Names of Slaves (Vol. viii., p. 339.).—I can answer the first of J. F. M.'s Queries in the affirmative; it being common to see in Virginia slaves, or free people who have been slaves, with names acquired in the manner suggested: e. g. "Philip Washington," better known in Jefferson county as "Uncle Phil.," formerly a slave of the Washingtons. A large family, liberated and sent to Cape Palmas, bore the surname of "Davenport," from the circumstance that their progenitor had been owned by the Davenports. In fact, the practice is almost universal. But fancy names are generally used as first names: e. g. John Randolph, Peyton, Jefferson, Fairfax, Carter, &c. A fine old body-servant of Col. Willis was called "Burgundy," shortened into "Uncle Gundy." So that "Milton," in the case mentioned, may have been merely the homage paid to genius by some enthusiastic admirer of that poet.
J. Balch.
Philadelphia.
Heraldic (Vol. ix., p. 271.).—On the brass of Robert Arthur, St. Mary's, Chartham, Kent, are two shields bearing a fess engrailed between three trefoils slipped: which may probably be the same as that about which Loccan inquires, though I am unable to tell the colours. There are two other shields bearing, Two bars with a bordure. The inscription is as follows:
"Hic iacet dns Robertus Arthur quondam Rector isti' Eccliē qui obiit xxviiio die marcii Ao dni Millō CCCCoLIIIIo. Cui' aīe ppiciet' de' Amē."
F. G.
Solar Annual Eclipse of 1263 (Vol. viii., p. 441.).—Mr. Tytler, in the first volume of his History of Scotland, mentions that this eclipse, which occurred about 2 P.M. on Sunday, August 5, 1263, has been found by calculation to have been actually central and annular to Ronaldsvoe, in the Orkneys, where the Norwegian fleet was then lying: a fine example, as he justly adds, "of the clear and certain light reflected by the exact sciences on history." S. asks, is this eclipse mentioned by any other writer? As connected with the Norwegian expedition, it would seem not; but Matthew of Westminster (vol. ii. p. 408., Bohn's edit.) mentions it having been seen in England, although he places it erroneously on the 6th of the month.
J. S. Warden.
Brissot de Warville (Vol. ix., p. 335.).—Brissot's Mémoires is a very common book in the original, and has gone through several editions. The passage quoted by N. J. A. was only an impudent excuse for an impudent assumption. Brissot, in his early ambition, wished to pass himself off as a gentleman, and called himself Brissot de Warville, as Danton did D'Anton, and Robespierre de Robespierre; but when these worthies were endeavouring to send M. de Warville to the scaffold as an aristocrat, he invented this fable of his father's having some landed property at Ouarville en Beauce (not Beance), and that he was called, according to the custom of the country, from this place, where, it seems, he was put out to nurse. When the dread of the guillotine made M. de Warville anxious to get rid of his aristocratic pretensions, he confessed (in those same Mémoires) that his father kept a cook's shop in the town of Chartres, and was so ignorant that he could neither read nor write. I need not add, that his having had a landed property to justify, in any way, the son's territorial appellation, was a gross fiction.
C.