among other singular enactments of that body are two which will
now be regarded as curiosities. In the years 1680 and 1703, a cook and a
barber received their freedom, on condition that they would respectively
dress the mayor's feasts, and shave the Corporation, gratis!

ABHBA.

_Jacobite Club._--The adherents of the Stuarts are now nearly extinct; but
I recollect a few years ago an old gentleman, in London, who was then
upwards of eighty years of age, and who was a stanch Jacobite. I have heard
him say that, "when he was a young man, his father belonged to a society in
Aldersgate Street, called the 'Mourning Bush;' and this Bush was to be
always in mourning until the Stuarts were restored." A member of this
Society having been met in mourning when one of the reigning family had
died, was asked by one of the members how it so happened? His reply was,
that he was "not mourning for the dead, but for the living." The old
gentleman was father of the Mercers' Company, and his brother of the
Stationers' Company: they were bachelors, and citizens of the old school,
hospitable, liberal, and charitable. An instance occurred, that the latter
had a presentation to Christ's Hospital: he was applied to on behalf of a
person who had a large family; but the father not being a freeman, he could
not present it to the son. He immediately bought the freedom for the
father, and gave the son the presentation! This is a rare act.

The brothers have long gone to receive the reward of their goodness, and
lie buried in the cemetery attached to Mercers' Hall, Cheapside.

JAMES REED.

Sunderland.

_Dean Nowell's first Wife._--Churton, in his _Life of Alexander Nowell_,
dean of St. Paul's, p. 368., is at a loss to know the name of the dean's
first wife. He says:

"Of his first wife nothing farther is known but that he was married,
either to her or to his second wife, in or before the year 1561. His
surviving wife, Eliz. Nowell, had been twice married before, and had
children by both her former husbands. Laurence Ball appears to have
been her first husband, and Thomas Blount her second."

The pedigree of Bowyer, in the _Visitation of Sussex_, in 1633-4, gives the
name of the dean's first wife:

"Thomas = Jane, da. and heir of = Alexander Nowell,
Bowyer Robert Merry, son dean of St. Paul's.
of London. of Thomas Merry 2nd husband."
of Hatfield.

Y. S.

"_Oxonia