mmunication to the Royal
Society, which contained also the result of an investigation into
similar cases which could be well authenticated, and which may be seen
in a note in the admirable Catalogue of the College Museum, vol. v. pp.
177-185. As the remarkable birth described by our correspondent N. D.
took place five years previously to these inquiries, and is not
mentioned, it is scarcely possible to doubt that his informant must be
labouring under some great mistake. If such a birth took place, it is
probable that the parish register will contain some record of the fact.
Our correspondent will, perhaps, take the trouble to make some further
investigations, so as to trace the source of the error, for error there
must be, in the statement of his informant.]

{460}

* * * * *

GEORGE HERBERT AND BEMERTON CHURCH.

It is gratifying to see that some of your correspondents are taking, an
interest in the "worthy, lowly, and lovely" (as Isaac Walton called him)
Mr. George Herbert (Vol. ii., pp. 103. 414.). It may tend to increase that
interest, if I send you a note I made a few years ago, when I visited
Bemerton, and had the pleasure of officiating within the walls of that
celebrated little church. The rector kindly showed me the whole Parsonage
House; the parts rebuilt by Herbert were traceable; but the inscription set
up by him on that occasion is not there, nor had it been found, viz.:

"TO MY SUCCESSOR.

"If thou chance for to find,
A new house to thy mind,
And built without thy cost;
Be good to the poor,
As God gives the store,
And then my labour's not lost."

It may truly be said to stand near the chapel (as his biographer calls it),
being distant only the width of the road, thirty-four feet, which in
Herbert's time was forty feet, as the building shows. On the south is a
grass-plat sloping down to the river, whence is a beautiful view of Sarum
Cathedral in the distance. A very aged fig-tree grows against the end of
the house, and a medlar in the garden, both, traditionally, planted by
Herbert.

The whole length and breadth of the church is forty-five feet by eighteen.
The south and west windows are of the date called Decorated, say 1300. They
are two-light windows, and worthy of imitation. The east window is modern.
The walls have much new brickwork and brick buttresses, after the manner
recommended in certain _