1828.]

Abuses in Ecclesiastical Courts.

Mr. URBAN,

R.

Sept. 4.

IN your Magazine for December
last, you was kind enough to admit
a letter of mine on the subject of
abuses in the Ecclesiastical Court,
wherein I stated the circumstance of a
Clergyman in my neighbourhood hav-
ing been under the necessity of pre-
senting one of his Church bells for
being broken and useless during many
years, and the Churchwarden's refusal
to renew or repair it. And I also
stated, that in consequence of a com-
plaint having been made of the enormous
fees extorted by one of the officers of
the Court (an attorney, called the
Deputy Registrar), the evidence offered
to prove the charge, which was noto-
rious to the whole parish, and acknow-
ledged by the Churchwarden himself,
in his answer upon oath, was refused
admission by this Deputy Registrar,

303

though repeatedly urged by the witnesses to take their deposition as to the state of the bell.

By the constitution of this Court, strange as it may appear, the witnesses are examined privately by the Deputy Registrar, and upon his report alone, the Court professes itself bound to decide, and refused to examine the witnesses, or hear them examined in open Court, so that the result of this shameful conduct was, that the Clergyman, in endeavouring to preserve the bells of his Church, which it was his bounden duty to do, was condemned in costs and expences to the enormous amount of 100l. and upwards.

A Correspondent of yours, in the Magazine for August, with the signature of PROPOSITOR, has given an extract from a pamphlet upon the subject of Ecclesiastical abuses, published in the year 1744, wherein one of the persons in a dialogue complains of the cruel, tedious, and expensive processes of this Court at that period; but as he does not mention any specific instance of oppression, and facts are much more powerful than arguments, I hope the circumstance to which I have alluded, and am ready to prove before the House of Commons, or in any other place, with many additional aggravated instances of oppression in the same Court, may be a means of promoting an enquiry into the uses and abuses of these relics of the Inquisition, and of forming some regular plan either for the establishment of them upon a useful and impartial foundation, or the abolition of them in toto, as vexatious in

the highest degree to every one con-
cerned in them; and I have no doubt
Propositor, and every respectable per-
son, will join with me in a most ardent
wish, that during the present recess of
legal and parliamentary business, some
friend to his country and the commu-
nity in general will take these abuses
into his most serious consideration,
and promote an effectual reform.
Yours, &c.

INDAGATOR.

304

Effects of Comets.-Hipocras.

planations and limited ideas; by this
your review, it would appear that dif-
ferent generations of animals have been
produced, lived, and perished at differ-
ent epochs upon this globe; and by
some influence attending the cause of
their destruction, that races of animals
of new kinds have succeeded those de-
stroyed, whose remains form so just a
ground for contemplation to the philo-
sopher. What this cause of destruction
and of reproduction has been, I have
often had the honour of being allowed
to state in your pages. The Egyptian
symbol of a comet signifies destruction,
inundation, and renovation; and from
that, and Sir Isaac Newton's hypo-
thesis, that the vital principle in the
planetary globes was probably derived
from comets, I think it most probable,
that from the atmospheres of these
bodies, the earth has at various times
been furnished with the means of re-
producing(through some hidden powers
of nature) the various races of animals
which have flourished upon our globe,
after being deluged by their attraction;
for "facile est addere inventis ;" and
though Sir Isaac does not go so far as I
do in this speculation, it is easy to en-
large the one idea into the other. I
shall add, that we know of no other
means by which deluges and renova-
tion can be produced, than those which
may be derived from the only inter-
ference we know of, in the usual "laws
of heaven"-the near approaches of
comets; this view once received, how
many probable effects may be found to
follow, and justify the observation made
some years ago by the Quarterly Re-
view, that many changes, as those of
climate, &c. must probably be looked
for, to astronomy.

Whether this view, or Buffon's ideas, as to the first animals being produced by so many of certain congenial atoms flying into masses, is the most philosophical, probable, and rational, the public shall be left to judge; but it is certain that we can be able only to form probable speculations on the subject; and what the effects of the different atmospherical powers, and near approaches of different comets, may have been in bestowing vitality upon various animated beings, may in part be guessed from the facts I have long since laid before the public in your pages.

Yours, &c.

H. R. D.

Ν

[Oct.

Mr. URBAN, Salop, Sept. 15. IN addition to what your correspondent J. A. R. in your June Magazine, p. 576, has said on the Hipocras wine of our forefathers, perhaps some further particulars relating thereto may not be unacceptable to your readers.

Hipocras was a medicated wine held in considerable repute by our ancestors, and was one of those offerings which corporate bodies presented to noble personages. In an entertainment given by the town of Shrewsbury in 1495 to Henry the Seventh, the following items appear in proof thereof:

"4s. for six flagons of wine, to make ypocras for the Queen.

"13s. 9d. for spices and sugar (speciebus et sugur) to make the same.'

And again, in an entertainment bestowed on Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, in 1558,

"It'm, on pottell of Iepokrass, 3s. 4d. "More for a pottell of [pocrasse given to Mr. Justeece, 4s. 2d."

This wine has been considered to derive its name from ύπο and κεραννυμι ; and also from the great physician Hippocrates, who, as some presume, gave the first formula for its preparation; and to have been introduced into England about the close of the 14th, or early in the 15th century, though it is a matter of surprise our dramatic bard Shakspeare has made no mention of it in his writings. We are certain of this, however, that it was in use as late as 1663, for Mr. Pepys, in his Diary, vol. i. p. 256, observes, that at the Lord Mayor's dinner he drank no wine but Hypocras, "which do not break my vow, it being, to the best of my present judgement, only a mixed compound drink, and not any wine. If I am mistaken, God forgive me.' Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

H. P.

Sept. 9.

1828.]

Historical Notices of Denny Abbey.

"Defendant pleads non assumpsit. Adjourned until 11 o'clock to morrow, Nov.

1

21."

In the same work, which is far from a flattering one to the memory of Paine, some verses on the death of General Wolfe are ascribed to him, beginning with this line:

"In a mouldering cave where the wretched retreat."

Are these verses, which have considerable poetical merit, really the pro

duction of that factious man? I should think it unlikely. If I mistake not, I have seen them in a collection of songs, but do not remember who, if any body,

was named as the author. Yours, &c.

J. P. R.

Sept. 10.

parish of Waterbeach, and hundred of North Stow, about midway between Cambridge and Ely, at a very short distance from the turnpike road.

the

There had been a religious society in the parish of Waterbeach, established as early as the reign of King Henry the Second, upon an insulated spot called Elmeneye, given by Robert, Chamberlain to Conan Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond, who afterwards became a monk of Ely; but, on account of the floods, the cell was removed to Denny, which was given for that purpose by Albericus Picot. The estates which belonged to this frater nity devolved subsequently to Templars, who possessed the manor of Waterbeach. They had their title confirmed by Pope Clement the Fifth, and retained the property until the abolition of their order. King Edward the Third granted their estates at Denny to Maria de Sancto Paulo, the widow of Aymer De Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who removed hither the nuns of Waterbeach from their house in the village, founded in 1293 by Lady Dionysia De Mountchensi, for minoresses of the order of St. Clare. Twenty-five nuns were in this society at the dissolution of religious houses, when the annual amount of their revenues was estimated, according to Speed, at 218/. 11⁄2d.

The portions of the antient buildings yet standing are of a very interesting description. The western part of the Church, converted now into a farmhouse, is nearly entire, together with GENT. MAG. October, 1828.

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305

columns, with semicircular arches, the transepts; and the short round which separate the nave from the side ailes, plainly shew that this is a relic in 1160. The four columns which of the original priory Church founded appear formerly to have sustained a central tower, were also standing within a very short period, and two pieces of one of them are now placed as piers on each side the gate leading from the high road to Denny farm. The eastern part of the Church is said to have been rebuilt after the settlement of the Minoresses here, but of this nothing more than a few of the foundation walls remain. There are also fragments of the antient monastery extant, but it would be difficult to determine to what apartments they belonged; and none of them exhibit any ornamental features principal buildings seem either to have to require a particular description. The been rebuilt or enlarged, as well as the Church, after the nuns had been recloisters were about 30 yards by 23, moved hither from Waterbeach. The them stands the Refectory (which forms and abutting upon the north wall of the subject of the accompanying engraving, in which its north-east aspect fect state, though now appropriated as is exhibited), remaining in a very pera barn. The style of its architecture close of the 14th century, at which is evidently that in use towards the period the foundation was enriched by the donations of Sir Philip Tylney and veral others. The interior of this handSir John Inglethorpe, knights, and sescoted beneath the windows; and pansome apartment was formerly wainnels with Gothic tracery were painted on the walls above. The whole of the precinct was surrounded with a bank and ditch, yet visible at intervals, and contains about three or four acres.

most extensive in the county of CamDenny Farm, which is one of the bridge, was formerly held by Thomas Hobson, the celebrated carrier, who standing in the market-place at Camerected at his own expence the conduit bridge, and bequeathed the rents of certain lands to keep it in perpetual repair. I. G. L.

Mr. URBAN,

Cork, Sept. 30.
MANY reasons may be adduced to
prove that no coins yet disco-

vered can be assigned with any degree
of probability to Alexander I. and that