Norman Lush, according to 'The CORPSE BLEEDING IN PRESENCE OF THE People,' comes from Simon de Lusco of MURDERER (11 S. ii. 328, 390, 498; iii. 35, Normandy, mentioned (1180-95) in Magn. 92, 398). The Japanese belief that blood Rotul. Scaccarii Normanniæ,' in the will flow from a corpse when it is approached Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de by one dearly loved was also held in this la Normandie. The name of Gaufridus country. It is noted in Hone's' Year-Book ' Loske also occurs therein. at p. 592 that Reginald Scot in his Discovery of Witchcraft' says: In the Rotuli Hundredorum' (Record publication) his descendants Michael and Nicholas Losse are stated to have been resident in England c. 1272. Fair Park, Exeter. HARRY HEMS. [SUTOCS also thanked for reply] "NIB "SEPARATE PEN-POINT (11 S. iii. 346).—I do not understand DR. KRUEGER'S difficulty about this word in its restricted sense. In English, at any rate, the modern meaning of "pen" is the complete implement, stem, holder, and nib: this being the general acceptation of the name since the virtual disappearance of the quill pen. The use of 66 nib to denote a pen-point apart from the holder is neither novel nor vulgar; in fact, it is the only available word we have; though in America a nib with a blunt or broad point always goes by the name of a less pleasing term by far, to my fancy, than "nib." The "N.E.D.' gives examples of the latter from 1837 and 1840. I can remember "boxes of nibs" being much in evidence in English schools in the sixties. N. W. HILL. stub : New York. ST. DUNSTAN AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS (11 S. iii. 489).-The lines quoted by MR. GOWER are a variant of lines 5 and 6 of A Lay of St. Dunstan,' one of 'The Ingoldsby Legends.' St. Dunstan's political career has been mixed up with his ecclesiastical in an inextricable manner, while both have been the subject of legend, of which that of seizing the devil by the nose with the tongs It is told in the life of St. Dunstan by Osbern, and can be seen in the Rolls series, pp. 84-5, also the Introduction, p. lxv. A. RHODES. is one. 6 "I have heard by credible report, that the wound of a man murthered renews bleeding at the presence of a dear friend or of a mortal enemy. Divers also write that if one pass by a murthered body (though unknown) he shall be stricken with fear, and feel in himself some alteration of nature." ST. SWITHIN. TWINS AND SECOND SIGHT (11 S. iii. 469). There is an idea amongst some people that twins are "more than ordinary," and that when they are living in different places the one feels or knows when the other is ill, that something more than usual is taking place. Twins are often "odd and do strange things. One I know, a woman, is singular in her ways. In making excuses for her, her mother often says: 66 Oh! take no notice of her: she's a twin." She certainly comes out" with singular expressions, and seems to have an intuition of things about to happen; but it hardly fits in with the term second sight." 66 Worksop. THOS. RATCLIFFE. The old superstition about "second sight prevailed generally all over the Highlands and islands of Scotland about a hundred years ago. It has now virtually disappeared except on the rare occasions when its ashes are revived for the benefit of tourists able to pay handsomely for samples of its manifestation. Apparently it differed considerably from the curious variety of "second sight " described in the query. The Highland "second sight" consisted in beholding things at a distance or events in the future, generally of a calamitous nature to the persons listening to the seer. Twins were not understood to have any greater aptitude for the weird gift than persons otherwise seventh son, however, was popularly credited properly qualified. The seventh son of a with a capacity to discern the occult and mysterious. It was invariably considered that "second sight," or any other mystical endowment, was his to exercise at pleasure. The curious and interesting incidents described in the query would seem to have been cases of spiritual intuition rather than "second sight" in the old Highland sense. SCOTUS. 66 ARCHBISHOP STONE OF ARMAGH (11 S. iii. 450). See the 'D.N.B.,' vol. liv. p. 405, for Andrew Stone (1703-73), and p. 410 for George Stone (1708 ?-64). They were sons of Andrew Stone, a prominent banker of Lombard Street, London, by his wife Anne Holbrooke. The Under-Secretary's only son, Thomas, died before he was twelve years of age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 15 February, 1761. The Archbishop died unmarried, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His portrait by Ramsay is in the hall of Christ Church, Oxon. A. R. BAYLEY, [T. S. R. W. also refers to the 'D.N.B.'] WELLINGTON STATUES IN LONDON: M. C. WYATT (11 S. iii. 285).—The following extract from The Times of 21 June may be added to the note at the above reference. The quotation contained in it is taken from The Times of June, 1838: as The Times comments follows of the appointment of Mr. Wyatt, the sculptor, to design the Wellington Memorial: "It is a week or ten days since we raised our voice against one of the most mischievous, offensive, and revolting jobs that ever disgraced this country, so fertile in them. It behoves us, we see, to try our hand again; and if the noblest of the fine arts can yet be rescued from insult, or the memory of the greatest living Englishman from desecration, it is our bounden duty-in the discharge of which we earnestly claim, nay, supplicate, the cordial help and support of all our brethren of the press, without distinction of politics or party-to denounce and reprobate, in the face of the whole world, the monstrous attempt upon human patience which is now in progress, and of which the authorship rests, as our correspondents, and indeed the printed reports, inform us, with Sir Frederick Trench. The job in question is no other than the consignment of the "Wellington Memorial,' for the western end of the metropolis, to a certain Mr. Wyatt, to whom we are indebted for that burlesque effigy miscalled an "equestrian statue" of George III., which adorns a part of Westminster formerly known as Cockspur Street, but latterly, through the good offices of the said Mr. Wyatt, distinguished as Pigtail-place." 66 66 "FRANKLIN DAYS" : BORROWING DAYS" (11 S. iv. 9).—" Franklin days seem to be the English mediaval rendering of li Cavalié, the Knights' days, considered in Provence and other parts of Southern France as critical days for weather. They probably became naturalized in England during the Plantagenet times of close intercourse with Southern France, which brought so many Provençal words and customs to England. The terms Franklin have been adopted to avoid the ambiguity of “knights' " in conjunction with "days"; and this group of days appears to have shifted to certain critical days two or three weeks later. 66 may The first of the series of knights is the knight St. George's Day, the 23rd of April ; then come St. Mark on the 25th, and St. Eutropius on the 30th. To these is added Holy Cross Day, 3 May, as in the saying, with the variant "Soun li quatre capoulié In this rime the names of the knights or chiefs are given in their familiar diminutives, Jourget for Jòrgi, &c. ; and Holy Cross Day is personified. Sometimes St. John of the Lateran Gate, 6 May, is added to the knights; and St. Philip on the 1st of May is also considered critical. Another group of saints, Pancras, Glycerius, and Boniface, the three saints de glace of Northern as of Southern France, are held responsible for the cold weather frequently occurring from the 12th to the 14th of May. I have heard an English saying that the 12th of May is the coldest day." This cold snap often occurs somewhat later, perhaps as a consequence of the New Style in a country which has forgotten most of the saints. However, this year, as indeed I have observed in other years, a cold northerly wind blew in Paris, as at Exeter, on the 19th and following days. It is to this group of days that the term "Franklin days," originally earlier, appears to have shifted. ... We had ourselves never heard of this person being remarkable for any piece of original statuary but a monument," as it was misnamed, to the Princess Charlotte, wherein the body of the The critical day of English summer, deceased appears dripping under a wet sheet, as if just dragged out of the Thames and her St. Swithin, 15 July, is in France that of corpulent spirit (a separate portion of the same St. Médard, 8 June; and in the south group), mounting with painful difficulty, pretty St. Gervase, 19 June, shares the obloquy much after the fashion of a prize calf at Smithfield. of the latter saint in possibly bringing a Surely such a piece of lumbering feebleness and long spell of rainy weather even animal vulgarity never yet disgraced a sculptor's chisel, or deformed, as it now does, the interior dreaded, as wheat is usually fit for reaping of a Christian"church," " by St. John the Baptist's Day, 24 June. After this month rain is welcome and critical ROBERT PIERPOINT. more 18 October, autumn begins; he cools the soil and fits it for sowing. saints' days are fewer. With St. Luke, burnt dry ditch to see how he likes the drought, it seems that general opinion considers the saints responsible for the weather, rather than the dates attributed to them in the calendar. EDWARD NICHOLSON. At the new year critical days are again observed. Candlemas, 2 February, is critical for the weather of the next forty days. A quotation in the E.D.D.' under February shows that in the Highlands there are often three stormy days which February has borrowed from January. This idea of one month borrowing days from the preceding, or from the following, month, for good or for evil, seems to be widespread. In Italy there are i giorni della Vecchia, at Mid-Lent, when expected spring often begins with very cold weather. For the reason of this name I must return to Provence, though doubtless Italian folk-lorists may be able to give the Italian legend of these days, the Provençal days 66 quand la Vièio encagnado mando à Febrié sa reguignado (' Mirèio,' vi.), when the angry old woman sends a kick back to February. These jour de la Vièio are the last three of February and the first three of March. The legendary old woman, seeing February about to pass off favourably for her pasture, said, like Dante's blackbird ('Purgatorio,' xiii.), Now I fear thee no longer"; but February went to March and borrowed three days from him, and was thus able to punish the old woman by six days of such cold that her flock of sheep perished. The old woman kicked; she bought some cows, but, not having learnt wisdom, she rejoiced again towards the end of March. This month, having three days left, borrowed four days from April, and punished the old woman's COWS so effectually that these seven days are called li Vaqueiriéu or li jour negre de la Vaco, the black days of the COW. Since then farmers have taken care not to halloo till they are well out of the risk of the bad weather likely to come in the critical days from February till the end of June. I have told the story only of the Knights' days and of borrowed days, but a good many saints throughout the Southern calendar, which is different from the Northern, have something said for or against them as influencing weather. It is not easy to say how far the saint, or the day bearing his name, is made responsible for the weather, but the Southern peasant reckons seasons rather by saints' days than by dates; and in a country where a saint who fails to send rain in answer to prayer may find his statue put out in a sun Neuilly. [For St. Swithin and St. Médard see ante p. 45; for " borrowing days in England and Provence see the notes by ST. SWITHIN at 9 S. xii. 23, 351.] "Mummy' as a pigment is inferior to prepared but superior to raw asphalt, inasmuch as it has been submitted to a considerable degree of heat, and Moreover, it is usual to grind up the bones and has thereby lost some of its volatile hydrocarbons. other parts of the mummy together, so that the resulting powder has more solidity and is less fusible than the asphalt alone would be. A London colourman informs me that one Egyptian the demands of his customers for twenty years. mummy furnishes sufficient material to satisfy It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add that some samples of the pigment sold as mummy are spurious. Mummy was certainly used as oil-paint at least as early as the close of the sixteenth century." ARTHUR H. CHURCH. Shelsley, Kew Gardens. an 'The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases' (Camb. Univ. Press, 1892) quotes, s.v. mummia, from Richard Haydocke's Tracte containing the Artes of Curious Paintinge, Carvinge, and Buildinge,' 1598, Book iii. p. 99, translated from Lomatius: "The shadowes of carnation are the earth of Campania, and Vmber called Falsalo, burnt verditer, aspaltum, mummia." Lomatius is Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, who wrote Trattato dell' Arte della Pittura, Scoltura, ed. Architettura.' I hardly know what kind of evidence MR. G. MCMURRAY requires as to the truth of the statement that mummy was used as a pigment. Fairholt ('Dictionary of Terms in Art') recognizes it as a material known to painters, and asserts : "The genuine consists of the substance found in the tombs of Egypt, which is a compound of bitumen and organic matter both animal and vegetable. Some manufacturers grind the whole of this substance together, by which a dirtycoloured pigment is obtained. Others carefully select only the bitumen." Adeline (Lexique des Termes d'Art') is accordant. He notes: - "S'il fallait en croire M. Valmant de Bomare, la mummie tirée de momies égyptiennes authentiques depuis longtemps déjà était fort rare, et celle que fournissaient alors les droguistes du Levant provenait des cadavres que les juifs et les chrétiens du Levant embaumaient avec des aromates résineux et du bitume de Judée." We may not forget that Desdemona's fateful handkerchief (Othello,' III. iv. 74) was dyed in mummy, which the skilful Conserved of maidens' hearts. exceedingly in its composition and properties....It is only used as an oil-colour." A medicinal preparation was made from the substance of mummies. Hakluyt (1599), Vol. II. i. 201, says: "And these dead bodies are the Mummie which the Phisitians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make us to swallow"; and Swift (1727), 'Further Acc. Curll,' Wks.,' 1755, III. i. 161, satirically speaks of "the mummy of some deceased Moderator of the General Assembly in Scotland, to be taken inwardly effectual antidote against AntiA. R. BAYLEY. as an Christ." PRINCE CHARLES OF BOURBON-CAPUA (11 S. iii. 329, 393).-Since writing at the latter reference I have received from an old friend and inhabitant of Lucca further details regarding the residence of the family of the above Prince of Bourbon - Capua (younger brother of King Bomba of Naples), who died in 1862. My correspondent states that the Villa Marlia (not Martia," as SCOTUS calls it), near Lucca, belonged formerly to an ancient and noble family of Lucca, who sold it to the Bourbons, from whom it passed into the possession of the house of Savoy, the reigning dynasty. The aged son of Prince Charles of Capua and his wife the Irish Penelope still inhabits this Villa Marlia. I am promised a description of the splendid villa, printed, and illustrated with its historical associations. WILLIAM MERCER. It was probably of a dull neutral tint which made a good background for the straw-fiction it is an occasional custom to describe MILITARY EXECUTIONS (11 S. iv. 8).-In berries. Mummy was among the materia medica of the olden times. Franklin in Les Médicaments,' p. 94, quotes an author who states that it was at first "certaine liqueur odorante et de la consistance de miel' receuillie dans les anciens tombeaux de l'Egypte. Au début, on ne fouilla que les sépultures des rois et des grands personnages, et alors la mumie administrée en boisson opérait des guérisons merveilleuses. Mais ensuite, on s'avisa d'ouvrir les cercueils de pauvres diables,'qui estoient morts de ladrerie ou de peste, pour en tirer la pourriture cadavéreuse qui en distilloit et la vendre pour vraye et légitime mumie.'" That being the case, Paris sometimes provided the main ingredient of its own ST. SWITHIN. mummy. "Mummy" is a pigment which should be made of the pure Egyptian asphaltum, ground up with drying oil or with amber varnish; but J. S. Taylor in Field's Chromatogr.' (1885) says: "Mummy varies blank ammunition as being served out to a firing squad. Such tales deceive only civil readers. If the object of supplying blank cartridges were to relieve soldiers from the partial onus of the condemned person's death, they would fail to achieve the purpose. Every one who has become familiar with the use of live cartridges knows at once, even in the dark, the difference between ball and blank ammunition. Ball cartridges are heavier, longer, and emit a different sound in the firing; so that members of the firing party would well know which cartridges were deadly. WILLIAM JAGGARD. "SCHICKSAL SCHULD" (11 S. iii. 407; iv. 13).—The few lines prefixed to Werthers Leiden (1774) end with the words: "lass das Büchlein deinen Freund seyn, wenn du aus Geschick oder eigener Schuld keinen nähern finden kannst." UND EIGENE E. G. T. AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S. extremely popular in Scotland, owing, iv. 8). The writer of the four lines which it is surmised, to Ramsay's enterprise as W. B. C. quotes somewhat inaccurately a bookseller and friendship with the author. was not William Smith O'Brien, but Michael Other grounds than these for supposing Joseph Barry, who was born at Cork in intimate acquaintance and correspondence 1817, became a barrister, and joined the between the two poets are not discoverable. Young Ireland party in the forties of the On the other hand, it is to be remembered last century. The lines occur in a poem, that Ramsay ceased to be a wigmaker and The Place to Die,' contributed to The became a bookseller only six years previous Nation. This is the last of five stanzas :— to D'Urfey's death. He was scarcely known as a poet when D'Urfey died. Nevertheless, it is quite conceivable that D'Urfey visited Edinburgh, as stated in the 'D.N.B.' SCOTUS. "Twere sweet indeed to close our eyes But, whether on the scaffold high The fittest place where man can die I have sometimes ventured to substitute the Creator for the creature in the last of these lines, which, however, is quite true when understood properly : Nay, whether on the scaffold high The fittest place where man can die There was another barrister of the same name, and Michael Joseph Barry, the writer of these verses, pretended that briefs and invitations intended for him went by mistake to his namesake : This namesake of mine my anger provokes The lines quoted by W. B. C. are by Michael J. Barry, and appeared in The Dublin Nation, 28 September, 1844. R. A. POTTS. The Lord Mayor must have been thinking of some lines which appeared in Punch, I think in 1874. They were headed' Nursery Rhymes new set for the Times.' The lines were these :— There was an owl liv'd in an oak, D'URFEY AND ALLAN RAMSAY (11 S. iii 467).—The evidence in favour of Ramsay's acquaintance with D'Urfey is, I believe, purely inferential. Ramsay had many friends among literary people south of the Border, and D'Urfey may have been one of them. Several of D'Urfey's songs became PORT HENDERSON: CORRIE BHREACHAN (11 S. iv. 10).—Amongst the list of foreign and colonial places on p. 216 of 'The Imperial Tariff (1911), published by Eyre & Spottiswoode, is Port Henderson, Jamaica. T. SHEPHERD. Corrie Bhreachan, more correctly Coire Bhreachain, is the tidal whirlpool between Islay and Jura. HERBERT MAXWELL. HENRY FIELDING AND THE CIVIL POWER (11 S. iii. 486).-Is not this more likely to be the celebrated blind magistrate Sir John Fielding, half-brother of the novelist ? D.N.B.' F. B. See M. |