, Cromwell's and other heads were sawn asunder and thus disfigured by a horizontal line across the forehead when embalmed is simple petitio principii" in its worst form. The drawing of the head of Charles I. at cl. 382 is evidence of a practice to the contrary.

4.

lustration of the straits to which his arguMR. ANDREW could give no better ilments reduce him than by his instant adoption of the head of 1710 directly MR. QUARREL produced the evidence that it existed in that year. Where is his connecting link between the head of 1710 and that exhibited a generation later on?

I do not say that, in the end, it will not be proved that the two are one and the same; indeed, after reading von Uffenbach's account I suspect that they may be, but there is no evidence connecting one with the other, and if the two should eventually turn out to be one and the same, then the tradition about the present claimant must be false. Bishop Welldon, in the Nineteenth Century in 1905, dismissed this tradition "unhistorical," so it will be as well to quote the version of it given by the present owner of the "claimant," Mr. Wilkinson, made by him, in 1911, before Sir Henry Howorth's paper was read. It is to be found in the same volume of the Archæological Journal, and appears on pp. 233-237. The material passage is as follows::

as

Oliver Cromwell is, that being, one stormy "The tradition respecting the head of night in the latter end of the reign of James II, blown off from the top of Westminster Hall, it was taken up by a sentinel who was on the parade and at whose feet it fell, and who, perceiving what it was, placed it under his cloak till he went home; there he hid it in the spacious chimney of his room without acquainting his wife and daughter of the circumstance.

[How did it happen that a sentinel was posted at the back, or south end, of Westminster Hall? What was the man's name? And, as Westminster Hall was prolonged at the south end by another building, the Court of Wards, and, moreover, the west side was surrounded by other buildings, what

a prodigiously strong wind it must have been, to make the head clear all these.]

Having concealed it for two or three days before he saw the placards which ordered any one possessing it to take it to a certain office, he was afraid to divulge the secret, till on his deathbed he discovered it to his wife and daughter. The latter, being married, her husband looked out for the best market and sold it to one of the Cambridgeshire Russels, through which family it descended privately, in the box in which it is now deposited till it came into the possession of the late Samuel Russell, who, being an indifferent comic actor, of dissolute habits and very needy, exhibited it at a place near Clare Market. Here, Mr. James Cox, formerly proprietor of the celebrated Museum which bore his name first saw it, about the year

1780."

After this time the narrative became credible, and as there is no reason to dispute the rest of the tale; Mr. Wilkinson's great-grandfather's account must be true, apart of course from the tradition, of which no scrap of corroboration has ever been offered. MR. ANDREW manages to make Von Uffenbach's account of the head of 1710 fit in with all this is beyond comprehension.

How

History of Independency.' And, in 1720, another tract was printed, with the following title (embellishing the tale):

A true and faithful narrative of Oliver Cromwell's compact with the Devil for seven years, on the day in which he gained the battle in Worcester, and on which day at the expiration of the said term afterwards. died. As it was related by Colonel Lindsey, who was an eyewitness of the said conference, related in Mr. Arch-Deacon Eachard's History of England. With a letter from the lady Claypole, Oliver Cromwell's. beloved daughter to her sister, the Viscountess of Falconbridge, copied from the original and found in the Lord Falconbridge's study soon after his death at Brussels, which in a great measure confirms the same (?), also some minutes from Secretary Thurloe's pocket book, which corroborate the truth of this fact, never before printed.’

Thus, this is the best accredited of all the traditions" about Cromwell and his end. Should we believe it, or rather should we not dismiss this and all the other traditions, as mere rubbish and the product of the credulity of the times? J. G. MUDDIMAN.

(To be concluded.)

hair being cut off from the head is, of course, true. But the truth is a paradox, for Mr. Wilkinson stated that, When the head came into the possession of the last Russell, he said that it had three times the quantity of hair it now exhibits, but that different people to whom he showed it, and he was often drunk at the time, cut off portions of it to take away with them."

6. MR. ANDREW refers to the "reverend author" of a history of England, published in 1708-1720, Eachard. But Eachard's statement was not about Cromwell's head, but about Armstrong's, and even that is not strictly accurate.

Eachard was a compiler and an uncritical compiler at that, or he would not have stooped to notice Colonel Lindsey's tale about Cromwell's selling his soul to the Devil in a wood, just before the battle of Worcester (see Eachard's History, p. 691).

I mention this because the evidence in favour of this legend is far better than that in favour of the head of 1787. It is supported by a known witness, Colonel Lindsey, in whose life-time the tale was printed, in 1660, on p. 13 of the "fourth part" of the

RON' (cl. 371).—Mr. W. B .Sedgwick's edition of the Cena Trimalchionis of Petronius (Oxford, 1925) contains (on and a note on other appearances which it pp. 140-141) a condensed version of the story makes in European and Eastern literature. Anatole France's version of the Chinese story can be read in English (On Life and Letters,' third series, p. 81, Lane's standard translation), and I have a German translation of it which was printed in Zeitbilder (Beilage zur Vossischen Zeitung), Jan. 2, 1921. The translator's name is Gertrud von Grootheest. Steele referred to Petronius in the Spectator, No. 11 (March 13, 1711), and in the modern Spectator, not so very long ago (Dec. 15, 1923, p. 951), a reviewer of an edition of Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying' (where Petronius is cited at some length) told the story in its Chinese form. L. R. M. STRACHAN.

Birmingham University.

Petronius, 'Satyricon,' chs. 111, 112: to be found in recent English translations of Petronius, such as those by Heseltine (Loeb Series, 1913) or Mitchell (Routledge, 1922, 1923). For a full bibliography of this amusing tale, which appears in closely paral

lel form in many other literatures, including the Chinese, see Edward Grisebach, Die Wanderung der Novelle von der treulosen Wittwe durch die Weltlitteratur,' second edition, Berlin 1889.

S. G.

The short story of the Ephesian matron which Eumolpos tells in Petronius's Saturæ occupies two sections, 111 and 112, in the ordinary division of the text, about two pages in Bücheler's edition. This is the best edition of the whole of Petronius's remains. There is a translation of Petronius in Bohn's series of which I know nothing. I have seen one by various hands published early in the eighteenth century and reprinted privately in 1899. Ludwig Friedländer's racy German version only deals with the Cena Trimalchionis' part of the Saturæ,' and so does Lowe's English translation which accompanies his edition of the Cena.' The English divine who refers

produced at the Leeds Civic Playhouse on Nov. 20, 1925, but the Lord Chamberlain refused to license it. H. ASKEW.

Spennymoor.

REV ROWLAND CHEDLE, D.D. (cl. 370, 429). The Register of the University of Oxford,' edited for the Oxford Historical Society by the Rev. Andrew Clark, gives the date of Rowland Chedell's matriculation, from Jesus College, as Nov. 24, 1615, his county being entered as Anglesea. He was admitted B.A. as Rowland Cheddle on Feb. 5, 1618-9, became M. A. in 1621 and B.D. and D.D. in 1632. He was one of the members of Jesus College who on July 3, 1620, protested that the procedure of the Vice-Chancellor in admitting Francis Mansell as Principal was illegal. Other varieties of his name are Cheadle and Cheddles. EDWARD BENSLY.

Taylor.

EDWARD BENSLY.

John Ogilby translated the History of the Ephesian Matron into English verse in 1665. It will be found annexed to his translation of Æsop's Fables published in year, in 1668, and in 1673.

COBBO OF TITCHFIELD (cl. 188, 286, tion of 6 The Merchant of Venice' (1926, ed. Sir A. Quiller-Couch and J. D. Wilson), p. 133 says: Gobbo, Lancelot Gobbo, Both Q. Iobbe, Launcelot Iobbe, etc." Prof. A. W. Pollard and Prof. Moore Smith have independently suggested privately that

etc.

Giobbe,' the Italian equivalent to 'Job'; and there can be little doubt that they are right." A. R. BAYLEY.

adapted by Goldsmith (Citizen of that World,' letter 18) and Voltaire (Zadig,' ch. 2) from Du Halde Description de l'empire de la Chine,' 1735. See Killis Campbell The Seven Sages of Rome,' 1907,

and Miss Conaut The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century,' 1908. L. F. POWELL.

In the Microcosm, vol. ix., No. 4, Winter 1925, edited by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe, there is an article headed Yorkshire Drama,' contributed by a writer called Dick Minim, which contains an item of information likely to interest G. W. H.

Reference is made to a play ""The Widow of Ephesus,' the delectable comedy from the Satiricon of Titus Petronius Arbiter done into a play by Thomas Wray-Milnes, with designs by Albert Wainwright, and published at the sign of the Swan in the City of Leeds."

The play in question was to have been

COATS FOR IDENTIFICATION (cl. 424). -In answer to your queriest G. H. LAWRENCE, the following may be of assistance to him:

3. "Sab. a chevron arg. between three crescents or. was borne by William Palmer, in a roll of Henry IV., 1386.

4. "Az. a bend or cotised arg. between six martlets of the 2nd " was borne by the Delaberes of Co. Glos. A fine monument

bearing these arms can be seen in Bishops Cleeve Church, near Cheltenham, Glos., also at Lydiard Tregoze, where the bend is or.

The Bishops Cleeve monument is to Richard Delabere, who married Margaret Newman, Co. Worcester. Simon Delabere, in a Roll of Edward III. bore these arms.

be of an informatory character and to indicate whether the person for whom the bell was rung was a man or woman, or a child. These informatory strokes were called tellers," and were usually nine for a man, six for a woman, and three for a child. It has been suggested that the old saying "Nine tailors make a man "" is simply a corruption of "Nine tellers mark a man,' A Book about Bells,' by Rev. G. S. Tyack (London, Andrews) p. 197.

see

WM. SELF-WEEKS.

ALFRED SYDNEY LEWIS.

See 1 S. vi. 390, 563; vii. 165, 557; 4 S. ii. 437, 587; iii. 84; viii. 36; 5 S. vii. 164; 12 S. xii. 318. The question arises whether tellers," i.e., strokes of the death-bell denoting the sex of the deceased, are meant. My late father, who was a regular correspondent of N. and Q' from 1864 to 1912, was keen to note any revival of matters already discussed, and frequently supplied the references, as I have here done.

THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF LONDON: VERSTEGAN (cl. 42, 405, 488).Information concerning Richard Verstegen (lat. Versteganus) can be found in 'Dictionary of National Biography,' ed. by Sidney Lee, London, 8vo., xlix. 1897, 352-353, and in 'Biographisch Woordenboek der Noord-en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde, door J. G. Fredericks en F. Jos. Van den Branden, Tweede druk, Amsterdam, n.d., 8vo. Richard Verstegen was born 1565 in the parish of St Catherine, near the Tower of London, of an ancient Dutch family, says Lee, of parents originated of Antwerp, according to F. and V. He removed to Antwerp soon after 1576, and died in this town 1620, having dropped his English name Rowlands (i.e., of Roland,' which was his. father's name), and resumed the familial Verstegen. He was author, printer, engraver, translator, agent for the transmission of Catholic literature, etc. His book entitled 'Restitution was published first at Antwerp, 1605. His etymology of the name of London has no more value than so many others suggested in his time, when philological methods were unknown; toponymics is indeed a science of very recent foundation. AUG. VINCENT.

son

Brussels.