WARIN: DE LA WARENNE.-Henry II. presented his favourite, Fulk FitzWarine with Ludlow Castle, in Shropshire, alias De Dinan of the royal line of Stewart. Warren is merely another form of Garren or Guarin. The shield of De la Warrenne was Checky or and azure, identical with that of Alan le Breton, Seigneur of Richemont, now Richmond, in Yorkshire. At the coronation of Henry III. the Earl de la Warrenne acted as cupbearer to the king. A province named La Guerande occurs in Brittany. The magnificent ruined castle of Conisburgh, viz., Conansburgh,* in Yorkshire, was founded by William, first Earl of Warren, to whom the estate was granted by William the Conqueror. It passed from the Warrens to Richard, Earl of Cambridge. T. W. CAREY. RABELAIS.-There is a story told of Rabelais that when a decree was issued depriving the Faculty of Montpellier of its privileges, Rabelais was deputed to try to recover them. Not knowing the minister, nor how to approach him, he presented himself at the hotel and addressed the porter in Latin. An interpreter was called, and he addressed him in Greek, and so on through other languages. He had already provided an extraordinary "make up"-a long robe of green and a long grey beard. The Chancellor was curious to see him, became charmed with his wit, asked him to dinner, and granted his petition. In the edition of 1837, in the Notice sur Rabelais,' it is stated that medical degrees at Montpellier are said still to be conferred in this masquerade "robe de Rabelais." Is that so? I trow not. Walthamstow. C. A. WARD. [Until late in the present century it was the custom for those taking at Montpellier the degree of Doctor of Medicine to don a robe said to have been that of Rabelais. This, however, if ever his, has frequently been renewed. Dr. R. Desgenelles, in the 'Biographie Médicale,' says: "Nous sommes réputé nous-même avoir porté cette robe, ajoute-t-il, mais c'était une pure commémoration, car elle avait été renouvelée au moins vingt fois, puisqu' environ cinquante docteurs annuellement reçus à Montpellier en ont constamment emporté des lambeaux avant, pendant ou après l'acte probatoire dit de rigueur (punctum rigorosum)." The story that Rabelais made to the Chancellor Duprat the application to which you refer is regarded by the same authority as improbable. Voltaire * Conan was the name of a king of Brittany. says, speaking of the things narrated concerning Rabelai "La vie de Rabelais imprimée au devant de Gargantu est aussi fausse et aussi absurde que l'histoire de Gar gantua lui-même" (Lettre sur Rabelais,' &c., 1767, dar les Mélanges Littéraires'). In the account of Mont pellier in the Guide-Joanne 'De Paris à la Méditerranée Deuxième Partie, ed. 1865, p. 784, it is said, speaking o La robe doctorale, dite d the School of Medicine: Rabelais...... n'existe plus, mais on voit dans cette sall un registre renfermant l'acte de réception de Rabelais signé de lui."] SIENNA OR SIENA.-Can any of your readers tell which is the correct way of spelling the name of this lovely Italian city? Persons well versed in things Italian insist on Siena; others, as accomplished as they, demand the use of two n's. My opinion is that, like Leiden and Leyden, both forms are correct. ANON. A RARE BOOKLET.-I picked up, not long since, on a barrow in Farringdon Street, for a penny, a little volume which I think must be rare, though not valuable. It is called "The Art of Making Pens Scientifically......to which are added genuine receipts for making ink, and also directions for secret writing. By John Wilkes, Pen-cutter." But from the contents it would seem that this old John Wilkes was no mere "pen-cutter," but a writing master, with many pupils in London; and he dates his work from No. 57, Cornhill. My copy is of the second edition; and on the title-page it professes to be printed by J. Vigevena, Huggin Lane, Wood Street, Cheapside; and sold by Messrs. Crosby & Letterman, Stationers' Court, Ludgate Hill, and every other bookseller in town and country. It bears no date of the year (why will publishers omit this?), but apparently it is about a century old. Is anything known of the book and its author? E. WALFORD, M.A. 7, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W. CURTAL FRIAR.-Friar Tuck is called a curtal friar in Howard Pyle's 'Robin Hood.' What is a curtal friar? E. COBHAM BREWER. [Apparently a friar wearing a short gown or habit ('Century Dictionary').] TUDOR.-Lieut. Charles Tudor, of Hythe, co. Kent, at the time of his marriage, in 1810, to Elizabeth Moore, of the precincts of Christchurch, Canterbury. He was born in 1781; of the 23rd Light Dragoons at Waterloo, 1815; and Adjutant in the South Hants Yeomanry Cavalry 1820; died September 18, 1867. Any particulars as to his parentage and descent, or where such information might be obtained, will oblige. Please answer GEO. F. TUDOR SHERWOOD. direct. 6, Fulham Park Road, S.W. PONTIUS PILATE'S HORSE.-A man in a house of business is getting ready a load for a porter to take. The porter, thinking it too heavy, says, surlily, "D'ye think I've got a back like Pontius """TWAS WHEN THE SEAS WERE ROARING."Writing to William Unwin, under date August 4, 1783, Cowper asks : "What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or rather Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the Whatdo-ye-call-it'-'Twas when the seas were roaring'?" Then he adds: "I have been well informed that they all contributed, and that the most celebrated association of clever fellows this country ever saw did not think it beneath them to unite their strength and abilities in the composition of a song. The success, however, answered their wishes." In his 'Eighteenth Century Literature,' p. 136, Mr. Gosse says: “'Twas when the seas were roaring 'and' Black-eyed Susan' have placed Gay among British lyrists." What evidence is there that the former song is the exclusive work of Gay? Helensburgh, N.B. THOMAS BAYNE. ROBINSON, BISHOP OF LONDON.-Dr. Robinson, Bishop of London, married the widow of Francis Cornwallis, Esq., of Albemarle's, Carmarthenshire. I shall be very glad to know her family and Christian name. She was seventy years of age when she married the bishop. By Mr. Cornwallis she had one son, born 1693, died 1728 without issue; he had married Jane, heiress of Sir Sackville Crow, Bart., born 1671, died 1730. It was strange that she should have married a man for whom she had actually been godmother. The Cornwallises had four daughters, of whom the youngest, Elizabeth, born 1697, died 1779, having married Sir Robert Maude, Bart., born 1675, died 1750. I do not know anything respecting the Bishop Dr. Robinson. Y. S. M. CAT'S BRAINS.-This name occurs in a list of field-names for Loughton, co. Essex, and also, I am told, denotes a hill in the Cotswolds, near Painswick. Can any one suggest an origin for what appears a singular corruption? W. C. W. STEWART OF CRAIGTOUN.-Can any one inform me who Thomas Stewart of Craigtoun (near Dunkeld) married (about 1600), and what family he had; also, where I can obtain Scotch genealogical information in London ? SCOTUS. Replies. "WRITE YOU." (7th S. x. 168, 273, 371.) L. L. K. writes on this subject, "Surely PROF. SKEAT is wrong!" This sounds to me rather like saying that Newton's 'Principia' or Cocker's 'Arithmetic' is all wrong. Nevertheless, let us be nullius addicti, &c., and think for ourselves. In the case in question I cannot help thinking with L. L. K. that "write him" without an accusative to follow is a commercial vulgarism. The grammar of the matter is unmistakable; but we are here speaking of a social, and not of a grammatical question. MR. C. A. WARD "loves to see language discarding what is useless." So do I. But the question what is useless may be a larger one than MR. WARD seems to contemplate. It should be remembered that language is a growing organism. The ring marks in the trunk of any ancient pine, any noting of which was useless to the generations which saw it grow, may afford very important indications to those present at a post mortem examination of it. But another phrase which I take to be equally "a I may couple with the above a caveat against think, showed itself under any other guise in my commercial vulgarism," and which hardly ever, I youth. I mean the phrase "care for." "I do not care for this, that, or the other person or thing in him or it as renders him or it otherwise than clearly means that I do not take any such interest indifferent to me-means that and no more. I hear the phrase constantly and increasingly, as it seems to me, used to signify "I do not like this or that person or thing," that is, "I do care for it or abusive use I take to be adopted from the strictly him sufficiently to dislike it or him." Now this commercial world. The "I do not care for" is the depreciatory answer of a dealer to whom some It is the phrase of article is offered for purchase. do not want, and decline the purchase of the a bargainer. It is not altogether equivalent to "I goods in question," but simply approaches the consideration of the proposed dealing in the spirit of a purchaser not willing to appear anxious for the transaction. Then the parrot-like millions who are busy in the ceaseless occupation of degrading our language catch and forthwith imitate the words, as they daily do the thousands of other phrases which make the "slang" of the day, which would be but slightly offensive if it were not the result of the vilest, vulgarest, and stupidest plagiarism and imitation. T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. Budleigh Salterton. Though it may seem presumptuous in me to say anything on PROF. SEEAT'S views before his own reply has appeared, it is certainly not presumptuous to reply on the grounds of knowledge and common No reader of Elizabethan English, no attentive speaker of Victorian English, can fail to know that the non-use of to is common not merely in the case of write, but of other verbs. Take, for example, give and speak. In 2 Henry VI..' IV. i. 120, and '3 Henry VI.,' V. iv., we have "speak him fair," "speak them fair," where there is no accusative, fair being our fairly. And one would do well not only to read, but to reflect on, par. 220 of Abbot's 'Shakespearian Grammar.' Nor is there the slightest reason why the newly introduced wire should not be so used. Setting aside the fact that our present accusative pronouns were once also datives, while there is evidence enough that to was often prefixed, yet there also came into play that fact, insufficiently, I think, alluded to, that Englishmen abbreviate their words and phrases when they can do so without loss of ordinary distinctness. Thence, I think, aided by a survival of the datival use of you, &c., comes the still used phrasing, "I will write you," "give him," "speak them," &c. These may have become vulgarisms; but the only proofs I have seen that they are are the ipsi dixerunt of certain prejudiced writers. Have our purifiers of English as she ought to be spoke ever used either or both of these phrases, "I give him it" and "I give it him" ? BR. NICHOLSON. The question whether it would be a vulgarism or ungrammatical to say "I write you," instead of "I write to you," depends for its solution mainly on the usage of good writers and leading newspapers. I beg to subjoin some examples from modern English: "Please thank Mr. W. B. for many kind notes he wrote me in the days of MSS. and proofs, not one of which I ever answered or took notice of except for my own behoof" ("Life of * We find such syntax not only with to write, but also with to read: "I am going to read you a few words from that petition "(Gladstone, in the Times, weekly edition, No. 619, p. 5 b). Even to say, with which the use of to is strictly enforced by all grammarians, begins to show signs of rebellion: "Say me that Dudden sonnet you used to say to me there, as you said it to me the last Sunday before our wedding" ('Robert Elsmere,' Tauchnitz ed., ii. 208). After these examples from modern English the question may not be considered irrelevant whether they must be condemned as bad grammar or received as desirable innovations. In general we may say that grammars ought to run as close to usage as they possibly can, only exercising their controlling influence where something would be conservative set; they never push, but are always decidedly wrong. Grammarians as a rule are a pushed by usage. But, whatever grammar may say, this seems to be a good principle: If any change be introduced in etymology or syntax, try to find out whether it is founded on sound analogy, and whether it does not obscure the meaning to be conveyed. Now to use the verb to write with a dative without to is perfectly allowable, provided usage sanctions it, because it only follows in that the same plight, viz., to pay, to send, to lend, &c. case the analogy of many other verbs that are in Moreover, the omission of to cannot give rise to insertion of to is desirable. "He wrote you" may, any ambiguity. If this should be the case, the if it stands thus by itself, mean both "He wrote [the word] you" and "He wrote to you." In a complete sentence such ambiguity would, however, hardly present itself. Leeuwarden, Holland. K. TEN BRUGGencate. This phrase was long ago commented on unfavourably. For instance, it incurs the censure of Robert Baker, who, in his 'Remarks on the English Language' (ed. 1779, p. 1), speaks of it as "often used, especially by people in trade." Again, Dr. Beattie, in his 'Scoticisms' (ed. 1787, p. 101), objects to it on the ground of its being, as he supposed, peculiar to North Britain. According to PROF. SKEAT, "of course" it "is an old formula." Can he show that it is so? An ounce THE LAXTON FAMILY (7th S. x. 367, 436)-Sir William Laxton, Kt., Grocer, Sheriff, 1540; Mayor, 1544; Alderman of Aldersgate, 15361543; and of Lime Street Ward, 1543-1556; also, according to Dr. Sharpe, sometime of Langbourn Ward (and so, probably, previously to his occupation of Aldersgate), was the son of John Laxton, of Oundle, co. Northampton. He married the relict of Henry Luddington, of London, gent., namely, Joane, daughter of William Kirkeby, of Kirkeby, co. York, by Alice, daughter and heir of......Whethill. EDDONE states he had issue one daughter, Anne, married to John Medley, Chamberlain of London. I am inclined to surmise that he had no issue whatever, and that the said Anne (the first wife of Sir Thomas Lodge, Mayor in 1562) was the daughter of Henry Ludington and Joane Kirkeby (subsequently married to Sir William Laxton); and the probability is that she was the relict of John Medley when she was married to Sir Thomas Lodge. My reasons for this conclusion are these; the Visitation of London, 1568 (an almost contemporary authority) ascribes Anne, the second daughter and third child of Henry Luddington and Joane Kirkeby (subsequently married to Sir William Laxton), to Sir Thomas Lodge, as his (first) wife. On the other hand, the Visitation of Shropshire, 1623, states that Sir Thomas Lodge married (for his first wife) Anna, daughter of Sir William Laxton. Thus, whilst these two authorities agree as to the maternal parentage of the said Anna, they disagree as to her paternity-the one assigning her to Joane Kirkeby's first husband (Henry Luddington), the other to her second husband (Sir William Laxton). Grocers' Company towards his burial-dinner, occur certain bequests to William Laxton, of Gretton, mydlesonne of Thomas Laxton; Thomas, another son of the same; Alice and Agnes, their sisters; to Thomas, son of Robert Laxton, of Gretton; to Robert, Henry, William, Richard, and Edward, brothers of the aforesaid Thomas; to Christian Webster, of Owndell (Oundle), widow; William Presgrave, of London, Haberdasher; his servants, and others, &c. Then follow more specific bequests: To Nicholas Luddington, his wife's son; to Johane Machell, his wife's daughter, wife of John Machel, Alderman; and to Anne, wife of Thomas Lodge, another daughter of his wife. His real estate he demises in the following manner: After the decease of Dame Johane, his wife, his manor, called Rose-hall, in Sarrett, co. Hertford, together with other lands and tenements, are to go to Nicholas Luddington, aforesaid; and his lands and tenements in Stoke Nayland, in cos. Suffolk and Essex, to Anne, wife of Thomas Lodge, aforesaid. And, in conclusion, he leaves to William Mayson_his tenements in the parish of Aldermary, City of London. Thus far the will disproves the fact that Sir William Laxton had any (at all events, surviving) issue, and establishes the fact that the wife of Sir Thomas Lodge (according to the Visitation of London, 1568) was the step-daughter of Sir William (and not his daughter, as the Visitation of Shropshire, 1623, gives it). Unfortunately, as Dr. Sharpe has pointed out in his very excellent Introduction to the first volume of these 'Husting Rolls,' the wills enrolled in this court were frequently merely supplementary ones, and for the most part dealt simply with real and personal property that came within the jurisdiction of civic authority. It is not unusual to find the testator referring in these documents to another will, in which disposition has been made of the bulk of his real property, not provided for in these subsequent Husting wills, which in many cases appear to have been somewhat like codicils. For the wills themselves we must probably go to the Prerogative Court of Canterbury or York. Something of this kind appears likely to have been the case with Sir William Laxton's will, because Joane, daughter of John Laxton, who married Thomas Wanton, Citizen and Grocer of London, is said to have been the heir of her uncle Sir William Laxton (see Visitation of London, 1568, Wanton pedigree). As regards the executrix The will, however, of Sir William Laxton, dated to Sir William Laxton's will the 'Calendar of the 17 July, 1556, and in 1557 enrolled in the Court Husting Rolls' is silent; but as Lady Laxton surof Husting, and printed in the lately published vived her husband, she would, in all probability, second volume of Dr. Sharpe's 'Husting Rolls,' be the executrix inquired for. Her burial in throws considerable light upon the issue (or default) Aldermary church is thus noted in the register: of Sir William Laxton. After bequests to St."1576, Sept. 10, The Ladie Laxton, widow" so Bartholomew's and Christ's Hospitals, to the that she survived Sir William twenty years. inmates of various prisons, and ten pounds to the Another burial from the same register is noticeable ALLEGED CHANGE OF CLIMATE IN ICELAND (7th S. x. 6, 138, 192, 333, 429, 475; xi. 13).Apparently, then, incredible as it seemed to me at first, GENERAL DRAYSON does think that the conical motion of the earth's axis was conceived by astronomers to be performed round the southern pole as the vertex, instead of round the centre of the axis as the vertex of a double cone. If he will look at any catalogue of stars which gives precessions, he will soon be undeceived, and find that the precession of the equinoxes has always been taken to affect the places of the stars in both hemispheres in a precisely similar way. GENERAL DRAYSON asks me twice whether I am able to calculate the place of a star for epochs at distant periods; and this, it appears, is a test question to decide whether I am capable of discussing the matter in hand. As I have made such calculations some thousands of times, the question is somewhat similar to asking a grown man with the full use of his limbs whether he has ever walked a mile. But, of course, this way of putting it is only obscuring the point. To make such a reduction you must first have an accurate place at a known epoch, and to obtain this an astronomer never trusts, if he can help it, to one observation. You must also know whether the star has any appreciable proper motion, and its approximate amount, which cannot be obtained from a single observation. In addition to this, you must use formulæ founded upon a theory which GENERAL DRAYSON tells us is all wrong, but the erroneousness of which he' has not yet succeeded in proving. When I referred to the Professors of Astronomy at Oxford and Cambridge, this was by no means to "substitute" their honoured names "for proof and argument," but because scientific arguments of a controversial character would occupy more space than the Editor of N. & Q.' could probably spare for them, whilst it was desirable to hint to its readers, as GENERAL DRAYSON had called me one of the fossil astronomers," that, if all are to be designated as such who cannot accept his peculiar theories second rotation of the earth round a point six Blackheath. PORTRAITS OF DOUGLAS JERROLD (7th S. x. 169, 252, 317, 471).-In 'John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character,' published in 1886, in 3 vols., the names of all the persons in the cartoon are given, both performers and company. Performers stand thus, from left to right: Horace Mayhew, Percival Leigh, Richard Doyle, John Leech (under him), Gilbert A'Beckett, Mark Lemon (conductor), Tom Taylor (piano), Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold. The 'cello player is P. Leigh. Twenty-two of the company below are portraits, and their names are given. E. LEATON-BLENKINSOPP. CHARLES PHILLIPS (7th S. x. 308, 378, 455).— The Matriculation Book of Trinity College, Dublin, |