In 1732 the pamphlet was issued reset, but with identical lines and pagination, only a different title-page being provided. It read : "Truth in Rhyme, To suit the Time; or, The This is aimed at the Select Vestry of St. Copies of these pamphlets are before me, but, unless the announcement is itself a satire, In the second there was a still further issue. edition of that scarce work 'Love at First Sight; or, The Gay in a Flutter,' 1751, the following appears as a supposed advertisement culled from some newspaper of recent issue : After the Whitsun-Holidays will be publish'd. A Parochial Print ; representing a General Vestry, as it was held on Easter-Monday last in the Parish Church of Saint Andrew Undershaft, Leadenhall Street, London, in which the Characters of the Persons there present, who held up their Hands in Defence of an antient favourite Custom of theirs, viz., Gutling and Winebibing at the Expence of their Neighbours; against Justice and Humanity towards the Poor, will be carefully Executed by an Eyewitness," &c. In transcribing I have filled in the hyphens, as the identity of the place is unmistakable. Probably there were other issues of the pamphlet; if so, they would be worth noting in these pages, both for the historians of the local Poor Law administration and chroniclers of the parishes at which they are aimed. 2 The N.E.D., s.v. guttler, quotes the 1732 pamphlet as the second example of the word, but the edition of 1722 should have ALECK ABRAHAMS. been cited. ROYAL BILLIARD TABLES.-It would seem that the first billiard table set up was for Prince Henry in 1606-7. It is classified in the Wardrobe Accounts among "Divers necessaries " : "To Henry Waller for a Billiard Board of Walnutt tree covered with green cloth, with four great Virralls' of iron, £17. To him for three great Skrowes of wood to make the position of the table higher or lower, 88. to be the same size and fashion with that of Denmark House, and to be set up at St. James's. Sept. 21, 1631.' Another warrant of the same date for a billiard board to be set up at Whitehall follows this, L. C. V. 93, p. 266 : : "Billiard Balls.-A warrant to ye great Wardrobe, for three dozen of Billiard Balls of Ivory perfectly round, and fifteen boxes of Amber, Jet, and Ivory for pictures in ye Cabinett at St. James, to bee made by John Reeve. Feb. 14, 1632." A warrant to Nicholas Read, his Majesties Thereafter the King is in the wilderness, and no records are kept of London palaces, C. C. STOPES. because there was no Lord Chamberlain. "SPINNEY." 66 a This interesting word, Perhaps the earliest meaning a copse (see 'E.D.D.'), is not given in my Dictionary. quotation for it is from Gawain and the Grene Knight,' 1. 1709, where it is spelt spenné. It is adapted from the AngloFrench espinei, from Lat. spinētum. Cotthicket, grove, or ground full of thorns, a grave gives the equivalent F. espinoye, the Latin words that had entered into thorny plot." Spinetum is included amongst called place-names before the Norman Conquest in MacClure's 'British Place-Names,' p. 118, merely because there is a place Spinney in Cambs; but the name de Spineto of Spinney,' is only a Latinized form for and I cannot find this name earlier than 1228. From Roman times to 1200 is about 800 years, and the Romans did not speak French. WALTER W. SKEAT. MEREDITH'S LAST POEMS.'-In one of the Last four fragments among Meredith's A wilding little stubble Poems,' beginning flower," the last word of 1. 2 is in the obvious position to rime with "street" (1. 4), which it Now I wish to draw attenas obviously fails to do, the word printed being corn." tion to the fact that no verse-maker, and decidedly no great poet, would hesitate to when these are as lightly fulfilled as in the fulfil the simplest laws of euphony, especially present instance, duty and inclination going as it were hand-in-hand. Nothing is more likely than that Meredith jotted down the little verse from memory, and considering at that moment only the sense, apart from for wheat," the sound, substituted as by a slip of the mind. Such a blunder 66 corn 22 "MORAL POCKETHANDKERCHIEFS." (See 9 S. v. 147, 423.)—An article upon My New Dickens Discoveries,' by Mr. C. Van Noorden, which appeared in The Evening News for 1 Nov., 1909, thus concluded:"What I have not yet found is a moral pockethandkerchief.' I have advertised and in - 6 quired everywhere without result, but I yet "in the shops one meets with Free Trade and POLITICIAN. HERTFORDSHIRE PARISH REGISTERS.For purposes of reference I have prepared an Index Nominum to Mr. W. P. W. Phillimore's second volume of Hertfordshire Marriage Registers, comprising the parishes of Ardeley, Bennington, Datchworth, Graveley, Knebworth, Shephall, Walkern and Watton. This index is freely at the service of any one calling, or inquiries will be answered if a stamped addressed envelope is enclosed. Bishop's Stortford. W. B. GERISH. The first is of the familie of Amsterdam ; She beares for her Armes in a field of Tolleration, three Jewes heads proper, with as many blew Capps in them. The second is of the house of Geneva; She beares for her armes in a field of Separation marginall notes, and the Bible false quoted. The fourth and last is Scotland; She beares "PLOUGH INN " AT LONGHOPE.-On this inn sign, at the east end of the village of Longhope, Glos., are the following inscriptions. The house is situated at the foot of a hill. On one side the sign is :Before the hill you do get up, Stop and take a cheerful cup. Legendary Lore of the Birch.-The silvery ere he strips it for his little bark. This word 'bark,' as applied to a boat, dates back to those bark of this, our most beautiful, tree has attracted notice from the earliest times, for the birch tree is literally the bark tree. The Northern Europeans and the North American Indians made canoes of the bark, which is more durable than the wood; MOCK COAT OF ARMS.-It is a not un-and Hiawatha chants an invocation to the tree common thing nowadays to devise coats of arms for satirical purposes, such as those contributed to Punch some years ago by Mr. E. T. Reed. I have recently come across a seventeenth-century example of this form of wit, which will probably interest not a few readers of N. & Q. It occurs in the commonplace book of Sir J. Gibson, a Royalist prisoner in Durham Castle under the Commonwealth (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 37719, f. 212b). It reads as follows: The Coate of Armes of Sir John Presbelers Church. She beares partie parpale indented Gods glory, and his owne interest, over all honor, profitt, pleasure counterchanged, ensigned with a helmet of Ignorance; opened with confidence befittinge her degree; mantled with Gules and 6 days when birch bark, split in lengths, was lashed together to form a rather sketchy Dreadnought. Another interesting memento of the birch tree is the name Birch-legs,' applied to a political faction in Norway, the members of which wore greaves of the bark, a practice not uncommon reminds us that it is to the oil contained in this in that country. The fragrance of a birch wood tree that Russian leather owes its characteristic scent. Still another use of birch twigs is noted by Hugh Miller, who tells us that in the north of Scotland they were plaited to form both horse and ox harness. "An old Scottish superstition has it that this tree grew at the gate of heaven, and allusions to this are found in some of our old ballads. The sudden appearance of any one adorned with a sprig of birch carried a dread significance of but one interpretation. Here are some lines from an old fragment, recounting the appearance, to a distracted mother, of her three sons, who had been drowned some time previously : It fell about the Martinmas, The carline wife's three sons cam' hame, That birk grew fair eneugh. And when' rapt Kilmeny,' in' The Queen's Wake,' returns to earth after her mysterious absence, she is greeted thus: 64 : Where got ye that jupe o' the lily sheen, That bonny snood o' the birk sae green? Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where ha'e ye been? By a natural transition the birch came to be associated with death and the grave, and the following is one of the variants of what may be called a stock ending to many old ballads :--- The tane was buried in Marie's kirk, And out o' the tane there sprang a birk, "Here is a last request from a ghostly lover to his mourning marrow': But plait a wand o' bonny birk, And shed a tear upon my grave, Stromness. "E. M. J." ALEX. RUSSELL. Queries. WE must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct. HENRY KAVANAGH AND THE INDIAN MUTINY.-I shall be glad if some of your readers will kindly put me into communication with the representatives of Henry Kavanagh, who, disguised as a native, carried the dispatches from Sir James Outram to Sir Colin Campbell out of Lucknow, circa 9 Nov., 1857. DAVID ROSS MCCORD, M.A., K.C. Temple Grove, Montreal. COL. VINCENT POTTER, REGICIDE.-I am seeking information through N. & Q.' concerning Col. Vincent Potter, one of the Commissioners present at the trial of Charles I., who also signed the death warrant. To what town did he belong? What were his arms? What became of him after his incarceration in the Tower? Am I right in assuming that he was removed to Hedingham Castle, on the Essex and Suffolk border, under the charge, and through the influence, of Sir Harbottle Grimston? Any further particulars would be greatly esteemed. JAS. F. GILL POTTER. 17, Brunswick Street, Montreal. BECKET'S PERSONAL HABITS. In that most amusing and withal most stimulating 'History of England' by C. R. L. Fletcher the following is to be found in vol. i. p. 151 :— "It was not until the monks of Canterbury, on stripping his martyred body, found a hair-shirt beneath his costly vestments, and the vermin dropping in crowds from his unwashed skin, that they exclaimed with rapture, See, see, what a true monk he was, and we knew it not!' Can any reader of N. &. Q.' refer to the original authority for this statement ? ALEX. LEEPER. Trinity College, Melbourne University. ENGLISH MATHEMATICAL DIARIES.-' The Ladies' Diary was published annually 1704-1840, and The Gentleman's Diary 1741-1840. In the issue of 1841 these works were united under the title The Lady's and Gentleman's Diary,' which continued to appear annually till 1871. Various reprints from and supplements to these Diaries have appeared. As far as I know of them, they are as follows: 1. Diarian Repository or Mathematical Register....Questions....published in Ladies' Diary, 1704-1760. By a Society of Mathematicians. London, 1774. 2. Diarian Miscellany....Parts both Mathematical and Poetical. Extracted from the Ladies' Diary, 1704–1773. Ed. by Chas. Hutton. 5 vols. London, 1775. [Mathematical portion, vols. i.-iii.] 3. The Gentleman's Diary or Mathematical Repository, 1741-1800. Ed. by T. S. Davies. 3 vols. London, 1814. 4. Questions from the Ladies' Diary, 1704Ed. by T. Leybourn. 4 vols. London, 1816. 1817. 5. [Ladies'] Diary Supplement. Ed. by C. Hutton. Was published annually 1788-1806. 6. Gentleman's Diary Supplement, 1741 and 1742, 1743, 1744, 3 vols. Can any one supply other dates of issue of No. 6, or particulars of any other Diary editions or Diary Supplements? The connexion of The Palladium' with The Ladies' Diary has been made clear by T. T. Wilkinson in The Mechanic's Magazine, vol. 1. p. 466. It may be added that the publication usually known as Burrow's Diary' first appeared in 1776 under the title Ladies' From 1780 to and Gentlemen's Diary,' &c. the last number in 1788, the work was issued 6: EDGAR PRESTAGE. Chiltern, Bowdon, Cheshire. EDWARD FITZGIBBON, 1803-1857.-Does any one know of a portrait of Edward Fitzgibbon, who wrote under the name Ephemera"? After living six years in France he came to England and contributed to The Morning Chronicle and Bell's Life. He also published a Handbook of Angling,' 1847, and (with A. Young) The Book of the Salmon, 1850, and edited The Complete Angler,' 1853. See D.N.B.,' first edition, vol. xix. p. 154. R. B. M. Lady LADY CLAVERING. Can any of your readers give me information concerning Clare, the wife of Sir Thomas John Clavering, Bt., of Rywell, Durham ? Clavering died in 1854. She was a Frenchwoman, the daughter of the Count de la Sable, and was the " Lady C." to whom Napoleon addressed the Letters from the Cape.' CLEMENT SHORTER. Here lies Fred, Who was alive and is dead. I had much rather. Still better than another. Had it been his sister, No one would have missed her. There's no more to be said." But in the second volume of the Historical Manuscripts Commission's Report on the MSS. of the Earl of Egmont, issued in 1909, there is a letter (pp. 17-18) from Robert Bowyers to Robert Southwell, dated 9 July, 1667, which includes the passage :— "It is said these verses were written over the grave of one of the sons of the Lord Chancellor of England :Here lies Tom Hyde, It 's pity that he died; We had rather mediately under the dais, being raised above the crown of the vaulting of the remainder of the crypt, the result being that a level floor throughout the entire hall is impossible, a few steps being necessary at the end. S. P. Q. R. VANESSA. This name is best known in connexion with Swift's Esther Vanhomrigh, or, in the scientific world, as attached to a butterfly. I presume the word is a mere Latinization of Van Esther. What is the origin of it? first used it or invented it? Who, in fact, TINTIN. ISABELLA WICKLIFFE. Sir Paul Gore married Isabella, daughter of Francis Wickliffe, niece of Thomas, Earl of Strafford. In what way was she his niece? H. S. VADE-WALPOLE. 101, Lexham Gardens, W. FOUR WINDS, A FAIRY STORY.-Can some one tell me where to find a fairy tale about the four winds? The old mother has a sack for each wind, into which she ties him down after his work is done. It is quite a short story, and sounds like Hans Andersen; but I have failed to find it in any collection of his stories. ALIPORE. GRINLING GIBBONS.-A few days ago I saw in some paper or review an account of Grinling Gibbons, containing, among other things, the statement that his true name was Gibbon. If any of your readers happened to see the passage, I should be very grateful for the reference. WOODCARVER. "THE NEMESIS OF WORDS."-Is this phrase a well-known one? and if so, will some reader of N. & Q.' refer me to any instance of it? It is not given in the N.E.D. I notice it and this, I believe, is the first time I have seen it in print-as the headline to an article in The Spectator for 29 January, p. 171. But it is the title of a paper I read in December, 1897, to the University Graduates' Club; and as I may some day publish it, I do not want to be then accused of plagiarism. I thought it was my own. LUCIS. |