_Serjeants' Rings._--T. P. would be obliged to any of your antiquarian
readers who could inform him, through the medium of your paper, whether
the custom of serjeants-at-law presenting rings with mottoes, on taking
the coif, prevailed so long back as A.D. 1670-80, and, if so, whether
there are any records, or other sources, from which he could ascertain
the motto used by an individual who was admitted to that degree about
that period?
_The Duchess of Cleveland's Cow-pox._--In Baron's _Life of Jenner_, Vol.
i. p. 123., there occurs the following note, extracted from one of Dr.
Jenner's note-books of 1799:
"I know of no direct allusion to the disease in any ancient
author, yet the following seems not very distantly to bear upon
it. When the Duchess of Cleveland was taunted by her companions,
Moll Davis (Lady Mary Davis) and others, that she might soon have
to deplore the loss of that beauty which was then her boast, the
small-pox at that time raging in London, she made a reply to this
effect,--that she had no fear about the matter, for she had had a
disorder which would prevent her from ever catching the small-pox.
This was lately communicated by a gentleman in this county, but
unfortunately he could not recollect from what author he gained
his intelligence."
Can any reader of "N. & Q." supply this missing authority for a fact
which is very important in the history of medicine--if true?