silver on the qualities of bell metal, I followed MR. ED. MARSHALL'S advice and dipped into Mr. Beckett Denison's 'Lectures on Church Building' (second edition, 1856), expecting to find the promised further particulars; but could only discover (on p. 284) the bare ex cathedra statement that the common notion of the old bells having silver in them is a mere vulgar error. There is not the slightest attempt to prove the point. I expected to find an array of historical facts and numerous instances of old bells having been analyzed and no silver having been found in their composition, but was grievously disappointed. So I turned to the seventh edition of the same author's (then Sir Edmund Beckett) 'Clocks, Watches, and Bells' (published in 1883), and found a paragraph headed "Silver" (on p. 364), half of which is about "antimony." The learned author still maintains that the old "inveterate popular delusion" about old bells having silver in them has "not the slightest foundation. Nevertheless”—continues the authorwe had some experiments made for the purpose of being quite sure that silver was of no use, either with reference to sound or strength of metal; several different proportions were tried, beginning with sixpence in a bell of nearly a pound weight, and it was clear that the silver rather did harm than good in both respects." If the experiments really did prove these two points, there still remains for Lord Grimthorpe to adduce evidence in support of his statement that the old bells did not contain silver. But I further question whether his lordship has given us an unbiassed account of those experiments. On referring to p. 18 of vol. xix. of the Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers,' I find that during the discussion following a lecture on 'The Raising and Hanging the Bells in the New Palace, Westminster,' the author of the paper made the following statement : "He [Mr. Jabez James] was present on one occasion, with Mr. Denison, at the foundry of Messrs. Mears, when an experiment was made upon three small bells of different alloy. The first, which contained no silver, broke into many pieces from a smart blow of a knife. The second, which contained silver to the extent of sixpence, broke after a certain number of blows; but the third, which contained a shilling, withstood the greatest number of blows, although it also eventually broke. He then suggested to Mr. Denison the propriety of making some alteration in the alloy of the great bell [Big Ben]. He would add, that he thought the addition of silver to the alloy did not improve the sound of the bell [Did it spoil it?], but it gave greater toughness to the metal." This statement was made on Nov. 8, 1859. As Lord Grimthorpe, in 1883, still maintains that silver is useless for bells, we may assume that he did not accept Mr. James's suggestion about the alteration in the alloy, and hence it rests with his lordship to prove that the two great bells, the present Big Ben and its predecessor, would not have cracked if they had had a little silver in them. With regard to the presence of the precious metal in old bells, I must admit that in most cases where old bell-metal has been analyzed, the analysis has failed to discover traces of any silver. (Cf. Otte's Glockenkunde,' second edition, 1884). Of the famous old bell called Rouvelle (it is said from rouoier=the purring of cats), in Rouen belfry, the bell dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, local tradition always held that it was very rich in silver until a chemist, Girardin, obtained permission in 1830 to take off filings in sufficient quantity for an analysis, and found the alloy to contain the following percentages of metals: Copper, 71; tin, 26; zinc, 18; and iron, 12. An analysis of the sister bell, Cache-ribaud, gave in 1849 a similar negative result as regards silver. But still the ancient custom of throwing silver coins as votive offerings into the molten metal is an established historical fact. Reinwarth and Violletle-Duc both mention it, and the former says that it is referred to in ancient chronicles, but unfortunately he gives no references. Both authors tax the old bellfounders with purloining the votive offerings, and Reinwarth even explains how the trick was done. He states that the furnaces were built on the reverberatory principle, and consequently all coins, silver and gold, thrown into the hole of the furnace, fell on the fire-grate, where they were melted in due time, and whence they dropped into the ashes without ever reaching the molten metal intended for casting the bell, but finding their way, via the ash-hole, into the bellfounders' pockets. (Cf. his article on bells, &c., in Ersch and Gruber's 'Encyclopædia,' div. i. pt. 70, p. 96.) But, on the other hand, there must have been bellfounders less deceitful, as silver has been found in old bell-metal. Thus J. Dan. Blavignac gives an instance in his book, 'La Cloche' (Genève, 1877), of a bell weighing 238 Swiss pounds, in Carouge, near Geneva, containing 18 onces d'argent à 993 millièmes." The composition of this bell was about 78 parts of copper to 22 of tin. We know also that many of the French bells were broken up during the great Revolution and made into coins. Some of these have been analyzed, and it is about these that Viollet-le-Duc remarks (cf. his 'Dict. de l'Architecture,' tom. iii. p. 282):— à la fin du dernier siècle, avec les débris de ces instru...nos sous, dits de métal de cloches, et façonnés, ments, ne contiennent qu'une très faible partie d'argent; cependant il s'y en trouve." There is very little silver in them; but still there is some. The italics are mine. L. L. K. There having been a settlement of the scientific question, let me mention that the Man of Ross, on the renovation of his church, presented a great bell, which was cast in his presence at Gloucester, when he threw into the crucible his own large silver tankard. ED. MARSHALL. "OASTS" (8th S. iii. 107, 134, 173).-An Act of Henry IV., in his fifth year (1403-4), cap. 9, appoints "hosts" to receive foreign merchants in England : "And also it is ordained and stablished, that in every citie, Towne, and port of the sea in England, where the said marchaunts aliens or straungers bee or shalbee repairing, sufficie't hostes shalbe assigned to ye same marchauntes by the Maire Shyrifes or Bailifes of the said cities, Townes, and portes of the sea. And that the sayed marchaunts aliens and straungers shall dwell in none other place, but wyth their sayd hostes so to be assygned, and that the same hostes so [to] bee assygned shall take for their trauaile in ye manner as was accustomed in old tyme. An, 5 H. 4, ca. 9.". Rastall's 'Statutes,' 1579, p. 312. By a transposition, the origin of which is not very clear, the merchant stranger who came to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to buy coals was denominated the "hoast," ," "host," or "oast," and the local vendor of coals, to whom he came, was called the "hoastman" or "hostman." A fraternity of "hoastmen " existed in that town, as a branch of the Merchants' Company, in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII., and has continued in a more or less flourishing condition ever since. Its seal represents a "hoastman" grasping the hand of a foreign merchant, and greeting him with "Welcome, mine oaste!" Queen Elizabeth, in 1600, granting to the burgesses of Newcastle a new charter, specially incorporated the "hoastmen " in the following terms: "And whereas the town is an ancient town, and the Mayor and burgesses, time out of mind, have had a certain guild or fraternity commonly called the Hoastmen, for the loading and better disposing of sea-coals and pit coals, grindstones, rubstones, and whetstones, in and upon the river and port of Tyne, which guild or fraternity is not granted or established by letters patent; whereupon the Mayor and burgesses have humbly supplicated the Queen that, in supply of the said defects, she would vouchsafe to create the said guild into a body corporate and politic. The Queen therefore ordains, appoints, and grants that [names of members follow] shall be a body corporate ..... and shall have and enjoy all such liberties, privileges,......concerning the loading and unloading of stonecoala, pit-coals, grindstones, rubstones, and whetstones, and the loading and unloading in or out of any ships, keels, or vessels, pit coals and stones within the river and harbour of Tyne, between Newcastle and the Sparhawk, as the fraternity have at any time used," &c. carried, or vented by any person or persons whatsoever, The monopoly of the "hostmen MR. LAWRENCE-HAMILTON will find the word explained and exemplified at pp. xliv, xlv, of the notes to the illustrations of the new edition of Green's Short History.' The note is contained in parts xvii. and xviii. of the monthy issue. Q. V. ARABELLA FERMOR (8th S. iii. 128, 212).-I think I can give MR. LYNN some clue as to Arabella Fermor. In the year 1853, when I was reading with the then rector of Ufton Nervet, Berkshire, a peerage lawyer came to examine the church registers. I remember showing him the entry he sought, which was, I think, the burial of Belinda" of Pope), Arabella Parkyns (the wife of Francis Parkyns, of Ufton Court. She was by birth a Fermor. On my return to my home at Deerhurst, in Gloucestershire, I noticed the name Fermor on a slab in the chancel, and wrote to the lawyer about it. He requested me to send him a rubbing, as it was important. This I did. The inscription is now printed in Butterworth's Account of Deerhurst': For this charter the Hoastmen gave her Majesty a duty of 12d. a chaldron (fifty-three hundred-Here lyeth the body of Peter Fermor second weight) upon all coal exported coastwise: sonne of Henry Fermore, Esquire, of Tusmore, in "In regard of these gracious and most princely favours and benignities, being desirous to our uttermost powers to show ourselves thankful for the same, and not being ignorant of the great, unsupportable, and excessive charge which her Highness hath of late sustained, and likely to be at, in and for the defence of this realm, and her Highness's poor subjects, against the malice and force of the enemies of this realm, do in all humility give and grant unto her Most Excellent Majesty......for search at Ufton was undertaken to find evidence each and every chaldron of sea-coal, stone-coal or pit-in the De Scales peerage case (see Burke's coal, of the water measure of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as at any time or times hereafter shall be sold, shipped, 'Baronetage,' voce "Tempest"), and reference to W. C. B. TENNYSON'S CAMBRIDGE CONTEMPORARIES (8th S. ii. 441; iii. 52, 171).-A reference to the Dictionary of National Biography,' article "William Bodham Donne," may remove all doubts as to his university, explain why he took no academical degree, and will supply other particulars as to his life and career. M. A. M. JESSOPP. the printed proceedings might throw some light lady's appearance in trowsers," so that he falls on Arabella Parkyns, or Fermor, who probably under his own lash. There is an account of her in belonged to the Tusmore family. Mr. Crisp has Chambers's' Encyclopædia,' 1861. printed the 'Catholic Register of Ufton Court. At p. 4 we find that "Mrs. Perkins, alias Arrabella Fermer, died Feb 19th 1736." John, styled "the last of the family," being her youngest son, died Dec. 30, 1769. A history of Ufton Parish and Court has lately been printed, which may contain some information-I have not yet seen it. Since writing the above I have found in Baker's 'Northamptonshire,' vol. i. p. 599, and in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1827, p. 580, pedigrees of the Fermors of Tusmore, in which it is shown that Arabella, daughter of Henry Fermor, of Tusmore, married 1734 Francis Perkins. This settles the A. W. CORNELIUS HALLEN. matter. BARTON (8th S. iii. 228).-William Andrew Barton is one of those mythological persons with whom the readers of Sir Bernard Burke's works are familiar. The Bartons of Dean water were not related to the Bartons of Smithells. If W. G. will write to me, care of the Editor of N. & Q.,' I shall be happy to give him any information he wishes about the Lancashire Bartons. G. W. M. This notion exists in Worcestershire, teste MISTAKE IN READING PRAYERS (8th S. iii. 209). meipso. But I think the death is supposed to follow after three mistakes, and not after a single slip. Absit! What a mortality there should have been among the parishioners of the dear old man who always said mumpsimus! W. C. B. correspondent's query is tantalizingly brief. Where SCHOLA VERLUCIANA (8th S. iii. 148).—Your and in what context did he meet with the name? For aught a dunce like myself can say, Verluciana may be a whimsical latinization of "Spring Grove," Isleworth, where there was a school called "The London International College," which was transFROM OXFORD TO ROME' (8th S. iii. 207).-ferred to the British and Foreign School Society Whatever mystery there may have been about the on Sept. 25, 1889, and occupied by the Borough authorship of this book, it has long since been given Road Training College in the following spring. In the Handbook of Fictitious Names,' If, however, Verluciana be formed from Verlucio, p. 4, "F. C. H." is quoted as authority, and una name mentioned in the 'Itinerarium Antonini,' doubtedly a good one too. See 'N. & Q.,' 3rd S. it ought to mean Warminster, in Wiltshire, which still has its endowed grammar school. up. ་ vii. 369. Miss Harris died in 1862. RALPH THOMAS. ANGELICA CATALANI (8th S. ii. 485; iii. 113, 211). The note of MR. EDGCUMBE on this great cantatrice is most interesting, and most probably he is correct in mentioning the Campo Sante at Pisa as the place of her burial. My authority for mentioning Paris as the place of her death was Chambers's 'Encyclopædia,' s.v. "Catalani." There is also a memoir of her, occupying more than a column and a half, in the Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography,' in which it is stated that she died at Florence in 1849. This was written by G. A. M., i. e., George A. Macfarren, composer of "King Charles II.' and 'May Day,' one in every way qualified for the work. There is no date on the title-pages, but most likely the book was pubJOHN PICKFORD, M.A. lished about 1865. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. Byron, in his 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' (1. 597), satirizes "the nobles of our present race," who " worship Catalani's pantaloons." She is dismissed in a note as an amusing vagabond, principally memorable on account of her salary, the author adding that he is "still black and blue from the squeeze on the first night of the 105, Albany Road, Camberwell, S.E. F. ADAMS. S. iii. 101, 197).-The two persons thus referred to AND "SOMBRESET ” IN 1502 (8th are plainly the Dean of Salisbury and Somerset Herald. Dugdale tells us, quoting Holinshed, that Jean de Foix, son of Gaston Captal de Buch, married Margaret de la Pole, niece of William, Duke of Suffolk. I know of no confirmatory evidence of this relationship; but the duke had several younger brothers, one of whom might have been her father. "Richard, Duke of Suffolk," is certainly a blunder. HERMENTRUDE. (8th S. iii. 168).—The "origin" I leave to others; ORIGIN AND EXPLANATION OF PHRASE SOUGHT but may I be permitted to say, by way of "explanation," that, etymologically, to convince inand that it was used by writers aforetime as we volves the meaning of to conquer, to overcome, should now use con- or re- fute? We have an example of this in the heading of St. Luke xx.: "He convinceth the Sadducees that denied the resurrection"; in that of St. Mark iii.: "Convinceth the blasphemy of casting out devils by Beelzebub "; in Acts xviii. 28: "For he mightily convinced the Jews and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ." Other instances from the Bible might be adduced, but these may suffice. See Eastwood and Wright's 'Bible Word Book.' In 'Bible English' (p. 123), Mr. T. Lewis O. Davies quotes— "Bishop Hall, who addressing the Saviour says, ' But even against these (Arians) art Thou justified in the Spirit, speaking in Thy divine Scriptures, whose evident demonstrations do fully convince their calumnies and false suggestion.-' Mystery of Godliness,' sec. 8." Seeing, then, that convinced refuted, the truth of the couplet A man convinced against his will may not be questioned. People who argue for the sake of victory and not for truth seldom change their opinion; you may convince them completely in one sense of the word, but rarely in another, in that of satisfying their minds by evidence that you are right and they are wrong. ST. SWITHIN. I believe MR. CASS should have written the lines as I have often heard them : A man convinced against his will Maintains the same opinion still. Though convinced, he doggedly professes to hold an opinion which in reality he is convinced is untenable. Such men are not rare. A. W. CORNELIUS HALLEN. Is not the word "will" constantly and colloquially used in two sense-that of determination (Bovλn) and desire (éλnuá)? A man is "convinced against his will" when he is constrained to believe that true which he strongly desires to find untrue, and which he struggles not to believe as long as he can. That being so, when the pressure is removed, he is very likely to return to the old delusion. Is not this the meaning of the popular version of this couplet? HERMENTRUde. Your correspondent has not quite correctly given his quotation from Hudibras.' The passage is :He that complies against his Will, Is of his own Opinion still; Which he may adhere to, yet disown, For Reasons to himself best known. Pt. iii. canto iii. ll. 547-550. In the case of the phrase, "A man convinced against his will," &c., which I have usually heard quoted, “A woman convinced," &c., we must assume, I suppose, that the conviction is only apparent, not real. F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY. BRACEBRIDGE HALL (8th S. ii. 288, 371, 471, 518).-MR. PICKFORD mentions that Brereton Hall, Cheshire, has some "slight claims to be considered the original of " Bracebridge Hall." It is significant, in support of his contention, that in an article upon American Works of Fiction,' which appeared in the Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review for October, 1843, Washington Irving was referred to (p. 472) as the American who absolutely loved Stratford-upon-Avon, and Falstaff's London haunts, and the old-fashioned merriment of Christmas at Brereton Hall." Washington Irving, of course, was then still living, and it will be noted that the Brereton Hall theory was stated as a matter of course. ALFRED F. ROBBINS. THE MOTHER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH WYDVILLE (8th S. ii. 309, 431).—The following quotation comes very handy : "A Mother at Fourteen.-A girl named Laming, of Ringswould, near Dover, fourteen years of age, was admitted to the union several weeks ago, and gave birth to a child which, though strong and healthy, died suddenly on New Year's Eve." FEAST OF ST. MICHAEL (8th S. iii. 209).—The change of style does not affect the days on which saints are celebrated. The sole difference consists in this: if there had been no change of style in 1752, then the name of Sept. 29 would have been given to a day different from that which now receives it-such, for instance, is the case in Russia. In 1396 Michaelmas day fell on Friday, Sept. 29. For 1396, a leap-year, the Sunday-letters are B and A. Now A marks Oct. 1, which proves the point. WALTER W. SKEAT. There cannot be a doubt that the feast of St. Michael the Archangel was celebrated in the Middle Ages, as now, on September 29. I have a MS. English calendar of about 1440 where it is entered under that day, so is it also in a calendar. now before me, printed at Augsburg by Erhard Ratdolt in 1499. What, however, puts the matter almost beyond question is the statement of Alban Butler, in his 'Lives of the Saints,' that "this festival has been kept with great solemnity on the 29th of September ever since the fifth age, and was certainly celebrated in Apulia in 493."-Ed. 1836, vol. ii. p. 517. If your correspondent consults the late Augustus De Morgan's Book of Almanacs' he will, with a little care, be able to ascertain the day of the week on which the feast of St. Michael fell in 1396. I have done so, and make it out to have occurred on a Friday; but on such matters I am very liable to He had far better not put faith in me, but work the problem for himself. error. EDWARD PEACOCK. The principal feast of St. Michael the Archangel has always been on September 29, and in 1396 LUCY OF LEINSTER (8th S. iii. 109).-This, perhaps, may be the portrait of a lady who went by the same name as the heroine whom Tickell's muse celebrated in his charming ballad 'Colin and Lucy': Of Leinster, fam'd for maidens fair, This ballad is printed in Percy's 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,' published in 1765, and was called by Gray "the prettiest ballad in the world." Tickell died in Ireland, where he had long resided, in 1740. His portrait hangs in the hall of Queen's College, Oxford, where he was JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. educated. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. "Who was she?" For answer let me refer F. C. to Thomas Tickell's ballad Colin and Lucy,' This is one name for the short-tailed field-mouse (Arvicola arvalis), a terribly destructive little animal, really allied to the beaver family, together with the water-rat or water-vole (Arvicola amphibius), and the bank-vole or bank-campagnol (Arvicola glareolus). The first named is the destructor of forests and plantations by barking trees, and also by eating the roots. No bulbs, seeds, or roots are safe from them. B. FLORENCE SCARLETT. In Annandale's edition of Ogilvie's 'Imperial Dictionary' the following derivation is hazarded: "Also called vole-mouse, perhaps for wold-mouse, wold, field, plain, so that the name would be equivalent to field-mouse: comp. O. Southern E. volde, field, earth; | Icel. vollr, field.” F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY. "ITS" (8th S. iii. 147, 253).-In my 'Bible Word-Book' (first edition, 1866, second edition, 1884), I have given the earliest instances of its which I have as yet met with. These are to be found in Florio's Worlde of Wordes' (1598), in his translation of Montaigne (1603), and in Sylvester's 'Du Bartas' (1605). There must be earlier examples of the word, for it is hardly likely to have been introduced by a foreigner. In the same volume are collected all the instances of the possessives it and its in Shakespeare. WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT. COFFEE (8th S. iii. 248).-As one of the express purposes of the New English Dictionary' is to give the biography of every word used in English, and so precisely to answer questions like that of |