in a bundle of books and papers inclosed, since 1605, in a wall
in the old mansion, and brought to light about twenty years ago. The
following relation of a "rapping" or "knocking" is extracted from this
letter:

"If it be demanded why I labour so much in the Trinity and Passion of
Christ to depaint in this chamber, this is the principal instance
thereof; That at my last being hither committed[1], and I usually
having my servants here allowed me, to read nightly an hour to me after
supper, it fortuned that Fulcis, my then servant, reading in the
_Christian Resolution_, in the treatise of _Proof that there is a God,
&c._, there was upon a wainscot table at that instant three loud knocks
{513} (as if it had been with an iron hammer) given; to the great
amazing of me and my two servants, Fulcis and Nilkton."

D. JARDINE.

[Footnote 1: This refers to his commitments for recusancy, which had been
frequent.]

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_Bond a Poet, 1642, O.S._--In the _Perfect Diurnall_, March 29, 1642, we
have the following curious notice:

"Upon the meeting of the House of Lords, there was complaint made
against one Bond, a poet, for making a scandalous letter in the queen's
name, sent from the Hague to the king at York. The said Bond attended
upon order, and was examined, and found a delinquent; upon which they
voted him to stand in the pillory several market days in the new Palace
(Yard), Westminster, and other places, and committed him to the
Gatehouse, besides a long imprisonment during the pleasure of the
house: and they farther ordered that as many of the said letter as
could be found should be burnt."

His recantation, which he afterwards made, is in the British Museum.

E. G. BALLARD.

_The late Harvest._--In connexion with the present late and disastrous
harvest, permit me to contribute a distich current, as an old farmer
observed to-day, "when I was a boy:"

"When we carry wheat o' the fourteenth of October,
Then every man goeth home sober."

Meaning that the prospect of the "yield" was not good enough to permit the
labourers to get drunk upon it.

R. C. WARDE.

Kidderminster.

_Misquotation._--In an article entitled "Popular Ballads of the English
Peasantry," a correspondent of "N. & Q." (Vol. v., p. 603.) quotes as "that
spirit-stirring stanza of _immortal John_," the lines:

"Jesus,