The Gilbert Family (Vol. vii., p. 259).—If your correspondent seeking genealogical information in reference to my ancestors, calls on me, I will show him a presentation copy of A Genealogical Memoir of the Gilbert Family in Old and New England, by J. W. Thornton, LL.B., Boston, U. S., 1850, 8vo. pp. 24, only fifty printed.
James Gilbert.
Alexander Clark (Vol. vii., p. 580.).—I should feel obliged if J. O. could find leisure to communicate to "N. & Q." some particulars relative to Clark. He is supposed to have been the author of a curious poem: The Institution and Progress of the Buttery College of Slains, in the Parish of Cruden, Aberdeenshire; with a Catalogue of the Books and MSS. in the Library of that University: Aberdeen, 1700. Mr. Peter Buchan thus mentions him in his Gleanings of Scarce Old Ballads:
"Clark, a drunken dominie at Slains, author of a poetical dialogue between the gardeners and tailors on the origin of their crafts, and a most curious Latin and English poem called the 'Buttery College of Slains,' which resembled much in language and style Drummond of Hawthornden's 'Polemo Middino.'"
This poem is printed in Watson's Collection of Scottish Poems, Edin. 1711; and also noticed in the Edinburgh Topographical and Antiquarian Magazine, 1848, last page. I am anxious to ascertain if the emblem writer, and the burlesque poet, be one and the same person. The dates, I confess, are somewhat against this conclusion; but there may have been a previous edition of the Emblematical Representation (1779). The University Clark is supposed to have been an Aberdeenshire man. Possibly J. O. may be able to throw some light on the subject.
Perthensis.
Christ's Cross (Vol. iii., pp. 330. 465.).—In Morley's Introduction to Practical Music, originally printed in 1597, and which I quote from a reprint by William Randall, in 4to., in 1771, eighteen mortal pages (42-59), which, in my musical ignorance, I humbly confess to be wholly out of my line, are occupied with the "Cantus," "Tenor," and "Bassus," to the following words:
"Christes Crosse be my speed in all vertue to proceede, A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, & t, double w, v, x, with y, ezod, & per se, con per se, tittle tittle est Amen, When you haue done begin again, begin again."
J. F. M.