“27 Hen.  VIII.  Michaelm. 
  Bive lambes at xvid. the pece. 
  Chote lambes at xiid. the pece.”

T.W.

Anecdote of the Civil Wars.

Horace Walpole alludes to an anecdote of a country gentleman, during the
Civil Wars, falling in with one of the armies on the day of some battle
(Edgehill or Naseby?) as he was quietly going out with his hounds. 
Where did Walpole find this anecdote?

C.

A Political Maxim—­when first used.

Who first used the phrase—­“When bad men conspire, good men must combine”?

C.

Richard of Cirencester

S.A.A. inquires whether the authenticity of Richard of Cirencester, the Monk of Westminster, has ever been satisfactorily proved.  The prevailing opinion amongst some of the greatest antiquaries has been that the work was a forgery by Dr. Bertram, of Copenhagen, with a view of testing the antiquarian knowledge of the famous Dr. Stukeley; of this opinion was the learned and acute Dr. Whittaker and Mr. Conybeare.  It is also further worthy of mention that some years since, when the late Earl Spencer was in Copenhagen, he searched in vain for the original manuscript, which no one there could tell him had ever existed, and very many doubt if it ever existed at all.

Lord Erskine’s Brooms.

When and where was it that a man was apprehended for selling brooms without a hawker’s licence, and defended himself by showing that they were the agricultural produce of Lord Erskine’s property, and that he was Lord E.’s servant?

GRIFFIN.

John Bell of the Chancery Bar.

When did John Bell cease to practise in the Court of Chancery, and when did he give up practice altogether, and when was the conversation with Lord Eldon on that subject supposed to have take place?

GRIFFIN

Billingsgate.

Mr. Editor—­Stow, in his Survey of London, with reference to Billingsgate, states, from Geoffrey of Monmouth, “that it was built by Belin, a king of the Britons, whose ashes were enclosed in a vessel of brass, and set upon a high pinnacle of {94} stone over the same Gate.” ...  “That it was the largest water Gate on the River of Thames.” ...  “That it is at this day a large water Gate,” &c.  Can you, Mr. Editor, or any of your respected correspondents, refer me to any drawing or description of the said Gate?

WILLIAM WILLIAMS.

Rood Lane, Nov. 24. 1849.

Family of Pointz of Greenham.

Mr. Editor,—­Can any of your readers inform me if that branch of the ancient family of Pointz, which was seated at Greenham, in the parish of Ashbrittle, in Somersetshire, is extinct, and when the male issue failed?  Some of them intermarried with the Chichesters, Pynes, and other old Devonshire families.