rote an elegiac pastoral, and invited Pope to give his "winter" pastoral
"a turn to her memory." In the note on Pope's pastoral it is said that "she
was of an ancient family in Yorkshire, and admired by Walshe." I have
elsewhere read of her as "the celebrated Mrs. Tempest;" but I know of no
other celebrity than that conferred by Walshe's pastoral; for Pope's has no
special allusion to her.
C.
_Sitting cross-legged._--In an alliterative poem on Fortune (_Reliquiae
Antiquae_, ii. p. 9.), written early in the fifteenth century, are the
following lines:--
"Sitte, I say, and sethe on a semeli sete,
Rygth on the rounde, on the rennyng ryng;
_Caste kne over kne, as a kynge kete_,
Comely clothed in a cope, crouned as a kyng."
The third line seems to illustrate those early illuminations in which kings
and great personages are represented as sitting cross-legged. There are
numerous examples of the A.-S. period. Was it {408} merely assumption of
dignity, or was it not rather intended to ward off any evil influence which
might affect the king whilst sitting, in his state? That this was a
consideration of weight we learn from the passage in Bede, in which
Ethelbert is described as receiving Augustine in the open air:
"Post dies ergo venit ad insulam rex, et residens sub divo jussit
Augustinum cum sociis ad suum ibidem adveire colloquium; caverat enim
ne in aliquam domum ad se introirent, vetere usus augurio, ne
superventu suo, si quid maleficae artis habuissent, eum superando
deciperent."--_Hist. Eccles._, l. i. c. 25.
It was cross-legged that Lucina was sitting before the floor of Alemena
when she was deceived by Galanthes. In Devonshire there is still a saying
which recommends "sitting cross-legged to help persons on a journey;" and
it is employed as a charm by schoolboys in order to avert punishment.
(Ellis's _Brand_, iii. 258.) Were not the cross-legged effigies, formerly
considered to be those of Crusaders, so arranged with an idea of the
mysterious virtue of the position?
RICHARD J. KING.
_Twickenham--Did Elizabeth visit Bacon there?_--I believe all the authors
who within the last sixty years have written on the history of Twickenham,
Middlesex (and among the most known of these I may mention Lysons,
Ironside, and John Norris Brewer), have, when mentioning Twickenham Park,
formerly the seat of Lord Bacon, stated that he there entertained Queen
Elizabeth. Of this circumstance I find
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