oved statements that the bishop
agreed with the one and held communion with the other. Dr. Forster, his
chaplain, was with him at his death, which happened about 11 A.M., June 16;
and this witness observes (in a letter to the Bishop of Oxford, June 18)
that "the last four-and-twenty hours preceding which [_i. e._ his death]
were divided between short broken slumbers, and intervals of a calm but
disordered talk when awake." Again (letter to Ditto, June 17), Forster says
that Bishop Butler, "when, for a day or two before his death, he had in a
great measure lost the use of his faculties, was perpetually talking of
writing to your lordship, though without seeming to have anything which, at
least, he was at all capable of communicating to you." Bishop Benson writes
to the Bishop of Oxford (June 12) that Butler's "attention to any one or
anything is immediately lost and gone;" and, "my lord is incapable, not
only of reading, but attending to anything read or said." And again, "his
attention to anything is very little or none."

There was certainly an interval between this time (June 12) and "the last
four-and-twenty hours" preceding his death, during which, writes Bishop
Benson (June 17), Butler "said kind and affecting things more than I could
bear." Yet, on the whole, I submit that these extracts, if fully weighed
and considered with all the attending circumstances, contain enough of even
positive evidence to refute conclusively the injurious suspicions alluded
to by X. Y. Z., if such are still current.

J. R. C.

* * * * *

MITIGATION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT TO FORGERS.

(Vol. iv., p. 434., &c.)

I have asked many questions, and turned over many volumes and files of
newspapers, to get at the real facts of the cases of mitigation stated in
"N. & Q." Having winnowed the chaff as thoroughly as I could, I send the
very few grains I have found. Those only who have searched annual
registers, magazines, and journals for the foundation of stories defective
in names and dates, will appreciate my difficulties.

I have not found any printed account of the "Jeannie Deans" case, "N. &
Q.," Vol. iv., p. 434.; Vol. v., p. 444.; Vol. vi., p. 153. I have inquired
of the older members of the Northern Circuit, and they never heard of it.
Still a young man may have been convicted of forgery "about thirty-five
years ago:" his sister may have presented a well-signed petition to the
judges, and the sentence