his corpse has been cremated, his relatives pick out of its ashes the second vertebra of the neck, which somewhat resembles the Buddha sitting in meditation, and which they preserve as the dead man's relic.

lett :

House at one time the residence of Dr. Samuel Johnson, is a silent link with the great past,' &c. Inside the front lid of the case is a beautiful hand-coloured miniature in [sic] ivory of the house from which the knocker was removed.... Included with the knocker is a written guarantee authorities."

of authenticity given by the British Museum

Seven years ago a Hampshire gentleman sent me a query if I could throw any light upon the alleged Japanese custom mentioned The accompanying illustration shows a as following in the then just published The long drop knocker with conventional floral Siege of Port Arthur,' by Ashmead-Bart-swags, the greater part of one being missing. It is difficult to identify the place illustrated, but I believe the artist has depicted the house in Gough Square, and that is what the cataloguer means by Johnson's Court." I hope this eminently respectable firm will obtain the price asked ($500.00), but I trust the guarantee of authenticity is not taken as responsible for the value.

"[After the capture of 203-Metre Hill.] As soon as a man was identified, he was carried down the mountain and then laid out to await cremation, the surgeon cutting out each man's Adam's apple in order that it might be sent to the relations in Japan.'

In my immediate reply I absolutely denied the existence, both past and present, of such a usage, and suggested that the author's misinterpretation of the above-quoted practice with the second cervical vertebra, as well as the lore of the Adam's apple, was the origin of the error on the author's part. And three years since, the same gentleman wrote me again, saying he had recently found the custom to have been current among the Santhals of Bengal in India, the Adam's apple of a dead man being severed and taken to the sacred River Damuda. If this be so, I much desire to be informed of its details and raison d'être by any of your readers. KUMAGUSU MINAKATA.

Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

CURIOUS ANAGRAMS.-The Sunday Times of Jan. 30, 1916, reproduces from its number for Jan. 29, 1826, the following:

"CURIOUS ANAGRAMS.-Old England-Golden land. Potentates-Ten tea pots. Gallantries All great sin. Democratical-Comical trade. Radical Reform-Rare mad frolic. Penitentiary-Nay, 1 repent it. Revolution-To love ruin. TelegraphGreat help. Amendment-Ten mad men. Encyclopedia-A nice cold pye. Punishment-Nine thumps."

They are interesting, at least, as showing that the taste for such playing with words existed in London ninety years ago.

Oxford Union Society.

E. S. DODGSON.

66

66

66

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

ALINEMENT."-It may be worth noting that The Times has adopted the spellings aline and alinement." And why not, if there is any value at all in analogy? The French, from whom the current spellings are seemingly borrowed, are, as usual with them, consistent. We in imitating_them_are singularly inconsistent. F. L. P.

Queries.

WE must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

'A TALE OF A TUB.'—I am engaged on a new edition of Swift's Tale of a Tub,' and should be grateful for help in annotating the following passages (references are given to the Bohn edition) :

1. A most ingenious poet......soliciting his brain for something new, compared himself to the hangman, and his patron to the patient.-P. 41.

2. Ctesias......had been used with much severity by the true critics of his own age.—P. 75.

3. Hemp......some naturalists inform us, is bad for suffocations, though taken but in the seed.

P. 76.

4. A certain author......does......say of critics, that their writings are the mirrors of learning.--P. 77. 5. Painters Wives Island, placed in some unknown part of the ocean, merely at the fancy of the map-maker.-P. 91.

6. A Curious Invention about Mouse-Traps.-P. 93.

7. A straight line drawn by its own length into a circle.-P. 1. 8. [He] who held anatomy to be the ultimate end of physic.-P. 120. 9. The Spanish accomplishment of braying.P. 135.

10. 'Tis recorded of Mahomet, that, upon a visit he was going to pay in Paradise, he had an offer of

great merit. By the way, all notices, con-
temporary and subsequent, of Edward
Prentis seem very slight and meagre; yet
he had much vogue in his day, and was an
early member of the Society of British
Artists. Are any of his paintings in the
public galleries, or are the present owners of
any of them known?
L. A. W.

TREASURY NOTES.-May I inquire the meaning of the words printed in red on some of the one-pound notes, and in black on some of the ten-shilling notes? I have asked several bank cashiers, and they could throw nɔ light on the subject. One thought that the characters were Hebrew, and another Arabic, while a leading provincial paper recently suggested that the printing I refer to was merely the written name of some Egyptian who had previously owned the A. C. C.

nte!

ARMS OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD.The arms of this college, founded in 1274 by Walter de Merton, are: Or, three chevronels per pale, the 1st and 3rd azure and gales, the 2nd gules and azure. This shield is now nearly always impaled with another, viz.: Argent, on a saltire gules a scallop

shell of the field. To whom does this latter shield belong? and why is it placed on the dexter, thus having precedence over the

arms of the founder?

22 Hyde Park Gate, S.W.

Replies.

H. I. HALL.

GENNYS OF LAUNCESTON AND

IRELAND.

(12 S. i. 126, 193.)

Nicholas Gennys of Launceston proves the most prominent figure of all these. He married Katherine, daughter of Ambrose Manaton of Manaton and Trecarell (v. Sir | John Maclean's ' Trigg Minor,' vol. ii. p. 670), who was Recorder of the borough from 1622 to 1646, and one of its members in both the Short and the Long Parliaments elected in 1640. On Aug. 12, 1646, a new writ was issued in his place ('Commons' Journals,' vol. iv. p. 621), he being disabled for his somewhat late adherence to the royal cause, this being just a month before Thomas Gewen of Bradridge-who was to become, as Manaton's successor in the representation, a persistent critic in Parliament of Cromwell's policy-was made Recorder on Sept. 19 (Peter, p. 281). It was before Nicholas Gennys as Mayor that a deposition was laid on May 30, 1642, against a prominent townsman named John Escott, Deputy-Herald for Devon and Cornwall, for criticizing in public the proceedings of Parliament, upon the strength of which deposition the House of Lords took drastic proceedings against the unhappy partisan Present, pp. 157, 158; 7 S. xii. 247); and (Alfred F. Robbins, Launceston Past and in the borough accounts of his mayoral year several entries of expenditure for special beacons and watches in preparation for the coming trouble (Peter, pp. 259, 260). It would almost seem to establish another connexion between the Gennys family and Launceston that William Gennis is given among the vicars of St. Olave's, Poughill, a parish in the extreme north-east of Cornwall, where he was buried, July 21, 1548 (Boase's Collectanea Cornubiensis,' p. 1446), as it appears that the patrons of that living were the Prior and Convent of Launceston (cf. Hingeston-Randolph's Register of Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter,' P. 195). As the date of death is within ten years after the surrender of that Priory, it may be inferred that William Gennis received his presentation from this source.

are

I AM much interested in the reply of H. L. L. D. to the query of MISS GERTRUDE THRIFT, as the family of Gennys played a prominent part for a long period in the civic life of Launceston. It appears from Messrs. R. and O. B. Peter's' Histories of Launceston and Dunheved' that a John Gennys was Of all-importance, however, as associated Mayor of the borough in 1584, 1595, 1605, with the settlement in Ireland of members 1617, and 1632; and he signed, next to the of the Gennys family of Cornwall, is the fact then Mayor, on Sept. 27, 1620, the stated by H. L. L. D., that they were declaration of the Common Seal of Launces-tenants on lands held in the neighbourhood ton, on behalf of the Corporation (The of Launceston by Pierce Edgcumbe of Mount Visitation of Cornwall in 1620,' Harleian Society's edition, p. 281). Nicholas Gennys was Mayor in 1641, 1657, and 1666; and Richard Gennys in 1658; while a Nicholas Ginnys was Mayor of Plymouth in 1703 (R. N. Worth's History of Plymouth,' p. 215).

Edgcumbe. In 1583, the year before John Gennys became Mayor, the borough accounts have a record that there had been demised by the commonalty for one thousand years two pieces of land adjoining two tofts upon which had been two shops, late "the enheritance of Peter Edgcombe of Mounte Edg

upon it in company with Drake, Raleigh, and Francis Bacon (ibid., vol. iv. p. 295).

combe, esquire, and Edmund Edgcombe, gentylman (Peter, p. 218). This Peter, or Piers, Edgcumbe, who was Knight of the The perpetually impecunious Piers EdgShire for Cornwall in various Parliaments of cumbe found in Sir Edward Denny, who Elizabeth in 1585-92, and who died Jan. 4, would appear to be the father of the Knight 1607/8, was the son of Sir Richard Edg- Banneret of the same name mentioned by cumbe (for whom see 3 S. xii. 9, 176); and H. L. L. D. (the husband of Piers's daughter he seems to have been the first of the Margaret), one of like liability to owe money family to establish a connexion with Ireland. to the Crown. In March, 1599/1600, an There is in the Lansdowne MSS. (28, art. 8) agreement, witnessed by Edgcumbe, affecting a grant of 1579 to "P. Edgcombe, Esquire, Sir Edward's widow and children, came to work and enjoy part of the product of before Cecil, which mentioned inter alia some Mines in Ireland ; while (ibid.,"1,100l., a debt due by Sir Edward Denny o 29, art. 1) on June 15 of that year Mr. P. her Majesty, which he very carefully desired Edgcombe shows to Lord Burghley that he has to have satisfied," provision for which formed a scheme for improving Irish Mines." was made in the deed (ibid., vol. x. p. 94). No trace appears in the voluminous collection The grandson of this Piers Edgcumbe, of Cecil MSS. of the issue of this transaction; another Piers, was member for Newport but it is not difficult to associate it with the and Camelford in the time of Charles I.; alienation of the Launceston property four and, though elected for the former borough years later, for Piers Edgcumbe was a per- (which in reality was a part of Launceston) sistent speculator, and as persistently "hard in January, 1627/8, when only 18, he had up." In April, 1594, Burghley's younger his return confirmed by the House of brother, Sir Robert Cecil (afterwards Earl of Commons on April 14, after a debate on Salisbury), gave directions under his own March 22, in which Sir John Eliot took a hand for the payment of all such moneys as leading part (Robbins's Launceston,' pp.137are due by Edgcumbe or any other, for the 140). He died on Jan. 6, 1666/7, havirg time of his or their leases" of Cornish copper been again chosen for Newport in January, mines (Cecil MSS., vol. iv. p. 519). From 1662, at a contested by-election caused by that time there are not infrequent appeals the death of a younger Sir Francis Drake, from Piers Edgcumbe to Cecil for time to pay which was ineffectually petitioned against; what was owing on his leases of the mines and it was during the later years of his life royal of Cornwall and Merionethshire, as well that the last trace of a Gennys at Launceston as on Crown properties at Keswick, with has yet been noted (save Richard, Mayor pathetic descriptions of endeavours to raise in 1658, and Nicholas, Mayor in 1666, as money from among his friends, for above), this being of "John Gennys, gen.,", "in the shires of Devon and Cornwall are many for rates on property in the parish of gentlemen and others of good wealth and account, St. Thomas-the-Apostle, in which Newport but I could find no man willing, much less de- was situate (Peter, p. 380). sirous, to adventure any money with me, in such a desperate and forlorn hope the case of those mines do stand so far; but, in my poor opinion, the mines in themselves do not deserve this slander." ("From my house at Mount Edgcumb the 4th of June, 1597": ibid., vol. vii. p. 233.)

It does not at all surprise to find this importunate, but always optimistic, debtor submitting to the statesman only two months later a suggestion that by enforcing the Statute of Usury, "the same not intended to extend generally for England but only for one city," 20,000l. might be gained for the Queen, and offering to explain further if required ("At my lodging in the White Friars, London, this 15th of August, 1597": ibid., p: 353). Yet it is especially at this moment to be recalled to his credit that in March, 1592/3, when the House of Commons drew up a list of the committee for conference touching the relief of poor maimed soldiers and mariners," Edgcumbe was placed

The original query as to a particular family has thus developed lines of investigation which touch the far greater subject of the English settlement in Ireland; and the interweaving of the strands promises, if the inquiry be now pursued on the additional information given, to furnish more interesting and valuable material. It might even be possible to link therewith an inquiry as to whether the Hiberno-Cornubian association thus established assists in any way to dispel a mystery in the representation of Newport, which I endeavoured to get solved just halfa-dozen years since by a contribution to N. & Q.' (11 S. i. 262). On May 10, 1647, there was an election for Newport for the vacancies caused by John Maynard, the famous Serjeant Maynard of parliamentary and constitutional history (who had elected to serve for Totnes, which, with Newport, had sent him to the Long Parliament six