_Zachary Pearce not a Pupil of Busby._--The birth[1] of Zachary (afterwards Bishop) Pearce was prior to the death[2] of the famous Master of Westminster, which took place at the _short_ interval of five years: consequently, it was impossible that the relation of teacher and pupil should exist between them. [Footnote 1: 1690.] [Footnote 2: 1695.] In the Memoir of this prelate, which goes before his _Commentary on the Gospels_, it is expressly stated that he was removed to Westminster School in Feb. 1704. At the same time, his biographer speaks of his being elected to Trinity College, Cambridge, after he had spent six years at Westminster, and "endured the constraint of a grammar school to the twentieth year of his age." Then follows the sentence, "Why his removal was so long delayed, no other reason can be given, than that Dr. Busby used to detain those boys longest under his discipline of whose future eminence he had most expectation; considering the fundamental knowledge which grammar schools inculcate, as that which is least likely to be supplied by future diligence, if the student be sent deficient to the university." Bishop Pearce's biographer was the Rev. John Derby, his chaplain, who could not well be mistaken as to a plain and palpable matter of fact. It is perfectly conceivable, however, that the future prelate was long detained at Westminster School in consequence of a regulation _first_ laid down by Busby, and regularly acted upon by that eminent man. This circumstance will sufficiently explain the apparent incongruity. If I am right in this conjecture, Bishop Pearce must have entered under Knipe.[3] [Footnote 3: Noble's Continuation of _Granger_, Vol. iii. p. 119, &c.] N. _The Poet Gay and his Relatives._--In a letter from the late Bishop Copleston to the Rev. E. Tyler, in Jan. 1839, on the death of his mother at the age of ninety-two (published in his _Memoirs_), he says, "Her father and poet Gay were brothers' sons." H. T. E. Queries. THOMAS BASTARD, AND SONG AGAINST SHEEP-FARMING. The twentieth epigram in the fourth book of _Chrestoleros_, by T. B. (poor Thomas Bastard), printed 1598, is to the following effect: "Sheepe have eate up our medows and our downes, Our corne, our wood, whole villages and townes. Yea, they have eate up many wealthy men, Besides widowes, and orphane childeren: Besides our statutes and our iron lawes, Which they have swallowed down into their maws. Till now I thought the proverbe did but jest, Which said a blacke sheepe was a biting beast."