48. TROUNCED. Skinner, Johnson, Bailey, and Ash, make trouncing a derivative from the French word "trenson" a club, yet give the sense as punishing by some law process. I am willing to believe that the common provincial phrase of "I'll trounce you," meaning to beat or bruise with a stick or fists, is right, and that the word should be used thus in common with the former sense, supported as it is, by its frequent occurrence, and the following passage from Tyndale's and other Bibles, 4 Judges.

"But the Lorde trounsed Sisera and all hys charettes and all hys hoste with the edge of the swerde."

49. UNHYLL.

"No man shall take his father's wife, nor unhyll hys father's coveringe." Tyndall's and Matthew's Bible. Deut. xxii. This word is full as proper as the thousand words compounded with "un" given by the different Lexicographers. Ash (from Cole) gives the word" hill" to cover, ergo, &c.

50. VOLUPERS. "Thy chekes are lyke a pece of a pomgranate within thy " volupers."

Ballettes of Solomon, chap. vi, in Cranmer's Bible. Query. Does this mean a covering for the head, or the hair, or tresses of the head? Skinner and Ash say voluper means a kerchief (q. d.) In volucrum)-Chaucer makes it a cap in describing the young wife in the Miller's Tale.

The tapes of hire white volupere "Were of the same suit of hire colere."

Aud a night-cap in the Reve's Tale. "And when she saw a white thing in bire

Mr. URBAN,

THE

May 5. HE article relating to Thomas Baron Chandos, in your Number for October last (vol. LXXXIX. p. 322) signed "DUNELMENSIS," has not hitherto elicited any information from your Genealogical Correspondents, notwithstanding the really-curious circumstance it records touching this family. And at first view of the subject it certainly seems one of considerable ambiguity, if we take it for granted that such Thomas Baron Chandos of Sudley, if he ever existed, would assuredly have appeared in the Pedigrees and Cases prepared in support of the claim to that dignity,

made by the late Rev. Edward Tymewell Brydges, who rested his pretensions on a descent from the first Baron Chandos of the name of Brydges.

Although I cannot undertake to elucidate the point at issue, I am induced to offer the present Communication to the notice of "DUNELMENSIS," as it goes far to corroborate the statement embodied in the Epitaph quoted by him. That the Lady in question was a Brydges, seems undeniable, if any reliance can be placed on the inscription, and the armorial achievement annexed to it, where the coat of that family is impaled with the arms of her husband, James Young, esq.

By this marriage there was a daughter, named "James," who became the wife of Sir Charles Wyndham. She survived her husband, and died in 1720, and a monument was erected to her memory, and that of her husband, in the Parish Church of Hursley, in the County of Southampton, with an inscription, of which the following is a copy:

"Here lyeth the body of Sir Charles Wyndham, kut. and Dame James, his wife, late of Cranbury: he was the sou of Sir Edmond Wyndham, knt. Knight Marshal of England. She was the daughter of Major General James Young, and grand-daughter to my Lord Chandos. The said Sir Charles and his wife had ten sous and seven daughters. He departed this life, July 22, 1706; she departed this life the 31st of May, 1720. This monument was erected by two of their daughters, Frances White, and Beata Hall.”

The above, placed on a Memorial of a date thirty-three years subsequent to the former, still repeats the descent from the Family of Brydges; but in styling the Lady Wyndham the Grand-daughter of my Lord Chandos, there is an evident error; for, allow ing the Winchester Inscription to be correct, she must have been his greatgrand daughter. Some further evidence of the fact of the connexion with Brydges is also afforded in another circumstance, namely, that Sir Charles and Lady Wyndham had a son, called "Brydges Wyndham," baptized at Hursley, 8th May, 1679, and buried there 17 May, 1689.

It is extraordinary that this matter should have escaped the research of all Compilers of the Peerages who mention the title of Chandos: and, as it is not undeserving of investiga

stone, which yield curious figured fossils.

Cambridgeshire. University. Shells in the gravel-pits thereabouts. Fine pyrite and figured fossils in the chalkpits of Cherry Hinton. Huntingdonshire.

I do not find any remarkable particulars in this county.

Bedfordshire. Fullers - earth pits at Woburn. Aspley, famous for the petrified wood found there. Dunstable chalk hills yield very fine pyritæ, which are vulgarly called crow gold. Hertfordshire. Much chalk in this county, but not any thing very remarkable occurs.

Middlesex. Return to London. Some Notices relative to SCOTLAND. Granite quarries of North-ferry and Aberdeen.

Bamffshire marble quarries at Port

Mr. URBAN,
March 11.
YOUR Miscellany, besides other
found,

affords an opportunity to those who require information upon curious subjects of Literature, to obtain a removal of doubts, and a correction of errors, by the intercourse between men of profound erudition, of which it is the medium.

I always resort to it with alacrity, because my ignorance is always regarded with feelings of candour, and not insulted by the asperities of arrogant criticism. It cannot be other. wise indeed, in a work sheltered by the name of Urban.

My present enquiry is respecting Esther, the Queen of King Artax erxes, who, being the orphan daughter of Abihail, uncle of Mordecai, the fourth in descent from Kish, who was carried into Babylon, probably with King Jeconiah, was, as the Scripture

history relates, preferred in the room of Queen Vashti, and upon her elevation to the Persian throne took the new name of Esther, agreeable to the custom of that nation. I wish to know what meaning the word Esther bears in the Persian language? and probably some of your learned Correspondents will be so good as to explain it and perhaps I ought in courtesy to mention the motive of my enquiry, which I beg leave to do by saying that, in a variety of portraits, which scattered here and there in various parts of the country, in Churches in old pannel paintings, &c. I observe two or three very striking peculiarities of features; and am desirous of knowing whether the name conferred upon her, instead of or in addition to her Jewish name of Hadassah, bears in its signification any allusion either to her personal charms or mental qualifications. X. V.

You

Mr. URBAN, Easter Monday. YOUR reverend and very truly respectable Correspondent, the Vicar of Dudley, will, I hope, excuse a remark dictated solely by a desire that upon every occasion the strictest regard to literary accuracy and naked truth should be manifested by all who inculcate the duties of Religion which the perusal of his "Annual Pastoral Address," inserted in your Number for March, p. 206, has suggested.

The Writer, quoting various authorities, particularly of eminent Laymen,

to peruse the Sacred Volume which " contains the words of Eternal Life," which is so highly creditable in him as a Clergyman, to place in the best point of view, has mentioned King Edward the Sixth and Dr. Johnsonboth of them, unquestionably, very pious and devout; but neither the one nor the other, I believe, correctly cited as to the facts attributed to them. However, it would be absurd to assert partially what passed colloquially between Edward the Sixth and his Courtiers; and therefore, if Dr. Booker will indulge my curiosity by mentioning his authority for the anecdote respecting the Bible, I shall be willing to concede that point: at the same time that I beg leave to say, it has been commonly understood that it was not at the Council Chamber

that

that the young Monarch displayed that remarkable reverence for the Sacred Book-but whilst at play, in his very boy-hood, with some other youths, who must even in those

oulden times" have been imagined more likely to have been guilty of such an indiscretion as that which his young Majesty so strikingly checked, than any of his Counsellors. Besides, it does not appear that a great Bible ever made a part of the furniture of the Council Chamber; much less that papers are there arrayed in any manner likely to require such a stepping-stool to reach them! However, if the Reverend Author will be so good as to quote fairly; this mistake, if it be one, on my part, shall be most humbly acknowledged.

With regard, however, to the dy ing words of Dr. Johnson, there are sufficient proofs of his piety and religious fervour to prevent his character losing a whit of its most valuable ornament, if it shall be found (as from the best accounts published of that event, and the repeated details of one of the persons who was in attendance upon the melancholy occasion alluded to, there is great reason to suppose it will be found) that your amiable Correspondent has been led into a mistake: which, for the reason before given, it were desirable should have been avoided.

Once more, Mr. Urban, I beg pardon for this liberty; but I am sure that when Dr. Booker reflects upon the danger of mis-quotation, with whatsoever motive, of benevolence or piety, I am sure, I say, that he will be glad of an opportunity of removing such an objection to the mode which he has thought proper to adopt, in order to encourage a constant and daily perusal of the Holy Scriptures, which come more powerfully recommended to us than by any human authority. One word more. The less temporal concerns are mixed with spiritual the better. Let the Clergy forsake all other but those pursuits which belong to their sacred character, and not mix up politicks and police with the worship of the Supreme Being, and the study of his Laws: and those over whom the Holy Ghost makes the Christian and Protestant Minister an Overseer will scarcely fail to recognize the good Shepherd, or to obey his voice. Yours, &c.

DRAW.

LETTERS FROM THE CONTINENT. (Continued from p. 296.) LETTER IV.

WR

Paris, August 7, 1818. E arrived here an hour ago; and as the weather is too hot for moving about, I take the opportunity of sitting down to write you a line. Amiens Cathedral bas no centre tower, but only a slim wooden spire, and the West towers are too low to be distinguishable at a distance; but the body of the church is extremely lofty; and it was this which, seen in a direction from the East so as only to command the breadth and not the length of the Church, gave the whole of it, in the dusk, the appearance of a massive tower. We were at an excellent old Inn at Amiens, the Hotel de France et d'Angleterre. The floors were beautifully inlaid with old oak, finely polished; and the sofas and furniture very elegant. Before breakfast I visited the Cathedral, which is so completely surrounded with houses, that there is no obtaining an outside view of it, unless it were from the walks without the town; and this the intense heat did not permit our attempting. The glory of the Cathedral is its West front, which is extremely lofty; being raised as high as the top of the acutely-pointed roof of the nave; there are two attempts at West towers, neither of them of any consideration, though good as far as they go; but one is higher than the other. There are three lofty portals; the centre one is a most noble arch; more than double the height of that at York. Along the interior of the arch are 7 or 8 tiers of small images; about 30 in each tier. Along the bottom or lowest range of the West front there is a tier of large statues. The second range is a row of windows. The third a tier of about 20 large statues. The fourth a St. Catherine's wheel in the centre, and two windows on each side. The statues are nearly all perfect. The style of architecture is the middle Gothic. Within, it is extremely simple, and the windows, pillars, and arches are free from ornament; small lancet windows, and all in one style. It is said to have been built between 1220 and 1260. The choir is very short, and finishes with a semicircle, like Antwerp, and a low Lady's

Lady's Chapel beyond. The organ was not used in mass. The singing boys were dressed in crimson gowns and red coifs, which they wore in service over their gowns they had close white frocks, with short waists. There was a mass performed in the Lady's Chapel for a deceased child, and the chapel, &c. were hung with black.-Amiens contains 45,000 inhabitants. The Revolution reduced the number of churches from eleven to five. After breakfast we again visited the Cathedral. The side ailes abound with curious small imagery, very antient, and representing a series of Scripture histories, and traditional stories also; they have great merit. There is Christ driving the money-changers out of the temple; the whole story of St. John the Baptist, Herodias, &c. &c. When the head is presented to Herodias, she faints away; a circumstance which, though it has no foundation in Scripture history, is extremely likely to have been the case. If Shakspeare had worked up the account, he would have made her do so.-John the Baptist is the grand favourite at this Cathedral; for it luckily happens, that they are in possession of the identical head of the Baptist, which is placed in a crystal, on a canopy, in one of the 26 chapels which surround the church. Men and women are continually resorting thither to kiss the relick, and make offerings, which may either be public, in a dish which stands by the head, or private, in a hole made in the table or pedestal in which the head is laid. The only remains of it are the nose, the sockets of the eyes, and the upper jaw; the lower jaw is gone. On the 12th of December, 1206, which was a few years before the present fabric began to be erected, a printed paper which we purchased of the Sacristor states, that Wallon de Sarton, a Canon of Amiens, brought the head from Constantinople, to which place it had been removed many centuries before, from Jerusalem. There is no doubt they have had it at Amiens for six centuries. The pillars and roof of the Cathedral are very lofty, but the arches are flat. The height, in French feet, 132; the length, 408, including Lady's Chapel.-I forgot to mention that St. John Baptist is resorted to by ladies in the family

way; and a prayer is delivered out by one of the vergers, which beseeches the Saint, that as he leaped in his mother's womb, he will preserve the fruit of her womb from accidents, that it may live to receive the sacra ment of baptism. The choir has two side ailes on each side of the centre, making five. The Tabernacle work is very rich. The St. Catherine's Wheel, at the West end, over the organ, has in the interior the twelve hours delineated on its rim, and a large hour pointer crosses the window; the circumference is 96 feet. The Priests, as usual, were saying private masses.—I ascended the roof, and in doing this, passed through a gallery within side the top of the nave, at the West end, which commands a striking view of the building. In ascending the wooden spire above the centre, the heat was so intense from the sun on the lead, that I thought I must have desisted. The height of this spire is 400 feet, but I only ascended to a gallery about 100 feet short of the summit. There are woods, gardens, and pastures, and a small river, near the town; but the distance is, as usual in this country, open corn fields, as far as the eye can reach. The different shades of graiu appeared something like a tailor's card of patterns. On our return from the Cathedral, we got one of our 251. bills cashed at the Banker's, and only received 587 francs, or 241. 9s. 2d. English, the exchange there being 23f. 50c.; and nearly one-half of this sum we were obliged to accept in sil ver. We afterwards proceeded to view the Hall of Congress, in which the Treaty of Amiens, in 1802, was signed; and a Merchants Hall, or large covered building, like 'Exeter Change, in which a variety of goods are exposed to sale; and at one o'clock returned to our Inn. At two, the thermometer in the shade was 86.

At five, we proceeded by Hebecourt and Flers to Breteuil, and slept at the Angel Inn. At nine, the thermometer was 76. Breteuil is a small town, with nothing remarkable.

August 6th.-We arrived to dinner at Clermont, pleasantly situated on a bill; here we first began to be amongst Vineyards. They somewhat resemble hop plantations, but the sticks are only about four feet high. The grapes as yet are small, unripe

and