SKATING IN THE MIDDLE AGES (11 S. v. 27). Fosbroke (Antiquities,' p. 513) remarks:

66 Skating was a great accomplishment of Thialfe in the Edda, and was usual among the Northern and Celtic nations. Olaus Magnus describes the skate as of polished iron, or of the shank-bone of a deer, or sheep, about a foot long. Besides skates, they had wooden shoes with iron points, flexible circles with points sharpened every way into teeth, triangular points of iron, &c. Our ancestors were not only versed in sliding, but used the leg-bones of animals fastened to their shoes, and pushed themselves on with stakes headed with iron. The wooden skates, shod with iron, are said to have been invented in the Low Countries, and certainly introduced here from Holland.'

Skating is mentioned by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus about 1134. The earliest form of skate that we know (Ency. Brit.,' xxv. 166) is that of the bone "runners (still preserved in museums) worn by the primitive Norsemen. Whatever its origin in Great Britain, skating was certainly a common sport in England in the twelfth century, as is proved by an old translation of Fitz-Steven's 'Description of London,' 1180:

"When the great fenne or moore (which watereth the walls of the citie on the North side) is frozen, many young men play on the yce.. asome tye bones to their feete and under their heeles, and shoving themselves with a little picked staffe do slide as swiftlie as a birde flyeth in the

aire or an arrow out of a cross-bow."

At what period the use of metal runners was introduced is unknown, but it was possibly not long after the introduction into Northern Europe, in the third century A.D., of the art of working in iron. Bladeskates were probably introduced here from Holland about 1660; and skating is said to have been made fashionable by the Cavaliers who had been in exile with Charles II. in Holland. That it had become popular with the aristocracy as well as with the people we are told by Pepys :

:

1 Dec., 1662. "Over the park (where I first in my life did see people sliding with their skates, which is a very pretty art)."

Also on 13 Dec. To the Duke [of York], and followed him into the park, where, though the ice was broken and dangerous, yet he would go slide upon his skates, which I did not like, but he slides very well."

The earliest patents are by J. H. Savigny (December, 1784), "for making skates and

fixing them on with more ease, safety, and expedition than hath hitherto been discovered." Also by W. Milward (April, 1819): "My improvement on the skate, and fixing the same, consists of attaching the skate iron to the shoe instead of a wooden sole, to be strapped on the foot as heretofore."

As to when steel skates were first used, compare Sir Walter Scott in 1824, St. Ronan's Well,' chap. iii.: "I thought sketchers were aye made of airn." (Sketch is the Scotch form of "skate.") A steel sole and fittings were introduced improvement by John Rodgers in 1831; but skates made entirely of steel are more modern-perhaps fifty years later. TOM JONES.

66

66

as an

In my edition of Haydn's Dictionary of Dates' (1885) it is stated that skating is mentioned by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus about 1134," after which is a reference to FitzStephen. It also mentions that there are figures of skates in Olaus Magnus's history, printed 1555." 'Chambers's Encyclopædia' records that a bibliography of nearly 300 works relating to skating appeared in N. & Q.' between 1874 and 1881, and a reference to this may assist MR. FORBES SIEVEKING in tracing what he desires. URLLAD.

BIOGRAPHICAL

INFORMATION WANTED

(11 S. v. 28).-1. BARROW.-In the 'Athenæ Oxonienses it is said that Thomas Barrow, the father of Isaac Barrow, Master of Trin. Coll., Camb., was the son of Isaac Barrow of Spinney Abbey, Camb., Esq. This work also mentions Isaac Barrow, Doctor of Physic, who was buried in All Saints' Church, Camb., on 22 Feb., 1616.

The Barrows must have sold Spinney Abbey, as it became the seat of Henry Cromwell, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, after his retirement, and it was there that Charles II. visited him.

Oliver, Henry's eldest son, died there, and his brother Henry, who succeeded to the property, sold it to Edward Russell, Lord Orford.

3. COL. HENRY MORDAUNT CLAVERING died on 18 May, 1850, and was buried on 25 May in Brompton Cemetery. His first wife, Lady Augusta Campbell, died in 1831. He lived with his second wife at Abbeville (France) a long time before he married her she survived him.

4. ROBERT CLAVERING was a son of Sir Thomas Clavering of Greencroft, co. Durham. He was entitled to his name, though

Sir Thomas never owned him. His mother was a Frenchwoman, and lived in Paris. CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield Park, Reading.

2. COL. JOHN HENRY BELLI -This scrap may be of use. John Belli, Esq., of Southampton, who died in 1805, married Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of Samuel Blount, Esq., of that place. He calls Samuel Pepys Cockerell and Charles Cockerell his brothers-in-law, but I do not know how that relationship came about. W. C. B.

BEAUPRÉ BELL (11 S. iv. 528). In the Cole MS. in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 5831, folios 473, 476, will be found memoranda concerning him which may give the required information. Also 5848, folio 259, gives the Beaupré pedigree.

66

Cambridge.

G. J. GRAY.

"SAMHOWD (11 S. iv. 446).-According to the 'E.D.D.' the meaning of sammodithee is the same unto thee," the expression being current as a form of greeting. This differs materially from the example given by MR. RATCLIFFE. I do not find any mention made of the dialect verbs sam and samhowd in the same authority. N. W. HILL. New York.

66

Notes on Books, &c.

The Oxford Shakespeare Glossary. By C. T. Onions, M.A.London, of the Oxford English Dictionary.' (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) WE give the title-page in this case at greater length than usual, for it explains the merits of the present work, and affords good reason for its existence. Of Shakespeare glossaries there are many, but the present is amply justified, for it is primarily the outcome of an analysis of Shakespeare's vocabulary conducted in the light of the results published in the [Oxford] Dictionary." The merits of that great work in analysis have often been commended in our columns, and they are such as command the unqualified praise of every expert. Mr. Onions has worked for fifteen years on the editorial staff of the Dictionary; he has also paid special attention to Warwickshire dialect and to the language of Shakespeare's contemporaries; and, further, he has been able to profit by the labours of a host of critics and commentators who have gone before, and whose help is, we are glad to see, fully recognized. Among these our contributor the late H. C. Hart fully deserves special mention.

Average literary knowledge is not ranked too high, and senses still current have been occasionally illustrated. Our own experience of present-day standards leads us to endorse this procedure as wise. Full references are given to passages in the works, and we regard the volume

as a model of business-like conciseness. It only remains to add that its price is remarkably low. We have not seen the edition on India paper, which costs a little more, but it would, we imagine, make the volume a triumph of compression in every way.

one of

66

meagre

FROM the Cambridge University Press comes. another rich source of illustration of the greatest of our poets in Life in Shakespeare's England, by Mr. John Dover Wilson. The Cambridge Anthologies," compiled Here the framework of facts which we call the life of Shakespeare has been admirably supplemented by extracts from contemporary writers which illustrate the life and manners of the day. The country, the stage, the Court, vagabonds and hibited as they appeared in their characteristic rascals, shopmen and sportsmen all are exguise. The topic of religion is omitted: "The omission, it might be said, is Shakespeare's.. Nothing is more remarkable in his work than its silence concerning the religious life and violent theological controversy of the time." The spelling has been modernized, and the chapters and a large number of the extracts are headed by recall. the quotations from Shakespeare which they

Mr. Wilson's aim is to make his book as attractive and as easy to read as possible, and he has certainly succeeded in making his collection highly to-day has so many advantages unknown to his readable as well as instructive. The student of predecessors a generation earlier that he has little excuse for lack of accomplishment. As for the general reader, learning is brought so close to his door, and made so easy for him, that even he may be induced to read something beyond the newspapers. There are seven illustrations, a glossary of difficult words, and an 'Index of Authors.' Cameo Book - Stamps. Figured and Described by Cyril Davenport, V.D., F.S.A. (Edward Arnold.) THIS handsome and well-printed book is by a master of the subject, and will rank as authoritative. The title is not too clear to the uninitiated. It indicates the use of dies cut for stamping books, the dies belonging to the same category as those used for medals. Cameo stamps leather are, says the author, "produced by means of pressure from sunk dies of wood or metal, the design showing in low relief." They are, as a rule, larger than medal or coin dies, and rectangular in outline. Mr. Davenport gives us details of the technical methods of stamping, colouring, and gilding, the last a process of some difficulty to attain permanent and satisfactory results. The term 23 cameo has long been applied to the early Italian stamp in relief, but might also be applied, the author thinks, to the same class of stamp from the Netherlands, England, France, and Germany. 66 Embossed is an equally descriptive term, as is remarked, and perhaps clearer.

on

The illustrations, of which, with the descriptions attached to them, the book is composed, are admirably rendered, and the result of much care and forethought. First, the author made rubbings which gave the general distribution and proportion of the stamps, though by no means a complete impression. These he then supplemented with carefully drawn outlines copied

from the stamps themselves. These renderings he regards as superior to photography, which does not on the whole show adequate results, owing to the different incidences of lighting.

The 151 examples figured are mainly drawn from the British Museum. There are, however, a few good specimens from private hands. Mr. Davenport will be glad to hear of more cameo stamps, large or small, with a view to making drawings of them, provided that they do not contain copies or obvious adaptations of the designs he has here put before us. His book being provided with full indexes, and arranged alphabetically according to subject, there should be no difficulty in tracing all that he supplies. The designs include fine heads of Alexander the Great and Cato the Elder, Augustus with a Sibyl, the arms of Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Arragon, and George Carew, Earl of Totnes, a bust portrait of Queen Elizabeth, and several heads of Luther. There is a beautiful floral design with a rose as centre, dated 1499, but most of the stamps are of the century after.

Mr. Davenport gives short accounts of the life of figures so well known as Lucretia, Cleopatra, and Cicero. He does not, however, provide much assistance to the average reader in his renderings of the Latin mottoes, which are often a little loose. In No. 48 (1 Cor. xv. 55) we might be led to suppose that "inferne means "O! grave." Many of the inscriptions are metrical in form, and so help the scholar. Thus we have no difficulty in supplying "eris " after "certus at the end of No. 102 to complete the sense, and find it actually occurring in No. 104. In neither is "certus or "certus eris" rendered. Our author is, of course, fully equipped in these matters, but we think he might consider those who are not.

IN the February Cornhill Magazine Sir Henry Lucy continues his reminiscences, collected under the title of Sixty Years in the Wilderness,' some four pages of which are devoted to the attitude taken by The Daily News in the case of Sir Charles Dilke, and include a letter from Lady Dilke. Mr. Stephen Gwynn's Farewell to the Land' is particularly good reading; if there is something of Utopia about it, this nevertheless surrounds a kernel of satisfactory experience. Many people must have wondered with regret how it happened that "Lanoe Falconer's" career as a writer was so brief: the explanation is here supplied by Mrs. March Phillips in an interesting and sympathetic memoir of her. There is a letter, dated from Hamburg in 1799, relating a meeting between the writer and Cléry, valet to Louis XVI., giving Cléry's account of the King's disposition at the time of his execution. Miss Jane H. Findlater's story Mysie had a Little Lamb is somewhat spun out, but has her characteristic humour.

IN The Fortnightly Review for February, Mr. Sydney Brooks's Aspects of the Religious Question in Ireland' is the political article which is at once the liveliest and of the most permanent general interest. He argues that those Unionists who desire to see Ireland freed from "the tyranny of the Church" have no hope but in Home Rule. Mr. Machray's discussion of The Fate of Persia' gives clearly and succinctly the external moves which have brought about the present situation between

that country, Russia, and ourselves. Most readers will turn to Mr. John Galsworthy's Vague Thoughts on Art,' where they will find a new definition of Art, a discussion of the Realist and the Romantic as the two fundamentally different forms of Art, and a good deal in the way of hopeful prognostication. The Whirligig of Men,' by Mr. P. H. W. Ross, is a somewhat strangely written, but suggestive contribution to international think ing. The practice of " mercifulness" by a nation— whereof treatment of the Jews affords a convenient test-is held to be a factor in national predominance more or less on a level with advantages of climate and position. Mr. F. G. Aflalo has a very entertaining and sympathetic paperDiana of the Highways'-on women travellers and explorers.

He

MR. MYER D. DAVIS.-After a somewhat protracted illness this fine Hebraist, an old contributor to these columns, passed away in his home in Brondesbury on 12 Jan., at the age of 81. was born on 19 Nov., 1830, in the East End of London, and educated at the Jews' Free School, where he rose to become the senior Hebrew master and conductor of the Talmud Torah classes. One of his most distinguished pupils was Mr. Israel Zangwill. In every quarter of the globe there are men to-day holding high mercantile and professional appointments who were among his pupils, with many of whom he kept up correspondence. His great forte was Anglo-Jewish history. Mr. Lucien Wolf considers him the father of that new science. He was a contributor to many journals on his favourite subject, including The Jewish Chronicle, the defunct Jewish Record, and The Jewish World, of which he was for some years editor. In 1888 he published his well-known volume of Shetaroth' (Hebrew title-deeds). is said he had a real genius for friendship. At any rate, his was a most genial personality, with He was a great pious and unaffected manners. favourite with young men, whom he loved to stimulate into literary activity, and was esteemed by a large circle for his sincerity, kindly nature, and genuine modesty.

M. L. R. BRESLAR,

Notices to Correspondents.

It

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for pub. cation, but as a guarantee of good faith.

WE beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print, and to this rule we can make no exception.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately, nor can we advise correspondents as to the value of old books and other objects or as to the means of disposing of them.

B. B.-Forwarded.

A. GWYTHER. Many thanks for reply, which has been forwarded to inquirer.

MR. S. S. MCDOWALL writes thanking MR. STAPLETON for his reply on the Coltman family (ante, p. 58), and would be glad to learn where he could procure copies of the MS. and of the pamphlet there referred to.