"whose noble praise Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing."
Dorothy Berry, in a Sonnet prefixed to Diana Primrose's _Chain of Pearl, a Memorial of the peerless Graces, &c. of Queen Elizabeth_: published London, 1639,--a tract of twelve pages.
_Govett Family._--Can you inform me for what town or county Sir ---- Govett, Bart., was member of parliament in the year 1669, and what were his armorial bearings? His name appears in the list of members given in page 496. of the Grand Duke Cosmo's _Travels through England_, published in 1821. Is the baronetcy extinct? If so, who was the last baronet, and in what year? Where he lived, or any other particulars, will much oblige.
_Sir Kenelm Digby._--Why is Sir Kenelm Digby represented, I believe always, with a sun-flower by his side?
_Riddles._--It would take up too much of your valuable time and space to insert all the riddles for which correspondents cannot find answers; but will you find means to ask, through your pages, if any clever Oedipus would allow me to communicate to him certain enigmas which puzzle me greatly, and which I should very much like to have solved.
_Straw Bail._--Fielding, in his _Life of Jonathan Wild_, book i. chap. ii., relates that Jonathan's aunt
"Charity took to husband an eminent gentleman, whose name I cannot learn; but who was famous for { 86} so friendly a disposition, that he was bail for above a hundred persons in one year. He had likewise the remarkable humour[7] of walking in Westminster Hall with a straw in his shoe."
What was the practice here referred to, and what is the origin of the expression "a man of straw," which is commonly applied to any one who appears, or pretends to be, but is not, a man of property?
Straw bail is, I believe, a term still used by attorneys to distinguish insufficient bail from "justifiable" or sufficient bail.
[Footnote 7: "humour" corrected from "honour" by erratum in Issue 170.--Transcriber.]
_Wages in the West in 1642._--The Marquis of Hertford and Lord Poulett were very active in the West in the year 1642. In the famous collection of pamphlets in the British Museum (113, 69.) is contained Lord Poulett's speech at Wells, Somerset:
"His lordship, with many imprecations, oaths, and execrations (in the height of fury), said that it was not fit for any yeoman to have allowed him from his own labours any more than the poor moiety of ten pounds a-year; and when the power shall be totally on their side, they shall be compelled to live on that low allowance, notwithstanding their estates are gotten with a great deal of labour and industry.