Minor Queries.
Taylor Family.
—A great favour would be conferred by any Worcestershire correspondent who could furnish any information as to the family, arms, place of burial, of Samuel Taylor, who was Mayor of Worcester in 1731-32, and again in 1737. Are any descendants or connexions still resident in that neighbourhood? The information is required for genealogical purposes.
E. S. TAYLOR.
Analysis.
—Is algebra rightly termed analysis? Edgar Poe, a very queer American author, maintains the negative: he also enters into the question as to whether games of skill and chance are useful to the analytical powers, and gives the preference to draughts over chess, and to whist over either. But he seems to think the chief applications of analysis are to the interpretation of cryptographies, the disentanglement of police puzzles, and the solution of charades!
There is, however, plausibility in his theory that a good analyst must be both poet and mathematician. This is Ruskin's "imagination penetrative:" such a faculty belonged to the minds of Verulam and Newton, of Kepler and Galileo. I do not, however, see the necessity of Ruskin's threefold division of the "imaginative faculty." Would not "imagination analytic and creative" suffice?
MORTIMER COLLINS.
Old Playing Cards.
—In 1763 Dr. Stukeley exhibited to the Antiquarian Society a singular pack of cards, dating before the year 1500. They were purchased in 1776, by Mr. Tutet, and on his decease they were bought by Mr. Gough. In 1816 they had passed into the possession of Mr. Triphook, the bookseller. Query, where are they now?
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
Canongate Marriages.
—According to the Newgate Calendar, vol. ii. p. 269., there seems to have existed, about the year 1745, a sort of Gretna Green in the Canongate of Edinburgh. It is long since I read that famous work, but I made an excerpt at the time, which is as follows:
"It was customary for some of the ministers of the Church of Scotland, who were out of employment, to marry people at the ale-houses, in the same manner that the Fleet marriages were conducted in London. Sometimes people of fortune thought it prudent to apply to these marriage brokers; but, as their chief business lay among the lower ranks of people, they were deridingly called by the name of 'Buckle the Beggars.' Most of these marriages were solemnized at public-houses in the Canongate."
This statement "comes in such a questionable shape," and from so "questionable" a quarter, that really one cannot be blamed for questioning it. Surely the ministers referred to must have been men deprived of their charges? Can any correspondent of "N. & Q." speak to this subject? I am certain that the Scottish clergy of that age would never have suffered any Buckle the Beggars to rank with them as regular preachers, though "out of employment."
R. S. F.
Perth.
Devil, Proper Name.
—Will any of your correspondents kindly inform me whether there are any persons now existing of the name of Devil; or who bear the devil on their coat of arms? In 1847 I saw upon the panel of a carriage in London the devil's head for a crest. To what family does this belong? "Robin the Devil" is mentioned in Rokeby, cant. vi. st. 32. The following is from the Monthly Mirror, August, 1799:
"Formerly there were many persons surnamed 'the Devil.' In an ancient book we read of one Rogerius Diabolus, Lord of Montresor." "An English monk, Willelmus, cognomento Diabolus. Again, Hughes le Diable, Lord of Lusignan. Robert, Duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, was surnamed 'the Devil.' In Norway and Sweden there were two families of the name of 'Trolle,' in English, 'Devil;' and every branch of these families had an emblem of the devil for their coat of arms. In Utrecht there was a family called 'Teufel' (or Devil); and in Brittany there was a family of the name of 'Diable.'"
W. R. DEERE SALMON.
Hendurucus du Booys; Helena Leonora de Sieveri.
—Their portraits engraved by Cornelius Vischer from paintings by Vandyke. Who were they?
G. A. C.
Can a Clergyman marry himself?
—If a clergyman were to perform the marriage service in his own case, would it be valid? Has such an occurrence ever been known?
CONSTANT READER.
Ground Ice.
—Has any satisfactory explanation been given of the mode in which the peculiar substance termed ground ice is formed in certain rivers. I am most familiar with it as seen in the Wiltshire Avon. It is seen in some rivers in Lincolnshire, where I am told it is called ground-gru. One who has noticed it in the Teviot says, that the inhabitants there call it "sludge."
The fact of ice being formed at the bottom of streams, where we should expect a higher temperature, is so curious an anomaly, that it would be desirable to collect instances where and at what depths it is observed.
J. C. E.
Astrologer-Royal.
—I remember, in a former volume of "N. & Q.," some mention is made of Almanacks, Astrologers, &c. It escaped me at the time to tell you that the ancient office of King's Astrologer happens not to have been subjected to formal abolition, and, being hereditary, it is now vested in the person of Mr. Gadbury, resident at Bristol. He is auctioneer to the Court of Bankruptcy, and a very worthy man. He tells me there is neither salary nor privilege attached to his nominal post.
B. B.
Pembroke.
William, second Duke of Hamilton.
—Can any of your numerous correspondents inform me if there is any monumental inscription, or other memorial, dedicated to the memory of William, second Duke of Hamilton, who expired on the 12th of September, 1651, from the effects of a wound received at the battle of Worcester on the 3rd of the same month? He was interred before the high altar in Worcester Cathedral, having died at the Commandery in that city; but there is neither
"storied urn or animated bust"
as a record of his sepulture within that venerable pile.
In making an inspection of the Commandery, an old building, probably once belonging to the Knights Templars, I was gravely told, and my informant even showed me the very spot beneath the floor of one of the rooms, in which, as tradition points out, he is said to have been buried.
J. B. WHITBORNE.
The Ring Finger.
—Having observed various remarks on the ring finger in your last volume, I shall be much obliged if you can give me any information on the subject. As a lady of my acquaintance has had the misfortune to lose that finger, it has been said that she cannot be legally married in the Church of England in consequence, and had better, if ever solicited, cross the border to Scotland to make the marriage binding.
A RING.
Bishop of London's Palace in Bishopsgate.
—Historians agree that King Henry VII., on his arrival in London after the battle of Bosworth, took up his residence for a few days at the Bishop of London's palace, and Bacon tells us[4] this palace was in Bishopsgate Street. Can any of your readers inform me where it stood?
J. G.
[4] [Where? Our correspondent should have given the reference.—ED.]
Earls of Clare (Vol. v., p. 205.).
—Can H. C. K., who appears to have access to an old pedigree of this family, answer any of the following Queries?
1. Which was the Richard Earl of Clare whose daughter married William de Braose, who was starved to death at Windsor in 1240?
2. Who was Isabel de Clare, who married William de Braose, grandson of the above?
3. Who was Alice, daughter of Richard Earl of Clare, who married William third Baron Percy?
4. Who was Mabel, daughter of an Earl of Clare, who married Nigel de Mowbray, a baron at the coronation of Richard I.?
5. Who was —— de Clare, treasurer of the church of York, living between 1150 and 1200?
E. H. Y.
Lothian's Scottish Historical Maps.—
Ptolemy's Scotland, A.D. 146.
Richard's Ditto, A.D. 446.
Roman Ditto, A.D. 80 to 446.
Pictish Ditto, A.D. 446 to 843.
Picts and Scots Ditto, A.D. 843 to 1071.
Sheriffdoms, Earldoms, and Lordships of the 15th Century.
Highlands in Clans, 1715-45. Track of Prince Charles Stuart.
I should be glad to hear where this progressive series, or any of them, might be met with. I understand it was considered a very complete Atlas of Scotland in the olden times; but on applying to my Edinburgh bookseller, I was informed they were out of print. I think they bear date 1834, and I should think the plates are still in existence. They were said to be very accurate, and the price was under a pound. They were published by John Lothian, formerly Geographer and Map Publisher, Edinburgh.
ELGINENSIS.
Sally Lunn.
—Partial to my sweet tea-cake, I often think when eating it of Sally Lunn, the pretty pastrycook of Bath, to whose inventive genius we are said to be indebted for this farinaceous delicacy. Is anything known of Sally Lunn? is she a personage or a myth?
SHIRLEY HIBBERD.
"Bough-House."
—At the late assizes for the county of Suffolk, the witnesses in two separate cases spoke of a "bough-house," and the explanation given was, that certain houses where beer, &c. was sold at fair-time only had boughs outside to indicate their character. As an illustration of the familiar proverb, "Good wine needs no bush," and as the word does not occur in Forby's Glossary of East Anglia, it may perhaps deserve a place.
BURIENSIS.
Dyson's Collection of Proclamations.
—The curious collection of old proclamations, &c., in the library of the Society of Antiquaries is sometimes referred to as Dyson's, sometimes as Ames's. Was Dyson the original collector? and, if so, when did he live?
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
"The Hour and the Man."
—Can any of your correspondents inform me what is the origin of this expression? It occurs in Guy Mannering, and printed in Italics, but not within inverted commas. Is it a quotation?