B. H. C.
Sham Epitaphs and Quotations (Vol. vi., p 340.).—Your correspondent A. A. D. asks, in reference to a certain epitaph, "has it really a local habitation, and where?" This is a Query full of grave suggestions. Are there not hundreds of epitaphs in print which have no existence except as printer's paragraphs, and which serve the same purpose as the immortal calf with six legs, and the numberless gigantic gooseberries and plethoric turnips. I have collected epitaphs for years past, and it is surprising how many—and those some of the best in a literary sense—defy every attempt to trace them to sepulchral sources. Besides epitaphs, I believe many sham quotations are used by writers, such as couplets and queer phrases of their own coining; but which are inclosed between inverted commas, either to rid their authors of the responsibility of the sentiments they convey, or to add weight to the argument they are introduced to illustrate. A short time since, I contributed a tale to a journal; at the head of each chapter stood a couplet of my own composing, which the printer and editor both mistook for a series of quotations, and kindly affixed inverted commas to them; and, as in that instance I did not receive proof slips to correct, the tale was published, adorned with these sham quotations—the reader being bamboozled without intention, and I robbed of the credit of my original couplets. This is an important matter: for it is no pleasant affair to spend a month or two in the endeavour to trace a quotation, and then to become convinced that you have been hunting for a mare's nest.
Shirley Hibberd.
Door-head Inscription (Vol. vii., p. 23.).—In accordance with the suggestion of A. B. R., I have by means of a friend obtained an accurate transcript of the door-head inscription at Wymondham. It runs thus:
"Nec mihi glis servus, nec hospes hirudo."
The doubts I felt, when I stated that I quoted from memory, related to the first word or two; and it has proved that I was in error there. The hirudo, however, must stand; although it is a question not easy to decide, "whether a greedy or a gossiping guest would be the worst household infliction."
B. B. Woodward.
St. John's Wood.
Potguns (vol. vi., p. 612.).—Dr. Rimbault, in reply to J. R. R., explains potguns by "small guns."
They are, in fact, short cylinders set perpendicularly in a frame, "flat-candlestick"-wise, four or six in a row; and were fired by a train of powder running from touch-hole to touch-hole, as a part of the entertainment (a feu-de-joie, I suppose) at the public grounds at Norwich some twenty years ago, as I remember.