Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc

In Short

This book is a compilation of the June 29, 1850 issue of Notes and Queries, a Victorian periodical designed as a medium of intercommunication for literary men, artists, antiquaries, and genealogists. It consists of short notes on historical figures, folk-lore traditions, literary puzzles, and detailed reader queries paired with corresponding replies. It has lasted because it preserves the meticulous, eccentric, and collaborative intellectual pursuits of mid-nineteenth-century scholars, capturing a vanished world of shared erudition and curious inquiry into the past.

The Story

The volume opens with historical notes concerning George Goring, Earl of Norwich, and his son, tracing their tumultuous political involvements and movements through seventeenth-century state papers and diaries. The discussion then shifts to lost manuscripts, specifically recording the existence of a missing treatise by Bishop Ridley concerning election and free-will, and inviting readers to help track it down across British libraries. Moving from ecclesiastical history into maritime exploration, the text presents a reflective poem written during an Arctic expedition under Sir Edward Parry, capturing the isolation, peril, and eventual relief experienced by sailors trapped in the ice.

The journey continues into regional folk-lore, recounting the dark legend of Sir Richard Baker, known as Bloody Baker, whose crimes are uncovered when a severed hand bearing a ring falls into the lap of a hidden witness. Alongside this grim tale, various traditional charms and folk remedies for warts—involving stolen meat, knotted twine, and secret burials—are catalogued across Lancashire and Yorkshire traditions. The volume investigates literary echoes, comparing a satirical line from Samuel Butler's Hudibras regarding a one-spurred horse with an identical jest recorded in a 1638 university jest-book, before examining seventeenth-century recipes for coffee electuaries and tobacco infusions intended to cleanse the stomach.

As the pages progress, a diverse array of reader inquiries accumulates. Correspondents ask about the origin of the sculpture Sleeping Children in Lichfield Cathedral, the whereabouts of Viscount Dundee's lost signet ring, the etymology of local terms like "Steyne" and "Adur," and the precise metrical structure of classic French verses and Latin hymns like the Dies Irae. These queries prompt collaborative scholarly replies in subsequent sections, featuring contributions from authorities like Edward F. Rimbault and Francis Mahony. Debates unfold regarding the precise acreage represented by a medieval carucate of land, the historical symbolism of the golden frog worn by Sir John Poley, the exact etymology of "Barbarian," and the prohibition of cremation among early Christians. The volume concludes with extensive literary advertisements, announcements of upcoming historical publications, and catalogues of re-issued ecclesiastical texts.

How It Unfolds

• The historical investigation opens the volume by examining seventeenth-century political figures, state letters, and parliamentary diaries to clarify the tangled biographies of the Earls of Norwich.
• The geographical exploration shifts the focus to the frozen north through an officer's personal verse chronicle of an 1819 Arctic voyage in search of the northwest passage.
• The regional folk-lore details macabre local legends, domestic superstitions, and traditional rural remedies for warts practiced across northern English counties.
• The literary comparison bridges centuries of wit by tracing a curious equestrian joke from a seventeenth-century university collection directly into the satirical framework of Hudibras.
• The medical curio presents explicit seventeenth-century pharmaceutical recipes and purging instruments designed by early modern practitioners to maintain bodily health.
• The query exchange opens a wide forum where correspondents debate heraldry, sculpture attributions, lost family rings, and the linguistic roots of obscure historical terms.
• The evidentiary reply brings forward archival data, legal statutes, and medieval land surveys to resolve technical questions about carucates, ancient minstrel franchises, and monastic origins.
• The publisher's catalogue concludes the volume with comprehensive listings of contemporary historical volumes, antiquarian books on Scotland, and multi-volume sets of the early fathers of the English church.

The People

The pages are populated by historical actors, contemporary scholars, and ordinary informants whose names anchor the research. George Goring, Earl of Norwich, and his son move through the political tempests and death sentences of the seventeenth-century Commonwealth, relying on ambassadors and political connections to survive. Bishop Ridley remains an elusive figure of the Reformation whose lost theological treatise on free-will occupies the investigative energies of modern antiquaries like T. of Bath. Sir Richard Baker, the violent antagonist of local legend, acts out a bloody domestic drama before being brought to justice through the quick-witted resourcefulness of a terrified female witness.

Scholars and researchers such as Edward F. Rimbault, Francis Mahony, and Peter Cunningham drive the intellectual engine of the periodical, debating the true authorship of seventeenth-century poems, the sculptural composition of Lichfield Cathedral monuments, and the precise mechanics of historical texts. Judge Will Rumsey appears as an advocate of bizarre seventeenth-century health regimens, prescribing tobacco infusions and coffee electuaries alongside whalebone cleansing instruments. Sir John Poley emerges through military history as a distinguished soldier decorated with the symbol of the frog for his service in the Low Countries and Denmark. Finally, historical monarchs like Charles I, Richard III, and Queen Mary form the backdrop against which land grants, treason trials, and pardons are weighed by generations of researchers.

In Its Own Voice

"When found, make a note of."

Captain Cuttle provides the guiding editorial motto for the entire periodical enterprise, framing its commitment to collecting scattered items of historical interest.

"Peepoh, pretty lady, be not too bold, Or your red blood will soon run cold."

The chilling couplet introduces the dramatic turning point in the folk legend of Bloody Baker as an adventurous woman explores a forbidden room.

"The moments of chasten'd delight are gone by, When we left our lov'd homes o'er new regions to rove..."

An anonymous naval officer captures the mingled sorrow and resolve of embarking on a perilous nineteenth-century Arctic expedition.

What It's Really About

The book explores the methodology of collective historical memory and the preservation of ephemeral knowledge. It operates on the premise that history is not merely a grand narrative of kings and battles, but an intricate mosaic assembled from stray marginalia, folk superstitions, linguistic etymologies, and forgotten manuscripts. Underneath the plot of individual queries and replies lies an argument for collaborative scholarship—the idea that specialized knowledge is scattered across private letters, parish records, and rare books, and can only be recovered through open intercommunication between diverse inquirers. It investigates how cultural artifacts, from medieval land measurements to seventeenth-century jokes, persist across time and acquire new layers of meaning.

Why Read It Today

Readers who love browsing through antique shops, historical archives, and specialized micro-histories will find endless delight in its pages. Reading it feels like sitting in a quiet nineteenth-century study while an intellectual community quietly pieces together the puzzle of the past through letters and shared discoveries. Modern readers must contend with period-specific typography, archaic spellings, and nineteenth-century academic conventions that assume a baseline familiarity with Latin, classical literature, and British genealogy. Yet, the reward is an unmediated, authentic encounter with Victorian intellectual culture, where the thrill of discovery is driven purely by a shared, unpretentious love for historical truth.

What specific aspect of these historical inquiries or Victorian folk traditions would you like to explore further?