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in the concrete remains of our buildings of the early ages, is proverbially known. Atmospheric influences have no effect upon it. I have experimentally applied these solutions to the purpose I mention; and, although it is only the lapse of many years that can afford the absolute test of their efficacy, the instantaneous arrest of the decay that was rapidly defacing the building, and which has not reappeared during weather of the most trying kind, convinces me that time will prove the remedy to have been most effectually applied.

Mr. Ransome's discovery is one of the most remarkable instances in our time of the practical result of scientific induction. EXPERTo Crede. Montrose.

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The remarks of W. are worthy of note, especially as to the use of linseed oil. I can speak of its virtue from experience of forty years and more; but when it is applied, the stone should not be in a green state.

In the quotation from the recent Camden volume, in a letter in which the writer speaks of "Lynsede oyle to bed hit," the editor of that volume put a query whether it means bathe. I must differ from him, because to bed a stone is a phrase in common use among masons for setting a stone in its place; and in setting freestone (indeed I believe all stone), it is usual to souse the beds with water. And I would suggest, that instead of sousing with water, the clerk of the works had provided linseed oil to be used in bedding the stones instead of using water; and as the king was to pay, the cost was not heeded. By such a process every stone would be thoroughly saturated with the oil, which would no doubt be a greater preservative of it than merely brushing oil over the surface. Н. Т. ELLACOMВЕ, М.А.

ROMAN GAMES.

(3rd S. iii. 490; iv. 19, &c.)

Will you allow me to answer that part of my own query, under this head, which refers to the κόνταξ κοντανύν, and to apologize for trespassing s0 largely upon CHESSBOROUGH's patience, as well as upon your space: for I find that almost all the

information I required is given by Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (London, 1801, 4to, p. 92); where, speaking of the derivation of the exercise of the Quintain, he refers to this very code of Justinian's (De Aleatoribus), and identifies the KóvTag Kovтavóv, “vibratio Quintana," therein mentioned, with the pet or post Quintain of later times; adding that the words, xwpls Ts TopTns, "sine fibulâ," provided that it should be performed, as I suggested, with pointless spears, contrary to the ancient usage, which required, or at least permitted, them to have heads or points.

This exercise, as in common use among the the Romans, is spoken of at large by Vegetius (Epitome Institutorum Rei Militaris, Paris, 1762, lib. i. cap. xi. et xiv.); and also it would appear by Johannes Meursius (De Ludis Græcorum, in tit. kúvтağ kovтavóv, Florence, 1741), who is, I believe, Van Leeuwen's authority for the statement, that "a Quincto auctore nomen habebat ;" and Du Fresnoy Du Cange, in his Glossarium ad Scriptores Media et Infimæ Latinitatis (Paris, 1733-36, fol., in voce 66 Quintana").

I regret that I have not access to the works of the two last-mentioned authors, and would feel very grateful to any of your correspondents, who are more fortunate in this respect than I am, for an account of the Quintain as given by them.

I would also ask, if the words χωρὶς τῆς πόρπης, "sine fibulâ," do not refer more to the point (cuspis, acies, aixμm, σróμa,) of the weapon, than to the head? If, that is, it were not a spear the morne"-so that it could do no hurt? having a blunt or pointless head—" hedded with

Scaliger's definition of the word "fibula," as used by Cæsar (De B. G., iv. xiv.), is “Corpus durum, oblongum quod ingreditur in foramen aliquod, quasi findat, illud quod perforat" (Cæsar. Commen., 1661, Amstelodami, ex officinâ Elzevirianâ, p. 139, curâ Arnoldi Montani). Pollux (Onomasticon, lib. ix. cap. 7), that the Strutt also tells us, on the authority of Julius Greeks had a pastime called "Hippas" ('Jππás); which was one person riding upon the shoulders curious illustrations of a sport of this kind, as of another, as upon a horse; and gives two very practised in England, at the commencement of the fourteenth century, from MSS. in the Royal (2, B. vii.) and Bodleian (2464, Bod. 264, dated 1344,) Libraries. May this not be the "hippice" (ITTIK) of Justinian's code ? If so, it was a modification of the Ludus Troja; for the performance of which, a single solidus must have been an ample reward. As before, I reserve my "etymological sagacity"! UUITE. Capetown, S. A.

BURTON FAMILY.

(2nd S. iv. 22, 124; ix. 19; 3rd S. v. 73.)

The following memoranda, as showing something of the origin of the Burtons of Westonunder-Wood, the ultimate ownership of their landed estates, the precise way in which those estates passed, and other facts destructive of statements hitherto adopted, may be considered relevant by your correspondent E. H. A.

Francis Burton of Weston-under-Wood, parish of Mugginton, co. Derby, yeoman, was living 13 Jac. I., being then 56 years of age (Add. MS. 6692, p. 261, British Museum.) William Burton was buried at St. Alkmund's, Derby, April 7, 1680. (Parish Register.)

Francis Burton of Weston-under-Wood, gent., was father of one son and two daughters, viz. :I. Francis Burton of Weston-under-Wood, Esq., whose descendants, by his first wife, appear to have been-Francis Burton of Ednaston, gent., died Oct. 9, 1742, aged 70; Richard, his son, died June 3, 1745, aged thirty-six; Mary and Francis (infants) died 1740; John Burton, died Dec. 29, 1708, aged thirty-five, all buried at Brailsford. Margaret Burton (probably widow of one of the fore-named) was buried at Brailsford in 1779. Francis Burton married (secondly ?) Mary Goodwin at St. Alkmund's, March 18, 1682. He was High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1706, and died July 6, 1709, leaving, by Mary his wife, one son:

I. Samuel Burton of Derby, Esq., High Sheriff of the county in 1719, buried at St. Alkmund's. His monumental inscription (according to Glover) reading, in brief, thus:

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ried George Kirk, Esq.; Sophia-Josepha Sikes, married Rev. Hugh-Wade Grey, M.A. 3. Benjamin Sikes, baptised at St. Michael's Aug. 15, 1726, predeceased his father, s. p.

III. Mary Burton, married Ebenezer Crees of Derby, gent., who died March 5, 1691, and was buried at All Saints'. Joseph Sikes, LL.B. of the Chauntry, Newark, thus inherited the estates of the Burtons, situated in the parishes of St. Alkmund, Derby, Brailsford, and other dispersed parts of the county, the value of which estates is considerable. This gentleman had a fancy for adding initials to his name other than those to which he was really entitled. Thus, in one edition of Burke's Commoners, the letters "F.R.S." are so attached.

Your correspondent has asked, "Who was Sir Francis Cavendish Burton?" The answer is an imaginary person, who existed only in the brain of Mr. Sikes, who, instead of ascertaining the real parentage of his grandfather (if he did not know it), made a "short cut," and attached his name at once to the pedigree of Sykes of Leeds, by concocting the marriage of Martha Burton with Richard Sikes, thus imposing upon Dickinson in his Antiquities of Notts, Burke in his Commoners, and Hunter in his Familie Minorum Gentium. The latter is in the British Museum, Add. MS. 24,458, the learned compiler of which, when he found out the hoax, wrote against this particular statement-But this is all a mistake.

As a specimen of what Mr. Sikes could do in the way of "mistakes," allow me to append the following from the Clerical Journal Directory of 1855, the italics being mine:

"Sikes, Joseph, F.S.A., Author of Strictures and Commentary on the much-appreciated Life of the remarkable Dr. Anthony Ashley Sikes, as applied to the insidious 'Characteristics' of his once celebrated namesake Anthony Ashley, second Earl of Shaftesbury."

That the "Strictures and Commentary" would have been a literary curiosity had they existed, the readers of "N. & Q.," will be prepared to

Joseph Sikes, LL.B., died April 21, 1857, leaving his property to Mr. Francis Baines (whose daughter Mr. Sikes had previously adopted), and who is the present owner of the estates of the Burtons, whose heraldic honours he has not appropriated, though he has assumed the name and arms of Sikes.

II. Margaret Burton married William Cham-admit. bers of Derby, gent. She died Nov. 26, 1685, and was buried at All Saints, Derby. Their only child (to survive) Hannah Chambers, married Joseph Sikes of Derby, gent., at St. Alkmund's, April 1722. She was buried at St. Michael's, Derby, May 3, 1751; and he at the same place, May 23, 1752, having made his will April 11 preceding. They had 1. Samuel Sikes, baptised at Alkmund's June 18, 1723; said to have married Sarah Webber; predeceased his father, s. p. 2. Joseph Sikes, of the Chauntry, Newark, heirgeneral of the Burtons, baptised at St. Alkmund's Nov. 14, 1724; married Jane Heron, who died s. p.; and 2. Mary Hurton, by whom he left at his decease, March 10, 1798, Joseph Sikes, LL.B. (of whom presently); Hannah-Maria Sikes, mar

The arms of Cavendish (!) were quartered by the late Mr. Sikes, the imaginary marriage referred to in this letter being the sole foundation for such an absurdity. Rightly or not, the Burtons of Weston-under-Wood used the arms of those of their name at Dronfield; and these Mr. Sikes quartered with something like reason; but their consanguinity (if any) must have been very remote. It is a curious coincidence that a

family named Sykes was contemporaneous with that of Burton, at Dronfield-members of it serving as churchwardens, &c., in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It also terminated in a heir-general in 1799, the estates now vesting in Mr. Robert Sykes Ward. Query: Could there possibly be a common ancestry between Sykes of Dronfield and Sikes of Derby and Newark? In the endeavour to solve this question, the information concerning the Burtons of Weston-underWood was acquired. JAMES SYKES.

STAMP DUTY ON PAINTERS' CANVASS (3rd S. v. 99.) The query of L. F. N. may be thus answered. The excise duty on painters' canvass was levied in July, 1803, under the Printed Linens Act, 43 Geo. III. capp. 68-69. It was one of Pitt's schemes for the maintenance of the war against France. The duty, paid by the colourmen or vendors of the strained canvasses for artists, was threepence-halfpenny the square yard, and the excise officer used to visit their workshops three times in each week, measure the strained canvasses for the amount of duty to which they were liable, and stamp them on the back. The order from the excise Office, for the non-gathering of the duty, was issued on March 17, 1831; stating the duty had ceased on the first of that month. It is idle, therefore, to suppose that any asserted picture by Gainsborough, or Reynolds, having the excise brand on the back, could be painted by artists who were deceased long before: the former in 1788, and the latter in 1792. Several of the supposititious paintings by Sir Joshua, painted during the infliction of the war tax, were doubtless painted by Christopher Pack; of whom some notice will be found in the 1857 volume of Willis's Current Notes, while under the writer's editorial management. J. H. BURN.

London Institution.

SITUATION OF ZOAR (3rd S. v. 117.)- I am very grateful to A. E. L. for the good-natured way in which he has noticed my misdeeds. The article under the head of "Zoar" (Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii. p. 1856, &c.) contains my own conclusions as to the position of the place-if conclusions they can be called on evidence so imperfect. When I wrote the article on "Moab," I had not looked into the question for myself; but accepted without hesitation the positive statements of Robinson and others. I discovered the error some time since, and it will be corrected in the second edition. G. GROVE.

THE OLD BRIDGE AT NEWINGTON (2nd S. xii. 323.)- Allow me again to call attention to the stone inscription, once more threatened with extinction. After I noted on it in "N. & Q." the stone was replaced nearly upon the same site, and

screened by wooden palings; but now new buildings are being erected on the grounds once occupied by the Fishmongers' Almshouses, and I sadly fear the relic of civic jurisdiction will be totally martyred unless some one in authority flies to the rescue.

To those who saved it in its former

peril I address this, and I hope they will assist in its being restored upon as near its former site as possible. Our landmarks are being torn down, but this one should remain to tell of olden times in South London. T. C. N.

MAIDEN CASTLE (3rd S. v. 101.) - The derivation of Maiden from the Celtic Mad, cannot be satisfactorily established, since the word in its primitive form existed in the Teutonic tongues long before the Saxon had come into contact with the Cymry. It is found in the A. S. magd, maid, daughter; maga, son, male relative; Goth., magus, the equivalent of παῖς, τέκνον ; magaths, παρθένος ; Old High Ger., magad; Mod. Ger., magd; Old Frisian, maged, &c. These may all be traced to Sanskrit, Я, madhya, unmarried woman, virgin; but the connection is more apparent than real. Madhya is doubtless derived from

मधु,

madhu, sweetness, honey; Gr., μédv; Lat., mel; A. S., medu; Eng., mead, &c. Mægd, maga, and their congeners, may be traced to Sanskrit, AE, mah, the primary idea of which is "power," but which is also applied in the sense of gignere, particularly in the Teutonic derivatives. (See Bopp, Sans. Gloss., 253; Grimm, Deutsch. Gram., ii. 27; iii. 320.) Originally, then, Maiden, with its male equivalent (now lost), signified blood relations. Grimm derives the Scottish Mac (filius) from the

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LEWIS MORRIS (3rd S. v. 12.)-In the Introduction to the Welsh Poems of Garonwy Owain (Llanrwst, 1860), pp. lxxxv. lxxxvi., there is given some little account of Lewis Morys amongst others who were at all connected with that highly gifted, but unhappy, Welsh writer. As this account of Lewis Morys was drawn up by Dafydd Ddu Eryri, it must have been written a good while ago, probably fifty years. I think that it first appeared in some earlier edition of Garonwy Owain. From it we learn that Lewis Morys was born March 12, 1700, in the parish of Llanfihangel Tre'r Beirdd, in Anglesey, as shown by the register. He was the eldest son of Morys ap Rhisiart Morys and Margaret his wife, who was the daughter of Morys Owen, of Bodafen y Glyn, in the same parish. Lewis Morys, in his early days, followed his father's employment of "cowperiaeth." He afterwards became a land-surveyor, and subsequently obtained a situation in the custom-house at Holyhead; he afterwards was collector at Aberdyfi, in Merioneth. He was long connected with various Welsh literary undertakings, and he bad a reputation amongst his countrymen as an antiquary and scholar. He died April 11, 1765.

Dafydd Ddu Eryri does not mention Lewis Morys's troubles, especially his imprisonment on account of supposed deficiencies in his accounts. He also passes by his quarrels with other literary men. Some curious statements on these subjects I have seen in Welsh Magazines. As he died ninetynine years ago, a son of his can hardly have been recently living at Gwaelod, as MR. JOHN PAVIN LAELIUS.

PHILLIPS Seems to suppose.

The Cambrian Register, vol. ii. 1796, contains a Memoir of Morris, adorned with a portrait, taken from a mezzotinto print, after a drawing by Morris himself. THOMAS PURNELL.

TWELFTH NIGHT: THE WORST PUN (3rd S. v. 38.) The detur pejori, not for the worst "pun," but for the worst conundrum, as our grand master italicises the distinction between the two perpetrations, is mine: I protest myself the Senior Pessime. In 1815, when the Byronic muse was mystifying and tristifying the world, I indited a ballad, which my old friend, John Taylor, of The Sun, got sight of, and inserted therein. Half a stanza will show the bitaurine bellow no less luscinian at Istamboul than Snug the Joiner's leonine roar had been in Athens:

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"When my lord he came wooing to Miss Anne Thrope, He was then a 'Childe' from school;

He paid his addresses in a trope,

And called her his sweet bul-bul:
But she knew not, in the modern scale,
That a couple of bulls was a nightingale," &c.

Some years later Mr. Jerdan noticed my idle joke in his Autobiography, honouring it with the ascription to one of THE SMITHS, I forget which.

Being too conscientious to descend from my "bad eminence," I declared to him its paternity, which he promised to record in a forthcoming edition. Whether this ever forthcame I know not; but if the saddle be put on the right horse by "N. & Q.” I shall rest contented with the tulit alter honores. The conundrum has long been unjustly discredited. Johnson etymologised it "a cant word," and defined it "a low jest, a quibble, a mean conceit,” like the dislocated Hs and supernumerary Rs which have possessed themselves of our theatres. Better justice has, however, been done to this illused term (2nd S. vii. 30), distinguishing it as a play of sentiment, whereas a pun is but a wordplay; and, referring it to the classical etymon, κοινὸν δυοῖν, commune duorum.

EDMUND LENTHAL SWIFTE.

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SIR EDWARD MAY (3rd S. v. 35, 65, 84.) See Burke's Extinct Peerage, p. 611, "May of Mayfield," commencing with Edward May, Esq., the first settler in Ireland, from whom Sir Edward May appears to have been in the fifth descent. Numerous references to pedigrees, in the Harl. MSS., of the Mays of Kent, may be found in Sims's Index to those and other MSS. in the British Museum. R. W.

QUOTATION (1 S. xii. 204).

"Death bath a thousand ways to let out life." offered respecting this quotation is in 2nd S. vii. The only reply which seems to have been slightly varied, are placed in the mouth of Zeno177, and that is unsatisfactory. These words, cia, in Beaumont and Fletcher's play, The Custom of the Country, Act II. Sc. 1:

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Dutch dood-eter (dead-eater), fem. dood-eetster, a TOAD-EATER (2nd S. ii. 424) is, literally, our person, who, to borrow another Dutch expression, "eats one's clothes off one's body," or ears off one's head." In English, the adjective dead in composite words, also assumes the sense of "hopelessness" or "worthlessness," as, for instance, a dead bargain" (for the salesman), a "dead-wind," a "dead-lift," &c.

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Zeyst, near Utrecht.

JOHN H. VAN LENNEP.

CRAPAUDINE (3rd S. iv. 423, 443.)-The answers of R. S. CHARNOCK and W. I. S. HORTON on this

subject very much interested me, and I have been trying to find out something more of its physical properties than was contained in the replies of those gentlemen, but without success. One finds in French dictionaries the word crapaudine translated "toadstone," but what is exactly meant by the word I cannot say for the toadstone is an igneous rock (almost a porphyry), found in Derbyshire, near Matlock, and derives its name from the German todstein (death-stone), because where it occurs the lead lode dies or ceases; therefore, it is plain that, in the sense in which it is now used, it has no connection with crapaud. Mentioning the subject to a friend, I find the word has a great number of meanings. My friend writes to me:

"D'abord en ce qui regarde l'article des Notes and Queries' je crois que la réponse a été concluante: il est évident que l'expression Crapaud Ring' signifie une bague avec une Crapaudine montée en chaton: c'est-àdire, une sardonie ocillée qu'on croyait jadis exister dans la tête de certains crapauds. Mais ce mot Crapaudine (et c'est ce que je vous ai dit) n'a pas rien que ce sens en Français.

"10. Dans un sens mécanique ce mot s'applique à une sorte de sabot en métal (fer ou bronze) creusé pour recevoir le pivot d'une porte, ou l'arbre d'une machine; il a pour synonyme le mot Grenouille.

"20. Dans un sens hydraulique, on appelle Crapaudine une sorte de soupape qui sert à vider les eaux d'un bassin et dont la forme ressemble assez à la crapaudine d'une porte.

"3°. En architecture militaire il a été employé dans le moyen âge pour signifier un engin guerrier, possédant la forme d'un morceau de fer creux, que j'ai pu appeler assez improprement de nom de 'canon' (Dictionnaire d'Architecture de Viollet Leduc)."

Spiers, in his Dictionary, says it also means (Bot.) iron-wort.

The Derbyshire toadstone is a rather coarselygrained dark green rock, amygdaloidal in parts, and sometimes containing small pieces of a white crystalline mineral (calcite ?)-it could not possibly be used for a ring. An account of it will be found, I believe, in Beete Jukes's Geology. Although the name is taken from todstein, I find no rock mentioned as todstein in Blum's Lithologie. I should imagine the stone to be a chrysolite variety, peridot (a dirty green one, peculiarly marked). JOHN DAVIDSON.

THE OWL (3rd S. v. 71.)-Time was when this bird created panics when it made its appearance, and set all the augurs consulting. It certainly has been responsible for much mischief in this way. Except as a great recluse, a meditative character, and having the singular faculty of seeing everything when ordinarily gifted mortals can see nothing, one really wonders how the owl ever came to be regarded as an attribute of the famed goddess of wisdom. But the entry quoted by OXONIENSIS proves, pretty clearly, it had not wiped away its reproach in the seventeenth cen

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This bird met with very rough treatment at the hands of rustics. It was a custom in some parts to hunt and kill owls on Christmas Day. A barn-owl, "screeching" its invocation to Minerva behind a clap-net, could hardly hope for quarter from her village votaries. An allusion to this pastime appears in some Christmas carols.

The prophet has made this bird the symbol of desolation: "The screech-owl* shall rest there." Isaiah xxxiv. 14. F. PHILLOTT.

I fear that many benighted farmers still continue to slay this, one of their best friends, though I know of many honourable exceptions. In the days of Apuleius, poor "Billy Wix" had a worse fate to encounter than being shot first, and then nailed to the barn gable-the polished Greeks crucified him alive! Hear what Apuleius says in the third book of the Golden Ass:

"Quid? quod et istas nocturnas aves, cum penetraverint Larem quempiam, sollicite prehensas foribus videmus adfigi; ut, quod infaustis volatibus familiæ minantur exitium, suis luant cruciatibus." W. J. BERNHARD SMITH.

Temple.

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HERALDIC (3rd S. v. 73.)-The arms inquired for by J. B., Dublin, are those of the family De la Barca, and are derived from those of Leon. They are no doubt derived from some gallant exploit during the wars of the Moors in Spain. The crest, now changed into a blackamoor," was originally a Moor of Spain. This is, of course, attributable to the skill of the herald engravers of a past age. The arms are borne by one of the branches of the family of "Barker;" but I doubt if they could give authority for the assumption. I suppose chevron inverted" is a misprint for invected; and the punctuation of the query is somewhat astounding.

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LATRANS.

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