Amcotts Family arms, 86. America, a Century since, 6. St. Andrew penny located, 45. *St. Andrew's Church, Portland, 41. Antiquary and the Novelist, 92. Auchendrane Cross, 87. Baker's dozen defined, 17. Bangor Monastery, 82. Bangor Episcopal monuments, 85. *Barber Surgeons' arms, 90. Bartolozzi, Woollett's Letter to, 69. Biblical mistranslation corrected, 88. Blue Boar Inn, Leicester, 27. Bothwell bank, Scotish song, 101 n. Braxfield's sneer at Christ, 96. Brechin Cathedral corbel, 38. St. Buryan, Cornwall, Cross, 18. But and ben defined, 2, 14. Calais Staple Merchants, 6 n. Casimir's Abdication, 54. Centenarian Queen of the Lake, 95. Charles, Prince, at Leicester, 29. St. Giles' bowl, 65-66. *Glasgow Cathedral carving, 44. Glympton customs and usages, 41. Gordon, inedited letter, 92. Grenville inedited letter, 40. 53. Gulval Church, painting in, 90, 97. Hall, Bp., Mysterie of Godlinesse, 2. Hats of Felt, when introduced? 5. Hearne's unpublished Remains, 93. Crosses in West Cornwall, 18, 36, 37. Henham Evening bells, 70. Cup and the Lip explained, 53. Dalton's pension, 20. Henry the Fifth, a book borrower, 72. De Foe's Robinson Crusoe, 73-74, 96. | Hertz Collection of Vertu, 93. Edward the Second's Coinage, 58-59. Eldon Letter, 47. English Valour eulogised, 28. Exchequer, discovery of Jewels, 101. Flint Glass, whence the term? 80 Gay, unpublished notes, 71. Holford House, Regent's Park, 88. Hoyle Family, 18. Impressment of Surgeons, 99. Ingram elected M.P. for Boston, 26. James the First, letter to Lord Privy Jews arbiters of Europe, 88; contra- *Keigwin Family mansion, 57 Linacre's Life, by Johnston? 72. Lines on Nymph sleeping, 89. Middlesex Archæological Association, Milliton Family noticed, 99. Monkish rhymes, with translation, 56. Ne sutor ultra Crepidam, 96. New Year's Eve chant, 1. Nimbus or Glory in paintings, 88-89, Peers for Life, 17. *Penzance Market-place Cross, 37. Porson's Charade on Miss Crowe, 68, Prelatical figures on Tombs? 94. Quaint early rhymes, 100. Raleigh's widow, injustice to her, 9 n. Rice family enquiry, 102 Snuff-taking in Church reprehended, 19. Sobieski family weapons, 93. *Taper of Exorcism, 90. Temple-bar rebel-heads, 55. Richard III., bedstead? 42; reply, Turkish subversion predicted, 13. 43, 44. *Rob Roy's grave, 81. Rogers' rare Marc Antonios, 54. Russia subsidized by England, 8. Sceppe, the word explained, 5. Scott, inedited letters, 4, 14, 21, 45, Scott, Border Antiquities, 21. Two versus One, Epigram, 102. University Nominals, 65. Veitches and Tweedie's family feu ds, 97 Veitch, extraordinary optical mech a- Venetian Triumph, 27. Scott, Dr. W. H., literary notice, 32, Waverley Novel Enquiry, 22, 34, 49, 52. 33. *Selkirk relics, 73, 74, 96. Wayside Crosses, 8. Weber's Oberon Manuscript, 33. Shakespeare's Bardolph and Pistol, 44. Wesleyan queries, 26. Archdeacon of Bangor, 8. What has been may be again, 34. Erratum.-P. 99, col. 1, 1. 16 from foot, for same read sarue. No. LXI.] "Takes note of what is doneBy note, to give and to receive."-SHAKESPEARE. HEREFORDSHIRE NEW-YEAR CUSTOMS. A comparison of the many diversified customs in the English Counties at various periods of the year presents much interest, and as customs, are peculiarly gratifying to many persons who are not strictly observers themselves of these interminable occasions for displaying our native character, arising from traditions of which time is fast obliterating all record. Whilst spending Christmas-tide at Bromyard, a snug little self-satisfied town, about fourteen miles from Hereford, I noted the following curious observances, which possibly are not confined to this one of our western counties. 66 On New-Year's Eve, as the hour of twelve drew near, within doors a pleasurable excitement became visible in the face of each person, then seated about the Christmas log; and without, the chanting of the last new carol broke upon the stillness of the night in discordant sounds with no very harmonious effect. So soon as the clock had struck twelve, there was a rush out of doors to the nearest spring of water, with this object; Whoever first brought in the cream of the well," was deemed fortunate, and those who first tasted of it had also the prospective good fortune of luck following at their heels throughout the whole of the ensuing year. Meanwhile in the street, borne upon the night air, was heard the incoherent noise of the ribald laugh and the joyous song, lustily shouted by many sturdy labourers, who, though usually steady, "only this once" in the year, had made a rather long sitting at "the Lion," or "the Plough," and were then wending their homeward course at the friendly intimation of Boniface, who had warned them of the hour when sober men should be in bed. With these, happy souls, the custom is called the burying Old Tom," i.e., the assisting at the departure of the old year, and in jocund exultations welcoming in that of the new. 66 After the noise and uproar of the funeral obsequies of Old Tom have ceased, the street is in its turn the scene of a tumultuous jollity, caused by bands of boys, chanting in the loudest possible note, and with an indisputable contempt for the Queen's English or Murray's Grammar, the following hearty good wishes, to those whose munificence may be excited by the plenitude of their unbiassed, yet plaintive benevolence. I wish you a merry Christmas, And a happy New Year; A pocket full of money, And a cellar full of beer; And a good fat pig, To serve you all the year. Ladies and gentlemen, sat by the fire, Torrington Square, Jan. 12. VOL. VI. T. H. PATTISON. [JANUARY, 1856. On the outside of the building, the length is twentyfive feet; the breadth, sixteen feet; the walls are two feet in thickness. The altar stone, marked A, is five feet ten inches in length, two feet seven inches wide, and in height above the level of the floor, two feet ten inches. The cavity or socket, marked B, where a cross, or the image of the patron saint, St. Maternus, may have been placed, is nine inches by eight. C is a row of stones forming a step which divides the chancel from the nave. EE indicate the remains of the stone benches or seats. D, the doorway, facing directly north, is two feet wide at the entrance, gradually extending to two feet eight inches within. An excavation, G, in the south-west corner, appears to have been used as a font, the water being supplied B from the well above, and for which purpose there is an inlet in the wall at F. The drain marked H served to carry off the waste water. There are still some remains of the outer wall that enclosed the building when Catholicism was the national religion. The woodcuts have been kindly forwarded by Mr. J. F. Blight, of Penzance, in whose work on the Crosses and Antiquities of West Cornwall, to be published in the ensuing month, they are part of its illustrations. To the antiquarian readers of Current Notes, it is respectfully commended to their notice. H. A. C., in Current Notes, 1855, p. 93, states that "many County and Local Historians allude to the poem written by Bishop Hall, entitled the Mysterie of Godlinesse, describing the miraculous cure of the poor cripple through the agency of the waters of Madron Well." Unless H. A. C. has misquoted the County and Local Historians, he has been greatly misled by them, for, - Firstly, Bishop Hall did not write any poem on the Great Mysterie of Godlinesse; that tract is in prose. Secondly, Bishop Hall did not describe the miraculous cure of the poor cripple in his tract on the Great Mystery of Godlinesse, nor did he therein make any allusion to it. I gave the passage in Current Notes, p. 93, from the treatise of the good Bishop, in which the description of the Madron cripple does occur, from the Invisible World, edit. Lond. 1808,' 8vo., Book I., sect. viii. p. 465; but this tract is also in prose. I observe that Lysons, Cornwall, p. cci., makes this mistake of citing the Mystery of Godliness' for the Invisible World;' he, however, does not cite it as a poem, but a publication. Probably he also, like H. A. C., copied from preceding writers, instead of going to the original, and thus errors become perpetuated. May I ask H. A. C., whether, from his own observation, he has ascertained that the door of the Chapel, near Cape Cornwall, in St. Just parish, faces the north,' as that in Madron does? I believe there are now no remains of that building in Park-an-Chapel enclosure. Borlase, in some manuscript notes, speaks of it, in his time; and the Rev. J. Buller says the remains were, in 1842, still to be seen. Account of St. Just, p. 45. I did not see them while I was incumbent of that parish, from 1846 to 1850. Brampford Speke, Dec. 31. G. C. GORHAM. Mr. JOHN MARTIN, F.L.S., died at Froxfield, Bedfordshire, Dec. 30, in his sixty-fifth year. He was formerly of the firm of Rodwell and Martin, booksellers, 46, New Bond Street, and the author or compiler of a Bibliographical Catalogue of Privately Printed Books, 1834," pp. 564, 8vo. On the decease of Mr. Wiffen, the librarian at Woburn Abbey, the late Duke of Bedford thought so favourably of this volume, that he unsolicited appointed Mr. Martin, as his successor.-The Bibliographical Catalogue was recently reprinted. BUT AND BEN DEFINED. The Cornish application of "but and ben " may be what Mr. Hawker of Morwenstow, Current Notes, 1855, p. 93, says it is; but the phrase is by no means confined to that district, nor does it bear in other parts of Great Britain the signification of "butlery and hall.” All over Saxon Scotland it is still in colloquial use, every cottage having its but and ben,' as formerly every farm house had. The ground floor of a Scottish hynd's house may be thus represented— The passage (A) from the outer to the inner door, is called the but-a-house, and in some cases is still partly occupied by the cow. Occasionally in cold weather I have seen a pig kept in it. The main apartment (B) is the only one having a fireplace (a); it serves the inmates For kitchen, for parlour and hall; and has a dresser (Fr. dressoir), or bink (old German, binke), opposite to the window, stored with crockery of all sorts. Two beds, large wooden boxes, with sliding panels in front, are placed (cc) across the cottage, nearly in the centre of its length, and a door or curtain occupies the space between them, to screen the entrance to the ben-a-house (C), which is used as a miscellaneous store-room, and generally containing a bed in which the eldest son or daughter, or the bondager or hired servant apartment; and to gang but the house,' is to move sleeps. So gang ben the house, is to enter this inner towards the door. 'Ben i' the room,' and but i' the kitchen,' are phrases quite common among farm ser vants. where. The ben-a-house is the Latin buiten of binnen gaan, is to go out and in, with the affix But and ben are the Dutch buiten and binnen; and by. In by' and out by are phrases heard everytral; the Hebrew penimah (, the benmost, pen-us or peneinnermost, or most retired, or private part of the house, peculiarly consecrated to the Penates or household gods. South Shields. WILLIAM BROCKIE. GRAVE OF SIR ROBERT STRANGE. In the recently published Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange, Knight, Engraver; and of his brother-inlaw Andrew Lumisden, Private Secretary to the Stuart Princes, by James Dennistoun, of Dennistoun ; are embodied much that will interest the reader, but there is occasionally a deficiency of minutiae, which the author might easily have avoided, and the following Notes are submitted in the hope of partially supplying that defect. Robert Strange was born at Pomona, in the Orkneys, July 14, 1721. He served as an apprentice to Cooper |