Can any of your readers inform me whether a portrait of Hobbes is now in the galleries at Florence, and, if so, by whom it was painted? It is possible that mine is a duplicate of the picture which was painted for the Grand Duke.
W. C. Trevelyan.
Wallington.
Minor Queries with Answers.
Brasenose, Oxford.—I am anxious to learn the origin and meaning of the word Brasenose. I have somewhere heard or read (though I cannot recall where) that it was a Saxon word, brasen haus or "brewing-house;" and that the college was called by this name, because it was built on the site of the brewing-house of King Alfred. All that Ingram says on the subject is this:
"This curious appellation, which, whatever was the origin of it, has been perpetuated by the symbol of a brazen nose here and at Stamford, occurs with the modern orthography, but in one undivided word, so early as 1278, in an Inquisition, now printed in the Hundred Rolls, though quoted by Wood from the manuscript record."—See his Memorials of Oxford.
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
[Our correspondent will find the notice of King Alfred's brew-house in the review of Ingram's Memorials in the British Critic, vol. xxiv. p. 139. The writer says, "There is a spot in the centre of the city where Alfred is said to have lived, and which may be called the native place or river-head of three separate societies still existing, University, Oriel, and Brasenose. Brasenose claims his palace, Oriel his church, and University his school or academy. Of these Brasenose College is still called, in its formal style, 'the King's Hall,' which is the name by which Alfred himself, in his laws, calls his palace; and it has its present singular name from a corruption of brasinium, or brasin-huse, as having been originally located in that part of the royal mansion which was devoted to the then important accommodation of a brew-house." Churton, in his Life of Bishop Smyth, p. 277., thus accounts for the origin of the word:—"Brasen Nose Hall, as the Oxford antiquary has shown, may be traced as far back as the time of Henry III., about the middle of the thirteenth century; and early in the succeeding reign, 6th Edward I., 1278, it was known by the name of Brasen Nose Hall, which peculiar name was undoubtedly owing, as the same author observes, to the circumstance of a nose of brass affixed to the gate. It is presumed, however, this conspicuous appendage of the portal was not formed of the mixed metal, which the word now denotes, but the genuine produce of the mine; as is the nose, or rather face, of a lion or leopard still remaining at Stamford, which also gave name to the edifice it adorned. And hence, when Henry VIII. debased the coin, by an alloy of copper, it was a common remark or proverb, that 'Testons were gone to Oxford, to study in Brasen Nose.'">[
G. Downing.—Can any one point out to me a biography of G. Downing, or at least indicate a work where the dates of the birth and death of this celebrated statesman may be found? He was English ambassador in the Hague previous to and in the year 1664, and to him Downing Street in London owes its name. A very speedy answer would be most welcome.—From the Navorscher.