_Lines quoted by Charles Lamb._--There are some lines quoted by Charles Lamb in one of the _Essays of Elia_: I am very anxious to know whose they are:
"Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines, Curl me about, ye gadding vines, And oh! so close your circles lace That I may never leave this place. But, lest your fetters prove too weak, Ere I their silken bondage break, Do you, oh briars! chain me too, And courteous brambles nail me through!"
_Descendants of Dr. Bill._--Are there any records extant of the family or descendants of Dr. Bill, whose name is first on the list of those who drew up the Prayer-Book, tempus Edward VI.? He was also Lord Almoner to Queen Elizabeth. Dr. Bill's only daughter and heiress, Mary Bill, was married to Sir Francis Samwell: had she any family, and did they assume the name of Bill?
Did a branch of the family settle in Staffordshire, and where?
"_The Rebellious Prayer._"--Can any of your readers inform me whether some stanzas entitled "The Rebellious Prayer" have ever yet appeared in print, and, if so, in what collection of poems they are to be met with? The opening lines are as follows:
"It was a darken'd chamber, where was heard The whisper'd voice, hush'd step, and stifled sounds Which herald the deep quietness of death," &c.
They describe the anxious watchings of a wife at the sick couch of her husband. In her agony she prays that his life may be spared, at whatever cost: her prayer is granted, and her husband is restored, but bereft of reason.
_Ravenshaw and his Works._--Can any of your readers give me information, or refer me to any works, of John Ravenshaw, who was ejected from Holme-Chapel[2] under the Act of Uniformity? He is described by Calamy as having been a good scholar, and possessing a taste for poetry.
[Footnote 2: Or Church-Holm, in Cheshire.]
_Yolante de Dreux_ (Vol. vi., pp. 150. 209.)--J. Y. has given this queen's second marriage, but not the date or the names of her issue. I am aware that her husband Arthur II. (not I.) was Duke of Bretagne, 1305-12, and that her only son John III., born 1293, succeeded; but the names and marriages of her five daughters still remain unnoticed, as also any notices of her father the _Count of Dreux_, or of her mother.