Replies to Minor Queries.
Buonaparte's Abdication (Vol. ix., p. 54.).—In an article on this subject, after referring to Wilkinson's shop on Ludgate Hill, your correspondent states that "Wilkinson's shop does not now exist." In justice to ourselves, we trust you will insert this letter, as such a remark may be prejudicial to us. Having sold our premises on Ludgate Hill to the Milton Club, we have removed our establishment to No. 8. Old Bond Street, Piccadilly.
As regards the table spoken of, your informant must be labouring under some strange error. We do not remember ever having, or pretending to have, the original table on which the Emperor Napoleon signed his abdication. Many years ago, a customer of ours lent us a table with some such plate as you describe, which he had had made abroad from the original, for us to copy from; and after this we made and sold several, but only as copies. We cannot charge our memory with the correctness of the inscription you publish; and, moreover, we believe the words "a fac-simile," or something to that effect, were engraved as a heading to those made by us.
Chas. Wilkinson & Sons.
8. Old Bond Street.
[We willingly give insertion to this disclaimer from so respectable a firm as Messrs. Wilkinson & Sons; from which it appears that our correspondent A Cantab has not made "when found, a correct note" of the fac-simile. Another correspondent has favoured us with the following additional notices of the original table: "On Dec. 8, 1838, I saw the table on which Napoleon signed his abdication at the Chateau of Fontainebleau, on which there are two scratches or incisures said to have been made by him with a penknife. These injuries upon the surface of the table were so remarkable as to attract my attention, and I inquired about them of the attendant. He said Napoleon, when excited or irritated, was in the habit of handling and using anything which lay beside him, perhaps to allay mental agitation; and that he was considered to have so used a penknife, and disfigured the table.">[
Burton Family (Vol. ix., p. 19.).—I know not whether E. H. A. is interested about the Burtons of Shropshire. If he is, he will find an interesting account of them in A Commentary on Antoninus his Itinerary, &c. of the Roman Empire, so far as it concerneth Britain, &c.: London, 1658, p. 136.
Clericus (D.).
Drainage by Machinery (Vol. viii., p. 493.).—E. G. R. will perhaps find what he wants on this subject in Walker's
"Essay on Draining Land by the Steam Engine; showing the number of Acres that may be drained by each of Six different-sized Engines, with Prime Cost and Annual Outgoings: London, 1813, 8vo., price 1s. 6d."
He will find a complete history of the drainage of the English fens in Sir William Dugdale's
"History of Embanking and Draining of divers Fens and Marshes, both in Foreign Parts and in this Kingdom, and of the Improvement thereby: adorned with sundry Maps, &c. London, 1662, fol. A New Edition, with three Indices to the principal Matters, Names, and Places, by Charles Nelson Cole, Esq.: London, 1772, fol."
Mr. Samuel Wells published, in 1830, in 2 vols. 8vo., a complete history of the Bedford Level, accompanied by a map; and I may add that the late Mr. Grainger, C.E., read a series of papers on the draining of the Haarlem Lake to the Society of Arts in Edinburgh, which, I believe, were never published, but which may, perhaps, be accessible to E. G. R.
Henry Stephens.
Nattochiis and Calchanti (Vol. ix., pp. 36. 84.).—The former of these words being sometimes spelt natthocouks in the same deed, shows the ignorance or carelessness of the scribe, the reading being clearly corrupt; I would suggest cottagiis, cottages, and by "ganis" I should understand not granis, as F.S.A. supposes, but gardinis, gardens. The line will then run thus:
"Cum omnibus gardinis et cottagiis adjacentibus."
It will be seen that this differs from the solution proposed by Mr. Thrupp (p. 84.).
With respect to the latter word, calchanti, I regret that I cannot offer a satisfactory solution. Possibly the word intended may have been calcanthi, copperas, vitriol, or the water of copper or brass; but I find in the Index Alter of Ainsworth, the word—
"Calecantum. A kind of earth like salt, of a binding nature. Puto pro Chalcanthum, Vitriol, L."
Will this tally with the circumstances of the case? I presume that the words liquor, mineral, &c., following calchanti in the grant, are contractions for the genitive plural of those words; the subject of the grant being the tithes of all those substances.
H. P.
Lincoln's Inn.
"One while I think," &c. (Vol. ix., p. 76.).—These lines will be found in The Synagogue, p. 41., by Christopher Hervie.
M. Zachary.
"Spires 'whose silent finger points to heaven'" (Vol. ix., pp. 9. 85.).—F. R. M., M.A., seems not to have observed that Wordsworth marks this line as a quotation; and in the note upon it (Excursion, 373.) gives the poetical passage in The Friend, whence he took it, thus acknowledging Coleridge to be the author. The passage is not to be found in the modern edition of The Friend, by the reference in Wordsworth's note to "The Friend, No. 14. p. 223." I presume that The Friend was originally published in numbers, and that it is to that publication Wordsworth refers. This is not simply the case, as F. R. M., M.A., suggests, of two authors using the same idea, but of one also honestly acknowledging his debt to the other. The idea is of much older date than the prose of Coleridge, or the verse of Wordsworth. Milton, in his Epitaph on Shakspeare, has:
"Under a star y-pointing pyramid."
Prior has the following line:
"These pointed spires that wound the ambient sky."
Prior's Poems: Power, vol. iii. p. 94.,
Edin. 1779.
In Shakspeare we find:
"Yon towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds."
Troilus and Cressida, Act IV. Sc. 5.
The idea is traceable in Virgil's description of "Fame" or "Rumour" in the 4th Æneid:
"... caput inter nubila condit."
J. W. Farrer.
Dr. Eleazar Duncon (Vol. ix., p. 56.).—D. D. will find some mention of Dr. Duncon in a correspondence between Sir Edward Hyde and Bishop Cosin, printed among the Clarendon State Papers (ed. Oxford, vol. iii., append. pp. ci. cii. ciii.), from which it appears that, in 1655, Dr. Duncon was at Saumur; where also Dr. Monk Duncan, a Scotch physician, was a professor (Conf. note a, p. 375. of Cosin's Works, vol. iv., as published in the Anglo-Catholic Library). I regret that I cannot furnish D. D. with the when and where of Dr. Duncon's death.
J. Sanson.
"Marriage is such a rabble rout" (Vol. iii., p. 263.).—
"Marriage is such a rabble rout,
That those that are out would fain get in,
And those that are in would fain get out."
I do not think it is against the rules of "N. & Q." for any Querist to put a rider on any of his own Queries. In a volume entitled The Poetical Rhapsody, by Francis Davidson, edited, with memoirs and notes, by Nicholas H. Nicolas, London, Pickering, 1826, under the head of "A Contention betwixt a Wife, a Widow, and a Maid," p. 21., occur the following lines:
"Widow. Marriage is a continual feast.
Maid. Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been
To public feasts, where meet a public rout,
Where they that are without would fain go in,
And they that are within would fain go out," &c.
This piece is signed "Sir John Davis."
S. Wmson.
Cambridge Mathematical Questions (Vol. ix., p. 35.).—Iota is informed that the questions set at the examination for honours, are annually published in the Cambridge University Calendar. He should consult the back volumes of that work, which he will probably find in any large provincial library.
These questions, with solutions at length, are also annually published by the Moderators and Examiners in one quarto volume. All the Senate House examination papers are annually published by the editor of the Cambridge Chronicle, in a supplement to one of the January numbers of that periodical.
C. Mansfield Ingleby.
P.S.—As I write from memory, I may have been guilty of some slight inaccuracy in details.
I think the Cambridge University Calendar will contain all the mathematical questions proposed in the Senate House for the period mentioned. Those from 1801 to 1820 inclusively were also published by Black and Armstrong (Lond. 1836), to accompany the revised edition of Wright's solutions. The problems from 1820 to 1829 inclusive are reprinted in vol. v. of Leybourne's Mathematical Repository, new series, and in vol. vi. those for 1830 and 1831 are given. In 1849 the Rev. A. H. Frost arranged and published the questions proposed in 1838 to 1849. Perhaps this may be found satisfactory.
T. T. Wilkinson.
Reversible Masculine Names (Vol. viii., pp. 244. 655.).—If you allow Bob, you cannot object to Lol, the short for Laurence. Lord Glenelg and the Hebrew abba will not perhaps be held cases in point, but Nun, Asa, and Gog, and probably many other Scripture names, may be instanced; and Odo and Otto from profane history, as well as the Peruvian Capac.
P. P.
The Man in the Moon (Vol. vi., pp. 61. 182. 232. 424.).—
"As for the forme of those spots, some of the vulgar thinke they represent a man, and the poets guesse 'tis the boy Endymion, whose company shee loves so well, that shee carries him with her; others will have it onely to be the face of a man as the moone is usually pictured; but Albertus thinkes rather that it represents a lyon, with his taile towards the east and his head to the west; and some others (Eusebius, Nieremb. Hist. Nat., lib. VIII. c. xv.) have thought it to be very much like a fox, and certainly 'tis as much like a lyon as that in the zodiake, or as Ursa Major is like a beare.... It may be probable enough that those spots and brighter parts may show the distinction betwixt the sea and land in that other world."—Bishop Wilkin's Discovery of a New World, 3rd. edit., Lond. 1640, p. 100.
"Does the Man in the Moon look big,
And wear a huger periwig;
Show in his gait, or face, more tricks
Than our own native lunatics?"
Hudibras, pt. II. c. iii. 767.
To judge from his physiognomy, one would say the Man in the Moon was a Chinese, or native of the Celestial Empire.
Eirionnach.
Arms of Richard, King of the Romans (Vol. viii., p. 653.).—With respectful submission to Mr. Norris Deck, and notwithstanding his ingenious conjecture that the charges on the border are pois, and the seal which he mentions in his last communication, I think the evidence that the border belongs to Cornwall, and not to Poictou, is perfectly conclusive.
1. The fifteen bezants in a sable field have been time out of mind regarded as the arms of Cornwall, and traditionally (but of course without authority) ascribed to Cadoc, or Caradoc, a Cornish prince of the fifth century. They occur in juxtaposition with the garbes of Chester, upon some of the great seals of England, and I think also upon the tomb of Queen Elizabeth; and they are, to the present day, printed or engraved on the mining leases of the duchy.
2. Bezants on sable are extremely frequent in the arms of Cornish families; but crowned lions rampant gules do not occur in a single instance of which I am aware, except in the arms of families named Cornwall, who are known or presumed to be descended from this Richard, and bear his arms with sundry differences. Bezants on sable are borne (e.g.) by Bond, Carlyon, Chamberlayne, Cole, Cornwall (by some without the lion), Killegrew, Saint-Aubyn, Treby, Tregyan (with a crowned eagle sable, holding a sword), Treiago, and Walesborough, all of Cornwall; and it is to be remarked that bezants are not a common bearing in other parts of England, especially not on sable.
3. When Roger Valtorte married Joan, daughter of Reginald de Dunstanville (who was natural son of Henry I., and Earl of Cornwall nearly a century before Richard, King of the Romans, but never Earl of Poictou), he added to his paternal arms a border sable bezantée.
This is but a small portion of the evidence which might be adduced; but it is, I think, quite enough to justify the statements of Sylvanus Morgan, Sandford, Mr. Lower, and others, that the bezants pertain not to Poictou, but to Cornwall.
H. G.
Brothers with the same Christian Name (Vol. viii., pp. 338. 478.).—If your various correspondents, who adduce instances of two brothers in families having the same Christian names (both brothers being alive), will consult Lodge's Peerage for 1853, they will find the names of the sons of the Marquis of Ormonde thus stated:
"James Edward Wm. Theobald, Earl of Ossory, born Oct. 5, 1844.
"Lord James Hubert Henry Thomas, born Aug. 20, 1847.
"Lord James Arthur Wellington Foley, born Sept. 23, 1849.
"Lord James Theobald Bagot John, born Aug. 6, 1852."
The Christian name of the late Marquis was James; and whichever of his grandsons shall succeed the present possessor of the title, will bear the same Christian name as the late peer.
Juverna.
Arch-priest in the Diocese of Exeter (Vol. ix., p. 105.).—Haccombe is doubtless the parish in the diocese of Exeter, where Mr. W. Fraser will find the arch-priest about whom he is inquiring. Haccombe is a small parish, having two houses in it, the manor-house of the Carew family and the parsonage. It is said that, by a grant from the crown, in consequence of services done by an ancestor of the Carews, this parish received certain privileges and exemptions, one of which was that the priest of Haccombe should be exempt from all ordinary spiritual jurisdiction. Hence the title of arch-priest, and that of chorepiscopus, which the priests of Haccombe have claimed, and perhaps sometimes received. The incumbent of Bibury, in Gloucestershire, used to claim similar titles, and like exemption from spiritual jurisdiction.
J. Sansom.
Since sending my Query on this subject, I have obtained the following information. The Rectory of Haccombe, which is a peculiar one, in the diocese of Exeter, gives to its incumbent for the time being the dignity of arch-priest of the diocese. The arch-priest wears lawn sleeves, and on all occasions takes precedence after the bishop. The late rector, the Rev. T. C. Carew, I am told, constantly officiated in lawn sleeves attached to an A. M. gown, and took the precedence due to his spiritual rank as arch-priest of the diocese. The present arch-priest and Rector of Haccombe is the Rev. Fitzwilliam J. Taylor. Does such an office, or rather dignity, exist in any other case in the Anglican Church?
Wm. Fraser, B.C.L.
Tor-Mohun.
"Horam coram dago" (Vol. ix., p. 58.).—Your correspondent Σ. is probably thinking of Burns' lines "Written in a wrapper, inclosing a letter to Captain Grose," &c.:
"Ken ye aught o' Captain Grose?
Igo et ago,
If he's among his friends or foes,
Iram, coram, dago."
It is not very likely, however, that this should be the first appearance of this "burden," any more than of "Fal de ral," which Burns gives to other pieces both before and after this. It may have a meaning (as I believe one has been found for "Lilliburlero," &c.), but I should think it more likely to be sheer gibberish.
By the way, how comes burden to be used in the sense of "chorus or refrain?" I believe we have the authority of Shakspeare for so doing.
"Foot it featly here and there
And let the rest the burden bear?"
Is it the bourdon, or big drone? Certainly the chorus could not "bear a burden," in the sense of hard work, even before the time of Hullah.
J. P. Orde.
In Chambers' Scottish Songs, Edinburgh, 1829, p. 273. is a piece beginning—
"And was you e'er in Crail toun?
Igo and ago;
And saw ye there clerk Fishington?
Sing irom, igon, ago."
And in Blackwood for Jan. 1831 ("Noctes Ambrosianæ, No. 53.") is "A Christmas Carol in honour of Maga, sung by the Contributors," which begins thus—
"When Kit North is dead,
What will Maga do, Sir?
She must go to bed,
And like him die too, Sir!
Fal de ral de ral,
Iram coram dago;
Fal de ral de ral,
Here's success to Maga!"
I suspect that the "chorus or refrain" of the first of these ditties suggested that of the second; and that this is the song which was running in your contributor's head.
J. C. R.
[We are also indebted to S. Wmson, F. Crossley, E. H., R. S. S., and J. Ss. for similar replies. See Burns' Works, edit. 1800, vol. iv. p. 399., and edit. Glasgow, 1843, vol. i. p. 113.]
Children by one Mother (Vol. v., p. 126.).—In reply to the Query, "If there be any well-authenticated instance of a woman having had more than twenty-five children," I can furnish you with what I firmly believe to be such an instance. The narrator was a relative of my late wife, a man of the very highest character in the City of London for many years, and formerly clerk to the London Bridge (Old) Water Works, a mark by which he may possibly be recognised by some of your readers. I have heard him relate, that once, as he was travelling into Essex, he met with a very respectable woman, apparently a farmer's wife, who during the journey several times expressed an anxious desire to reach home, which induced my informant at length to inquire the cause of so great an anxiety. Her reply was, "Indeed, Sir, if you knew, you would not wonder at it." When, upon his jocularly saying, "Surely she could have no cause for so much desire to reach home," she said farther, that "The number of her children was the cause, for that she had thirty children, it having pleased God to give to her and her husband fifteen boys; and because they were much dissatisfied at having no girl, in order to punish their murmuring and discontent, He was pleased farther to send them fifteen girls."
I. R. R.
Parochial Libraries (Vol. viii. passim).—In the small village of Halton, Cheshire, there is a small public library, of no inconsiderable extent and importance, founded in 1733 by Sir John Chesshyre, Knight, of Hallwood in that county. Of the works comprised in the collection, the following may be selected as best worthy of mention: Dugdale's Monasticon, Rymer's Fœdera, Walton's Polyglot, and a host of standard ecclesiastical authors, interspersed with modern additions of more general interest. The curate for the time being officiates as librarian; the books being preserved in a small stone building set apart for the purpose, in the vicinity of his residence. Over the door is the following inscription:
"Hanc Bibliothecam,
pro communi literatorum usu,
sub cura curati capellæ de Halton
proventibus ter feliciter augmentatæ,
Johannes Chesshyre miles
serviens D'ni Regis ad legem,
D. D. D.
Anno MDCCXXXIII."
Sir John, the founder, was buried at Runcorn, where a monument exists to his memory, bearing the following epitaph at its foot:
"A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod,
An honest man's the noblest work of God."
The parishes of Stoke Damarel, Devon, and of St. James the Great, Devonport, have each their parochial library: the former commenced in 1848, by the Rev. W. B. Flower, late curate of the parish; and the latter by the Rev. W. B. Killpack, the first incumbent of the district.
T. Hughes.
Chester.