METEOROLOGICAL DIARY, BY W.CARY, STRAND. From June 23, 1838, to July 25, both inclusive. J. J. ARNULL, Stock Broker, 1, Bank Buildings, Cornhill, こ late RICHARDSON, GOODLUCK, and ARNULL, J. B. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT-STREET. 15 80 81 pm. 79 81 pm. 81 79 pm. 81 79 pm. 101 15 93 265 80 78 pm. 78 80 pm. 76 73 pm. 265 75 72 pm. 75 72 pm. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. - Burial of Excommunicated Persons. Rev. J. S. WILKINSON'S MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.... DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE, BY THOMAS GREEN, Esq. .. Hall and Church of Temple Balsall, Warwickshire (with a Plate)..... The Coronation Medal (with a Cut) .. ... ........ Anecdotes of Public Newspapers---the British Press and Globe RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW-The Phoenix Nest, 1593 REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. ... Tyler's Life and Character of Henry the Fifth, 281; Poems, by John Ken- FINE ARTS. - The Art Union, 300.-School of Design, &c. &c. .......... ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES. - Proceedings of the Numismatic So. ciety, 306.-Remains on the Downs near Deal... HISTORICAL CHRONICLE. -Proceedings in Parliament, 308.-Foreign News, 314.-Domestic Occurrences Promotions, 317.-Births, Marriages...... OBITUARY; with Memoirs of General A. L. Hay; Gen. Coffin; Lient.- Gen. Sir T. Brown; Colonel Hicks; Rear-Adm. Daniel; Rear-Adm. Hayes; Capt. Paterson, R.N.; William Mellish, Esq.; Samuel Thornton, Esq.; G. H. Sumner, Esq.; E. P. Bastard, Esq.; C. R. Blundell, Esq.; C. J. Clavering, Esq.; J. H. Thursby, Esq.; Dr. Francia; Rev. T. Т. Biddulph; Rev. Canon Newling; Henry Tyrwhitt, Esq.; Mr. W. Clarke; Embellished with a View of TEMPLE BALSALL, Warwickshire, &c. &c. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. We are sorry to find that from a slight and apparently unimportant omission on the part of our printer, some readers have supposed that the letter of Mr. H. N. Coleridge to Mr. Daniel Stuart, which was inserted in our Number for July, and replied to by the latter in the same number, had been communicated to us by Mr. Stuart, and not by Mr. Coleridge himself. We beg to say that the letter, as sent by Mr. Coleridge to Mr. Stuart, had a Postscript to this effect: "A copy of this letter will be sent to the Gentleman's Magazine:" and it will be seen in our June number, p. 590, that the receipt of that copy was then publicly acknowledged, though we had not then room for its insertion. Thus Mr. Stuart was doubly apprised of its proposed publication, first by Mr. Coleridge, and then by ourselves (in public), and therefore he desired us to append to it his reply. even An anonymous Correspondent is indebted to a friend in the West of France, an antiquary of considerable reputation, for the following curious fact. After observing that in the 12th and 13th centuries, Popes' Legates, and Bishops, frequently pronounced excommunication, not only against princes and other lay persons, but against the clergy, a consequence of which was the refusal of christian burial in consecrated ground; and that to elude in some degree the rigour of this law, the mode was some : times resorted to, of depositing in sarcophagi above ground the bodies of those whom it was forbidden to bury in holy earth; he relates that there exists at Nay, a small parish near Periers, in the diocese of Coutances, a stone coffin of this kind with its flat cover, which is placed near the church on the south side. In this, according to the common tradition of the country, was deposited the body of the Curé of the parish of Nay, who was bound to pay to the Pope an annual rent; having delayed the payment too long for transmission within the proper time, he made a compact with the devil to carry him to Rome, "as quick as woman's thought," and as the reward of this service, promised his body as soon as it was buried. But the priest was too cunning for the devil, for he left directions that his body should be placed in this sarcophagus, which never was and never will be put under ground, if regard be had to the expression of his intentions. The sarcophagus is of large dimensions, so as to admit an opening to be made on the south side, wide enough to allow a man to pass into it; through thisit used to be the custom of the peasants in the canton of Carenton to creep, and lie down to sleep, if they could, within the sarcophagus, in order to be cured of intermittent fevers. A late Curé of Nay, a man of good sense and intelligence, assured my friend that he had frequently used all his means of persuasion to root out this superstition, and that he had only been able to succeed with the inhabitants of his own little parish. This sarcophagus lying on the ground, is the only one in the present churchyard of Nay. History informs us that Pierre de Vilaines, Bishop of Bayeux in the year 1360, having failed to pay his debt to the court of Rome, died under excommunication; not being able to receive christian burial, his body remained deposited in the episcopal palace 80 years, (probably in a leaden coffin) and was not interred till 1440, when the debt was paid by Zanon, one of his successors. The policy of Rome probably tolerated this degree of relaxation in the severity of its spiritual judgments, since it gave an opportunity to the piety or benevolence, or sense of propriety, of heirs and successors, to make up the losses occasioned by the carelessness or insubordination of some of its tributaries. In the number for July, page 105, the Rev. J. S. Pratt is represented by a typographical error to have died in Herefordshire instead of Hertfordshire, in which county he held the living of St. Margaret's near Stanstead. The Reverend gentleman was formerly Vicar of the parish of St. John Baptist in Peterborough; and in 1834 published a volume of "Short and plain Sermons for reading in Families." He was an eminently pious and benevolent christian minister; and his decease will be long and deeply lamented. P. 224. Mr. Barham's name was John, not Joseph. He sat in Parliament for Stockbridge in 1831, and for Kendal from the death of James Brougham, esq. in Feb. 1834 to the dissolution of 1837. He was Sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1834, and married in that year Lady Catharine Grimston, eldest dau. of the Earl of Verulam. P. 226. The late Sir Ralph Bigland was the son of Mr. Joseph Owen, of Salford near Manchester (not Jones), by Elizabeth-Maria Bigland, only daughter of Richard Bigland of Gray's Inn, widow of Mr. Jenkin Davies of Lanarthney in Carmarthenshire, and sister of Ralph Bigland, esq. Garter. Sir Ralph assumed the name of Bigland by royal licence in the year 1774. ERRATA.-P. 81. Read, Rev. John Reynell Wreford, then of Birmingham, and now of Bristol; p. 141 a, 16, for forty-three, read forty-four. |