present time?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

_Robert Burton_, otherwise _Democritus Junior_, the author of that glorious
book _The Anatomy of Melancholy_, is stated by Wood to have been born at
Lindley, in Leicestershire. Plot, however, in his _Natural History of
Staffordshire_, 1686, p.276., gives the place of his birth, Fald, in the
latter county; and, furthermore, says he was shown the very house of his
nativity. Can any of your correspondents throw any light upon this subject?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

_Blowen, Origin of the Name._--You have fallen into a very general error in
spelling my name (pp. 71. 76.) with the terminal r, "Blower," instead of
"Blowen." Perhaps some one of your genealogical readers can inform me of
the origin and descendants of the family with this scarce name, thus spelt,
"Blowen." Are we a branch of the Blowers (as you appear to think we must
be), that useful family of alarmists, whose services in early times were so
necessary? or are we the descendants of the Flanders "Boleyns,"
Anglicanized "Bloyen?"

Query, Did Anna Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII., ever spell her name so? I need
not to be reminded that some lexicographers define "Blowen" to be a rude
woman. Query, origin of that appellation, so used?

We have been citizens and liverymen of London from Richard Blowen, who
married, at {107} the close of the seventeenth century, the sister of Dr.
Hugh Boulter (who became chaplain to George I., and afterwards Lord
Archbishop of Armagh).

BLOWEN.

* * * * *

Replies.

TOUCHSTONE'S DIAL.

(Vol. ii., p. 405.; vol. iii., p. 52.)

How is it that Mr. Knight, who so well and so judiciously exposes the
absurdness of attempting to measure out a poet's imaginings by
rule-and-compass probability, should himself endeavour to embody and
identify Touchstone's dial--an ideal image--a mere peg on which to hang the
fool's sapient moralizing.

Surely, whether it was a real moving animated pocket watch, that was
present to the poet's mind, or a thumb ring dial, is an inquiry quite as
bootless as the geographical existence of a sea-coast in Bohemia, or of
lions and serpents in the forest of Ardennes.

When Thaliard engages to take away the life of Pericles if he can get him
within his "pistol's length," are we seriously to inquire whether the
weapon was an Italian dagger or an English firearm? or are we to debate
which of the interpretations would be the lesser anachronism?

B