Lancaster during the Commonwealth, whose widow
married George Fox, founder of the Quakers.

DE H.

_Tennyson's "In Memoriam."_--Perhaps some of your readers may be able to
explain the reference in the following verse, the first in this beautiful
series of poems:

"I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."

The following stanza, also in the poem numbered 87., much needs
interpretation:

"Or cooled within the glooming wave,--
And last, returning from afar,
_Before the crimson-circled star_
_Had fallen into her father's grave._"

W. B. H.

Manchester.

_Magnum Sedile._--Can any of your correspondents throw light on the
singular arched recesses, sometimes (though rarely) to be found on the
south side of chancels, west of the sedilia. The name of _magnum sedile_
has been given to them, I know not on what authority; but if they were
intended to be used as stalls of dignity for special occasions, they would
hardly have been made so wide and low as they are generally found. A good
example occurs at Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire,--certainly not monumental; and
another (but more like a tomb) at Merton, near Oxford, engraved in the
_Glossary of Architecture_. Why should they not have been intended for the
holy sepulchre at Easter? as I am not aware that these were necessarily
restricted to the north side. Is there any instance of a recess of this
kind on the south side, and an Easter sepulchre on the north, in the same
church?

C. R. M.

_Ace of Diamonds--the Earl of Cork._--In addition to the _soubriquets_
bestowed upon the nine of diamonds of "the Curse of Scotland," and that of
"the Grace Card," given to the six of hearts (Vol. i., pp. 90. 119.), there
is yet another, attached to the ace of diamonds, which is everywhere in
Ireland denominated "the Earl of Cork," the origin of which I should be
glad to know.

E. S. T.

_Closing of Rooms on account of Death._--In the _Spectator_, No. 110.,
July, 1711, one of Addison's papers on Sir Roger de Coverley, the following
passage occurs:

"My friend, Sir Roger, has often told me with a good deal of mirth,
that at his first coming to his estate he found three parts of his
house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation
of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been
heard in his long g