I am led to write to you on this subject, by having observed, a few days since, in the collection at Blenheim, two portraits by Paul Veronese, of persons unknown.  There may be many such, and that of Sir Philip Sidney may yet be identified.

STEUART A. PEARS.

Harrow, Sept. 6.

Confession.—­You would much oblige if you could discover the name of a Catholic priest, in {297} German history, who submitted to die rather than reveal a secret committed to him in confession?

U.J.B.

Scotch Prisoners at Worcester.—­In Mr. Walcott’s History of St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, I find the following extract from church wardens’ accounts:—­

“1652.  P’d to Thos.  Wright for 67 loads of soyle laid on the graves in Tothill Fields, wherein 1200 Scotch prisoners, taken at the fight at Worcester, were buried; and for other pains taken with his teeme of horses, about mending the Sanctuary Highway, when Gen. Ireton was buried.”

I have taken the pains to verify this extract, and find the figures quite correctly given.  I wish to put the Query:  Is this abominable massacre in cold blood mentioned by any of our historians?  But for such unexceptionable evidence, it would appear incredible.

C.F.S.

Adamson’s Reign of Edward II.—­

“The Reigns of King Edward II., and so far of King Edward III., as relates to the Lives and Actions of Piers Gaveston, Hugh de Spencer, and Roger Lord Mortimer, with Remarks thereon adapted to the present Time:  Humbly addressed to all his Majesty’s Subjects of Great Britain, &c., by J.  Adamson.  Printed for J. Millar, near the Horse Guards, 1732, and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, price One Shilling.”

The above is the title-page of a little work of eighty-six pages in my possession, which I am inclined to think is scarce.  It appears to be a defence of the Walpole administration from the attacks of the Craftsman, a periodical of the time, conducted by Amhurst, who was supported by Bolinbroke and Pulteney, the leaders of the opposition.  Is anything known of J.  Adamson, the author?

H.A.E.

Sir Thomas Moore.—­Can any of your readers give any account of Sir Thomas Moore, beyond what Victor tells of him in his History of the Theatre, ii. p. 144., “that he was the author of an absurd tragedy called Mangora (played in 1717), and was knighted by George I.”

In Pope’s “Epistle to Arbuthnot,” he writes—­

  “Arthur, whose giddy son leglects the laws.”

on which Warburton notes—­

  “Arthur Moore, Esq.”