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it is difficult to tell which. The name Richards is beautifully written, and might be of the early part of this century. The name occurs again in the body of the work, twice in the margin, but the writing is more that of seventeenth century. John Yester is apparently old. A. Sharps was my great-grand mother, living, I believe, in Wiltshire about 1799. H. MORPHYN.

FAMILY RECORDS (7th S. vii. 68).—The name of Hugh Tirell, as well as that of Adam de Hereford, occurs in Camden's list of the English who went to Ireland in 1170 with Dermot, King of Leinster. Thomas de Hereford married Beatrix, daughter of Theobald, first Baron Butler, and received "a large estate in marriage" from her father (Rothe's 'Register'). CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield, Reading.

OMNIBOATS ELECTROLIER (7th S. vi. 466).— Electrolier is not quite such a recent addition to the English language as MR. E. H. MARSHALL seems to suppose. It was freely used during the Electric Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1882. I sent Dr. Murray a quotation for the word from the notice of that exhibition in the Athenæum of April 22, 1882. JOHN RANDALL.

CLASPS (7th S. vii. 68).-The clasp with the gold medal mentioned in the G.O. of Oct. 7, 1813, to which MR. APPERSON refers, was undoubtedly the first ever issued with a medal awarded by the Crown. It is possible, however, that amongst the sundry and manifold decorations which were, I believe, in vogue in certain regiments prior to 1813 there may have been some which took the form of clasps or tablets, either attached to medals or worn alone. The idea of the clasp may not, therefore, have been altogether an original one on the part of the authorities in 1813. The medal for the Sikh war of 1845 was the first silver medal that had clasps attached to it.

M. O.

they fired in battle. His reply was, "They didn't to fust [at first], but they larnt." And opposed as they were to men who aimed as if firing at still game, they well may have found it needful to larn to do the same. My memory is that he told us that the British fired from the position of " charge bayonets."

There is an old engraving extant of the "Boston Massacre," a collision between some of the British soldiers in garrison here, March, 1770, and a mob. This engraving represents six or eight soldiers with their muskets levelled in the act of firing. The pieces are held against the left (!) shoulder, but the men are not aiming. Their heads are erect, and faces square to the front. This engraving must have been made between 1770 and 1775. Baron Stubin's tactics for the American army, adopted 1779, direct a careful aim. F. J. PARKER.

Boston, Mass.

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ASTARTE says that Sir Walter Scott has often been laughed at for having represented mass as This word does not occur in the Military Dic-said in the evening. If the allusion is to the followtionary' published in the "British Military ing couplet in the introduction to the sixth canto Library," 1798-1801. Liverpool.

J. F. MANSERGH.

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of

Marmion,'

On Christmas eve the bells were rung;

On Christmas eve the mass was sung,

Scott has anticipated the laughers, as he adds a note to the effect that "in Roman Catholic councries mass is never said at night except on Christmas Eve." Whether this is actually so or not your Roman Catholic readers will know better than I do; but I can scarcely suppose that Scott has made a mistake in so simple a matter.

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

CASTOR GO-CART (7th S. iv. 507; v. 54, 294, 493; vi. 93, 190).-DR. CHANCE suggested that these were named from their use for "casting" pepper, salt, &c. I differed from him; but just now referring to Ben Jonson for another purpose,

my eye caught the following passage in 'Cynthia's Revells.' Cupid says to Mercury :

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"Now you are on earth, we shall haue you filch spoones and candle-sticks, rather than faile: pray Jove the perfum'd courtiers keep their casting-bottles, picktooths, and shittle-cocks from you; or our more ordinarie gallants their tobacco-boxes, from I am strangely jealous of your nailes."-Ben Jonson, 1640, vol. i. p. 162.

I felt, in common fairness, I could not do less than publish this extract, which supports DR. CHANCE's theory.

Boston, Lincolnshire.

R. R.

CHURCH STEEPLES (7th S. v. 226, 393, 514; vi. 77, 158).—Anent this subject the following may be of interest. It is from the pen of "Morien," who investigates, in the Western Mail, the origin of the Welsh plygain, an early service on Christmas morning:

"It seems to me beyond question that pulglain is pullcano of the Latin, slightly altered, and to mean the crowing of the young bird. In ancient Latin and Greek mythology the cock was sacred to the dawn. Hence the custom of placing cocks on the tops of church spires, &c. Indeed, the sun itself is represented on many ancient gems as a young cock. Payne Knight states, Weathercocks......though now only employed to show the direction of the wind, were originally emblems of the sun, for the cock is the natural herald of the day.' Therefore, the expression pull-cano, made use of after midnight at Christmas-the dawn of the new year-conveyed to the mind then the idea that the sun of the new year was coming. The cock is intimately associated, too, in the Welsh mind with the dawn of the new year. From their earliest childhood the Welsh children are told that that day lengthens Cam ceiliog' (the step of a cock)." ARTHUR MEE.

Llanelly.

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66

A “PRAY " (7th S. vii. 66).—Your correspondent A. J. M. calls attention to the use of the word pray as current in the county of Surrey. He likewise tells us that the word means a long footbridge crossing a ford or a bit of meadow-land that is apt to be flooded." Finally, he says that he has spelt it phonetically, having never seen it written. I am able to supply the "missing link" from an entry in the Ordnance map of the county of Somerset, and I venture to think that my information may be of some interest to your readers. In the centre of the forest of Exmoor, where, at a wild spot, the infant Exe emerges from a well-known and rather dreaded locality yclept "the Chains," the tiny stream is crossed by a bridge leading directly up a steep hill, the road along which has from time immemorial been known as Praynay. As such it has appeared on the old Ordnance maps of the county of Somerset. Probably the long footbridge, the "pray" of which your correspondent speaks, was the original bridge at this wild spot when pack-roads were universal in this part of England; but for some years the road crosses the stream by a wheel-bridge, though retaining the appellation derived from the more ancient struc

ture. It seems to be an interesting case of a survival which might naturally be looked for in a district like Exmoor, which retains to this day many of the peculiar characteristics noticed in the times of the Plantagenet kings. W. H. HALLIDAY.

Glenthorne, Lynton.

Pray is used as a verb in Suffolk, meaning "to lift up." I have seen in southern counties many such a foot-bridge as A. J. M. describes, made to hinge over or lift away from its position when refield or meadow to another over small brooks. May quired, or to prevent passage of animals from one not the verb have been used as a noun? I see Wright gives pray as "a herd of cattle driven from a common pasture and impounded." The removal of such a bridge would, of course, tend to keep the cattle in one pasturage. R. W. HACKWOOD.

JOSEPH FORSYTH (7th S. vi. 469).—In the late Mr. Young's 'Annals of Elgin,' p. 687, is the following:

"Ann Harrold, the second wife of Mr. Alexander Forsyth, was the daughter of Mr. Harrold, tenant at Mill of Dallas. He went to Perthshire with Mr. Cuming of Craigmill, and took a farm from the Duke of Perth, and, along with Mr. Cuming, he followed the Duke in the unfortunate Rebellion in 1745. With Mr. Cuming he was present at the Battle of Culloden in April, 1846, where both were taken prisoners. Mr. Harrold was put on board ship at Inverness, to be carried to England for trial, where, doubtless, he would have suffered with other prisoners, but he died on the passage." J. A. C.

LORD LISLE'S ASSASSINATION (7th S. vi. 467; vii. 16).—John Lisle was one of the judges of Charles I., one of Cromwell's lords, and a commissioner of the Parliamentary Great Seal. His widow, Lady Alicia Lisle, was one of the victims of Judge Jeffreys. In spite of a jury bringing her in "Not Guilty "three times, she was at last found "Guilty of High Treason" on a frivolous charge, and put to death at Winchester in 1685. "All the favour the king would grant her was to change her sentence from Burning to Beheading." See Rapin's 'Hist.' (1732), vol. ii. P. 750; Kennet's 'Hist.' (1719), vol. iii. pp. 192, 433, and 566. "The Last Speech of the Lady Providences,' part i. chap. cxliii., but she does not Alicia Lisle" is given in Turner's 'Remarkable mention her husband in it. J. F. MANSergh. Liverpool.

DR. GUILLOTIN (5th S. i. 426, 497; 7th S. vi. 230, 292; vii. 11).—The original maiden, the precursor of the guillotine, and by which its introducer the Regent Morton was decapitated in 1581, may be seen at the present day in the museum of the Scottish Antiquarian Society in Princes Street, Edinburgh. There is an engraving of it, accompanied by a description, in Chambers's 'Book of Days,' vol. i. p. 728. Of its use, or rather disuse,

Major Galbraith of Garschattachin observes in 'Rob Roy,' the probable date of which is 1715:— "But this world winna last lang, and it will be time to sharp the maiden for shearing o' craigs and thrapples. I hope to see the auld rusty lass linking at a bluidy harst again."-Chap. xxix.

An appended note explains the maiden to be "a rude kind of guillotine formerly used in Scotland." JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

CROMWELL FAMILY, U.S. (7th S. vi. 489).-Bowditch (Suffolk Surnames,' Boston, U.S., 1861) gives Cromwell amongst names extinct in Boston. C. C. B. MARRIAGE ONLY ALLOWED AT CERTAIN TIMES OF THE YEAR (7th S. vii. 6).-In the Roman Catholic Church in England "the solemn celebration of marriages is forbidden from Ash Wednesday till after Low Sunday, and from the first Sunday in Advent till the day after the Epiphany." See the 'Catholic Directory,' 1889, p. 7.

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I do not know how far the Roman Catholic Directory' was published, but in every annual issue is the following notice :

"MARRIAGES.-The solemn celebration of marriages is forbidden from Ash Wednesday till after Low Sunday, and from the first Sunday in Advent till the day after the Epiphany."

I have seen this rule versified, but cannot re-
member where.
E. WALFORD, M.A.

Bray's 'History of Surrey,' vol. iii. p. 170; and in
a note on p. 140 of the same volume a like tradition
is recorded as to Ludwell in Farnham. A notice
will be found of it in Grose's' Antiquities,' vol. v.
p. 112. In Brayley's History of Surrey,' 1841,
vol. v. p. 297, there is a representation given of it;
and in Murray's 'Handbook to Surrey,' under
"Frensham," route 11, it is also noticed.
G. L. G.

A full account of this will be found in Thomas
Allen's History of Surrey,' vol. ii. p. 243 (London,
J. T. Hinton, 1831; also in Salmon's 'Antiquities
of Surrey.' The latter says:-

"It need not raise any man's wonder for what use it to be seen; as well as very large spits, which were given was, there having been many in England, till very lately, for the entertainment of the parish at the wedding of poor maids." W. R. TATE.

Walpole Vicarage, Halesworth.

COUNT LUCANOR (7th S. vi. 199, 289, 353; vii. 55).-R. R. asks whether MR. TROLLOPE would be surprised to hear that this version of the story which he remembers appeared in Bentley's Miscellany, 1839, under the title of "The Patron King,' by Mrs. Trollope. Yes! in truth, I had totally forgotten, as I said, where I had heard it. Of course my recollection of it came from the source indicated by R. R. I had equally forgotten the fact that my mother had ever written it. I have no idea where

she met with it. T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

Budleigh Salterton.

Wimbledon.

7, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W. FRENCH TWENTY-FRANC PIECE (7th S. vii. 49). MOTHER LUDLAM'S CAULDRON (7th S. vii. 29).-M. Madier de Montjau, speaking in the French -Mother Ludlam (Ludlum or Ludlow) was a Chamber on January 31 last, is reported to have white witch, who assisted her neighbours by lend- said with reference to the Boulangists that they ing them such culinary utensils and household were conspiring for "the sort of Government that furniture as they wanted for particular occasions. existed when Napoleon ordered coins to be struck The business was thus transacted. The petitioner having on one side the words 'Republique Franwent to her residence (a cave, popularly known as çaise, and on the other Napoleon, Emperor of Mother Ludlam's Hole) at midnight, turned three the French"" (Daily News, February 1, p. 6, col. i.). times round, and thrice repeated aloud 66 Pray GEO. L. APPERSON. Mother Ludlam lend me such a thing [naming the utensil], and I will return it within three days." The following morning it would be found at the entrance to the cave. The cauldron concerning which your correspondent inquires was borrowed after this fashion, but the borrower failed to return it within the stipulated time. Mother Ludlam, irritated at this want of punctuality, refused to take it back at all, and from that day to this has discontinued her loans. The cauldron was deposited in Waverley Abbey, whence, at the dissolution of the monasteries, it was removed to Frensham Church. WALTER HAINES.

Faringdon, Berks,

ANON. will find a full account of this vessel in Aubrey's 'History of Surrey,' vol. iii. pp. 366-7; in Salmon's 'Surrey,' p. 139; in Manning and

with the republic, only followed the example of the Napoleon the Great, in associating his empire Roman emperors, especially that of the first four Cæsars, who endeavoured to keep up all the forms whilst they strove to do away with all the liberty of the republic.

JULIUS STEGGALL.

vi. 468; vii. 56).—Under this heading may perBURIAL OF A HORSE WITH ITS OWNER (7th S. haps be mentioned the case of Dr. Cross, hanged at Cork on January 10, 1888, for having poisoned

his wife. This criminal was said to have left directions for giving "his body to his hounds and his soul to the devil." The wish was not obeyed, at any rate in the former case.

JULIUS STEGGALL,

STORIES CONCERNING CROMWELL (7th S. vii. 26). It may not be out of place to remind ANON. that the same story is told respecting the Lord Offaly, one of the earliest ancestors of the ducal house of Leinster, who was saved by an ape when the castle of his parents was in flames. Hence the Fitzgeralds to this day bear a monkey for their crest and two apes for their supporters. See Burke's Peerage,' s.v. "Leinster." E. WALFORD, M.A.

7, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W.

MILL'S LOGIC' (7th S. vii. 9).-The outcome of the intention expressed in the late Prof. Jevons's 'Principles of Science' was three articles which appeared in the Contemporary Review of dates December, 1877, April, 1878, November, 1879. They were never published separately. For some of the impression made by them on students of philosophy see Mind, vol. iii., 1878.

A. W. ROBERTSON.

LIQUID GAS (7th S. vi. 448; vii. 37).-What MR. STEGGALL describes as liquid gas is probably what was known in London about 1824-7 as portable gas, manufactured by the Portable Gas Co. The coal gas companies had for competitors this company and the oil gas companies. The portable gas was, as he states, sent out in iron cylinders with hemispherical heads, and were replaced when empty. In fact, gas was served to the houses like milk. I do not remember the special contrivance for lighting. It was a very simple matter. At one end was a short tube, with a cock and burner. The portable gas was used mostly by small shopkeepers, and the cylinder being put on end under the counter, the burner was pulled through a hole in the counter and lighted. The arrangement was therefore very simple, and it dispensed with gas fittings, then very costly and frequently very bad. It was difficult to get tubing which would make a bend, and escapes were therefore common. Besides, the cylinder was its own meter. So far as I remember, the collapse of the Portable Gas Co. and of the oil gas companies, which had not been bought up by the coal gas companies, was due to what was considered an unexpected and wonderful revolution. The price of coal gas per thousand feet fell from 28s. to 21s., a price with which it was thought impossible to compete. After the death of portable gas, and its utter extinction, it is now to be seen employed for railway carriage lighting, besides the purposes named by your correspondents. HYDE CLARKE.

"TO LEAVE THE WORLD BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT” (7 S. vii. 28).—See Greater London,' p. 132. Timothy Bennet, shoemaker, of Hampton Wick, entered an action against Lord Halifax, the then Ranger of Bushy Park, to re

establish the right of way through the park. He was successful. Died aged seventy-seven, and a mezzotint portrait of him was published with his favourite expression as inscription, "He was unwilling to leave the world worse than he found it." W. S. B.

In default of getting nearer to the origin of this saying, will the following, from Gulliver's 'Voyage to Brobdingnag,' part ii. chap. vi., point in any way to it?

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together." R. W. HACKWOOD.

Dr. Johnson, in his 'Life of Pope' ("Lives of the most Eminent English Poets," vol. iv. p. 189, London, 1781), says: "Perhaps neither Pope nor Boileau has made the world much better than he found it." W. R. TATE.

Walpole Vicarage, Halesworth.

WORDSWORTH'S 'ODE TO THE CUCKOO' (7th S. vii. 67).—I cannot see the difficulty in translation which is mentioned. Vox is certainly applicable, for when the Lacedæmonian plucked the nightingale, on seeing so little substance, he cried out, dová τυ τὶς ἐσσὶ καὶ οὐδεν ἄλλο, “ Vox tu es et nihil præterea" (Plut., 'Opp. Mor.,' "Lacon. Apophth.," Xylandr., fol, p. 233a). The epithet vaga, or errabunda, or errans, when one thinks of the various applications of them in the best writers, may very well go with it. "Errabunda vox" has almost a parallel in the "errabunda bovis vestigia" of Vergil, Ecl.' vi. Vaga seems to suit almost anything. So there is also vagans, or erratica, or fugitiva, as for either metre :—

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Alme nascentis peregrine veris, Lætor audito sonitu, cucule, Aliger, vel si melius voceris, Vox fugitiva.

Or again :

Cucule, avisne, vel vocanda
Vox medio fugitiva cælo.

Quite literally, to keep to the two words.

taken for the cuckoo without the context to exIn English the "wandering voice" would not be ED. MARSHALL. plain it.

Though not in Augustan Latin, some approximation to a rendering is found in post-Augustan Greek, as Plutarch, in his 'Apophthegmata Laconica,' preserves a saying which perhaps may have suggested to our English poet his phrase of the "wandering voice." Among the anonymous sayings, No. xiii. is as follows: Tíλas ris andóva, καὶ βραχεῖαν πάνυ σάρκα ἑυρών, εἶπε, Φωνά τυ τὶς ἐσσί, καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο. "Laco cum plumis lusciniam nudasset, ac parum admodum carnis reperiret, dixit, 'Vox tu es, et nihil præterea'

(p. 233 A, or in Wyttenbach's ed., Oxon, 1795, 8vo., vol. i. p. 929. The above words, which have become proverbial, I have introduced into the following version of Wordsworth's two lines:O, cuckoo shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?

O, cucule, an volucris tu diceris? anne vagaris Tu passim mera vox, prætereaque nihil? Some aspirant for the academical honour of the Hertford or Ireland will, I hope, furnish the Alcaic or Sapphic desiderated in pure Augustan, after a careful study of the fifth fable of Ovid's Metamorphoses,' iii. 350-400, the story of Narcissus and Echo, which may be suggestive of some felicitous turns of expression.

In the General Index to the First Series of 'N. & Q.,' p. 108, add to the references given after "Vox et præterea nihil," 419. W. E. BUCKLEY.

The vague sense of vaga makes it, obviously, an imperfect rendering of "wandering," as applied to a voice. But the same objection would hardly apply, I venture to think, to vagula or vagans. In music we find, for other reasons, the latter used as a name for the "Quinta Vox" in old madrigals, where it was not restricted by rule to a particular register, but wandered at the will of the composer. There was, however, nothing doubtful about it

when once set down.

JULIAN MARSHALL.

Do not Wordsworth's own stanzas meet the point of this query? Vagus or vervagus, applied to the cuckoo's notes, would be no more, if no less, obscure in meaning to the ancient Roman than "wandering" would have been to the modern Briton, in the absence of further explanation in either case; but Wordsworth's stanzas have explained the term for the latter :

From hill to hill it seems to pass,

At once far off and near;

and any Latin rendering of the poem would equally supply the ancient Roman with that explanation. THOMAS J. EWING. Warwick.

CAPT. GEORGE FARMER (6th S. ii. 467, 522; iii. 237; 7th S. iv. 409, 473, 537).-In the above references I have included those notes which appeared in the Sixth Series under the heading of Navel Duel,' as they all relate to Capt. Farmer. My note chiefly concerns the engravings of the naval action fought by Capt. Farmer. At the first reference the engraving is correctly stated to have been after a picture by George Carter, who flourished 1737 to 1794. The picture is entitled 'The Quebec engaging the Surveillante,' and was engraved by James Caldwell (b. 1739). Neither this picture nor the companion picture mentioned by MR. PICKFORD- The Serapis engaging the Bon Homme Richard' -is enumerated amongst his

pictures noticed in the article on Carter in the Dict of Nat. Biog.' Can any one inform me where the original of Carter's picture of the Farmer action is ?

In looking at the seventeenth volume of the 'Dict. of Nat. Biog.' the other day I noticed, s.v. Elliott, William-that this painter also chose for the subject of one of his pictures "The Action between H.M.S. Quebec and Le Surveillant,' and this picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1789. A similiar companion picture by him, entitled 'The Action between H.M.S. Serapis and Le Bonhomme,' was exhibited at the same time. Elliott was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy and a marine painter, and "gained some repute from his paintings of naval actions between 1780 and 1790." He died at Leeds on July 21, 1792, and was a captain at the time of his death. What is known of these two pictures? Are the originals traceable? Have they, or either of them, been engravings be seen? Did Elliott depict the same graved? If so, by whom, and where can the enincident in the action as Carter? These actions painters of the time in which they were fought, seem to have been favourite subjects with the and naturally so. been immortalized by any other painters, either Is it known whether they have contemporary or since? Perhaps some of those correspondents who were kind enough to reply to my previous query may be able and willing to give me some information on the above questions.

A relative of mine has recently bought an engraving of Capt. Farmer's portrait by Murphy after Charles Grignion, jun., similar to the one mentioned in my former query. It was displayed in a printseller's window as 'Amiral Americain ou Anglais,' and was obtained for a small price, thanks to the inability of the vendor to identify it. Perhaps the fact that the original was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1778 as 'A Naval Officer' may account for the description. The engraving was termed a "Belle epreuve avant la lettre," which I suppose implies that it is an original proof before the name was added.

ALPHA.

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