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1890; catalogue of his bequest to that university has been printed.

P. 241. Ligonier. 'Letters of Junius,' 1807, p. 15. P. 251 a.

college.

"University" at Durham; read

P. 270 b, 1. 30. For "with" (?) read for. P. 335. Miss Linwood. 'Book of Days,' i. 348-9.

P. 350. Memoir of Martin Lister, by R. Davies, in Yorksh. Arch. Jour., ii. 297-320.

P. 366 a. Adam Littleton's 'Lat. Dict.,' fourth edition, 1715; Southey's 'Doctor,' 1848, p. 547. P. 413. C. Lloyd. Byron, 'Engl. B. and Sc. Rev.,' l. 886.

P. 433. Rob. Lloyd. Gray, by Mason, 1827, 231, 425.

P. 438. W. Lloyd's funeral sermon for Bishop Wilkins, 1672, was issued with the latter's 'Natural Religion,' 1675; Dr. T. Bray dedicated to him his work on the 'Catechism,' 1699.

W. C. B.

all, for presently one of them noticed that our hero was turning black in the face. With all convenient speed, therefore, they "cut him down," and none too soon either, for he would soon have proved that even a game may be carried too far. Sir Alexander doubtless had this youthful escapade in his mind when in after years he pleaded for the life of a soldier condemned to death in Malta, and obtained a reprieve.

According to the pedigree registered in the Heralds' College he married, July 7, 1785, Mary Smith Wilson, daughter of John Wilson, of the City of Westminster, Esq. Can any one say at what church this marriage took place? It is worthy of note that Sir Alexander's only son and successor, the late Sir William Keith Ball, remained a bachelor until his eighty-second year, when he married a lady some forty-five years his junior. C. E. GILDERSOME-DICKINSON. Eden Bridge.

Thomas Herne (vol. xxvi. p. 250) was son of Mr. Francis Herne by Elizabeth Sayer, his first wife, goddaughter and probably niece of Archbishop Tenison. The relationship accounts for Herne's writings so largely concerning the archbishop. He is a beneficiary under the archbishop's will. SIGMA TAU.

Hobart, Tasmania.

SIR WALTER SCOTT AS A 66

QUOTABLE "

"POET.

true of Scott's poems, which were also tales in verse, and "Southey's poetry is not sententious. The same is which yield very few sentences-if any-that can live on by their own strength, adding themselves-like lines of Shakespeare or Milton, Pope or Goldsmith-to the wealth of English speech."

To the article on Sir Alexander_ John Ball (vol. iii. p. 70) add the following: He was the fourth, but third surviving son of Robert Ball, of Stonehouse Court and Ebworth Park, in the county of Gloucester, who served as high sheriff for that shire in 1748, by Mary his wife, only daughter of Marshe Dickinson, of London and Dunstable, Lord Mayor 1756-7, and M.P. for Brackley, by Mary Cleve his wife, and sister-Prof. Henry Morley, in his introduction to and sole heiress of John Marshe Dickinson, Southey's 'Curse of Kehama,' in Cassell's “National superintendent of the royal gardens. He was Library," says:probably born at Ebworth, as his baptism is registered at Painswick (the church of that parish) as follows: "July 22nd, 1756. Alicksander, son of Robert and Mary Ball." A later hand has corrected the spelling of the Christian name, "ex" being written over it, but the older writing is still the plainer. It is somewhat curious that, although Whatever may be the case with regard to Sir Alexander always used a second Christian Southey-of whose poetry I do not know enough name of John, only the former would seem to have to give an opinion-I venture to think that no been given him at the font. On the other hand, lover of Scott would agree with Prof. Morley in his eldest brother George, a major in the marines, the above criticism of Scott's poetry. No doubt is here registered as George Robert, although he the general character of Scott's verse is not invariably used but the first, and even in his will "sententious," the definition of which, according Robert does not appear. The time of Sir to Annandale, is "abounding in axioms or Alexander's birth is also one year earlier than maxims; rich in judicious observations," &c.; we should expect to find it, as the Gentleman's but that Scott's poems yield "very few sentences Magazine and other contemporary authorities-if any-that can live on by their own strength record his age at death on October 20, 1809, as I cannot admit,-perhaps not with regard to the fifty-two, whereas it clearly should be fifty-three. very few," certainly not with regard to that unHe received his education, or, at any rate, some fortunate parenthesis, "if any." part of it, at an old foundation school, then held First, let us take the "ministering angel" lines at the Town Hall, Stroud, and the story goes that in the sixth canto of 'Marmion.' Are there many one day the boys held a mock trial and execution," household words" in Shakespeare more "famiand the question was who should hang by the liar" than this famous passage? Again, will not neck until he was dead. Young Alec volunteered, the glorious "Sound, sound, the clarion, fill the and forthwith his playmates "did him up." There fife," &c.-which is no more than a single quatrain was evidently a good deal of reality about it after-live "by its own strength" as long as English

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literature lives? When will English-speaking, or indeed English-reading people cease to feel their pulses stirred by the blast of Roderick Dhu's buglehorn, which was worth a thousand men "? Yet all these passages are "sentences," though not "sententious." Then there is the pithy paraphrase of Horace's "bellua multorum capitum," in the fifth canto of 'The Lady of the Lake':

Thou many-headed monster thing,
O who would wish to be thy king!

And the beautiful

All angel now-yet little less than all

While still a pilgrim in our world below,

was "Why is a crane like a well-known shellfish?" "Because it's an oyster " (a hoister).

The good alderman was a promising subject for the caricaturists who preceded H. B. I remember, when the alderman accompanied George IV. on his visit to Scotland, seeing him represented in a kilt in a shop window on the south side of Ludgate Hill. On another occasion he appeared as a dog with a human head, with the inscription "What a Cur 'tis ! But in spite of his h's the alderman was a useful man in the City of London. During the panic of 1826, when there was a run upon the banks, the brave alderman, who was a

in The Lord of the Isles'; and the Shakespeare-banker, stood behind his counter and paid with

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like motto (Scott's own) to the seventeenth chapter of 'Woodstock':

We do that in our zeal

Our calmer moments are afraid to answer.

(Is not this an axiom, or something like one?)

To these I may add four more :

his own hands every demand that was made upon him.

Is there any physiological reason why whole classes of people, not only in London but, as I know, in Wiltshire and elsewhere, should omit the h where it is wanted, and often put it in where it is not? Probably the board schools will snuff out

Profaned the God-given strength and marred the lofty this defect as well as the want of perception

line.

'Marmion.'

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himself?

I need not take up the space of N. & Q.' with more quotations from works which are readily accessible to every reader. All who are familiarly acquainted with Scott's poems could doubtless add many more to the above list. See MR. THOMAS BAYNE'Ss note in N. & Q.,' 7th S. ix. 309, s.v. 'Thomas Campbell.' All the foregoing passages, with two exceptions, are in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.' JONATHAN BOUCHIER. Ropley, Alresford.

ALDERMAN CURTIS.-One of your readers has sent me a clipping from a provincial newspaper, in which it is stated that a well-known riddle was written by a costermonger. The riddle in question is a charade, and runs as follows:

My first 's a little bird as 'ops, My second's needful in 'ay crops, My 'ole is good with mutton chops. The answer, of course, is " sparrow-grass," which the learned Dr. Parr always insisted on using in preference to the politer asparagus."

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between the v and the w.

Many years ago I was residing in a town in Wiltshire, where a tradesman named Vidler sold Before vacating the premises, Vidler received Smith his business to a cockney whom we will call Smith. every morning, in order to introduce him to the customers, and for other purposes. Smith, on entering, said," Good morning, Mr. Widler." Áfter several repetitions of this greeting, Mr. Vidler explained that his name was Vidler, not Widler. Smith rubbed his embarrassed head and, with a ference between Widler and Widler?" puzzled expression, exclaimed, "What's the dif

Highgate, N.

C. TOMLINSON.

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Pensarn, Abergele, North Wales. DEVON COWS.-It may be well to preserve the following cutting in 'N. & Q.':

"A curious and noteworthy instance of breeding and Mr. Dingle, of Darley, in North Devon, is the repreadaptability to environment is reported from Cornwall. sentative of a family which has sat on the land for 500 years. In fact there is a legendary couplet concerning an old oak at Darley to the effect that :

This and other cockney riddles were, in my young days (that is, in the twenties), put into the mouth of Alderman Curtis, who had the reputation, not uncommon in those days, of dropping his h's. One of his so-called cockney conundrums The father of the present Mr. Dingle founded a herd of

As long as Darley oak should stand, A Dingle should possess this land.

Devons from one cow. The cattle have done well on the land, and have become a famous family. But when Mr. Dingle has introduced fresh blood by means of Devon cows of other strains, the progeny has generally languished and died. Mr. Dingle attributes this to the red water' they had to drink. The cattle of the original family have drunk this water not only with impunity but apparently with benefit; but the descendants of the new crosses have perished. If the 'red water' is simply coloured by oxide of iron, it is difficult to see how it could have a fatal or deleterious effect. It would be of value as information to breeders if Mr. Dingle would seek further for the cause of the failure of what should have been replenishing strains."-Yorkshire Post, Jan. 21.

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IMPORTED GRAMMAR.-The operations going on with regard to the importations of English words into Netherlandish or Flemish are of interest to the philological student. In most cases the English word takes the regular plural in -en, but in some cases it takes the English plural in -s. The word meeting takes both -en and -s. The admission of French words and forms, though, of course, more numerous, is not so free. The translations of French feuilletons, though creating so much translated Netherlandish, cut off original Netherlandish tales. HYDE CLARKE.

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fluenza. This disease, which was later raised to
the dignity of a distinct disease, in consequence,
probably, of the difficulty found in distinguishing
it from an ordinary feverish cold, still even now,
like cholera, maintains much of the mystery of its
origin. It has, indeed, at last, but only quite
recently, been determined to be distinctly infectious,
but it is nevertheless, and perhaps in the majority
of, at any rate, the early cases, brought by indepen-
dent germs (or, as I suppose I must term them,
microbes), which are conveyed from foreign lands,
one knows not how. It was no wonder, therefore,
that-with its almost simultaneous invasion of vast
tracts of the earth's surface, together with its re-
markable power of diffusion and penetration, which
renders it a scourge to every class of society-it
was to this disease, and this disease alone, that the
special term of influenza, without any qualification
or addition, was ultimately given.*
F. CHANCE.

Sydenham Hill.

"WHETHER OR NO."-This expression at the present time seems to be used with an utter disregard of grammar. May I give an instance? In a recent number of the Athenæum I read: "The Protagoras,' whether or no it is to be classed with the Socratic dialogues of Plato, is certainly one of considerable interest and importance." The sentence is elliptical. Expand it, and the absurdity is evident: "Whether it is to be classed, or it is no to be classed." I have heard this locution from pulpits ad nauseam. Newspapers, novels, magazines, &c., revel in it.

F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY. EDITORS.-In the account of the author, the unfortunate Dr. Dodd, which is prefixed to his Thoughts in Prison,' printed at the Chiswick Press, 1818, p. xi, the compiler states, "He [Dr. Dodd] descended so low as to become the editor of a newspaper." I think this opinion is worthy of a place in N. & Q.,' but feel sure no one would endorse such a curious statement in this latter part of the nineteenth century, whatever may have been the position of editors in its early days.

HELLIER R. H. GOSSELIN.

Bengeo Hall, Hertford.

DERIVATION OF INFLUENZA.-It is generally thought that the Italians gave the disease this name because in its epidemic form it was formerly attributed by astrologers to the influence of the heavenly bodies (Webster). And, no doubt, influenza does mean influence. But it is very questionable whether influenza was the first disease to which the term was applied, and I myself am inclined to believe that it was the last. At the present time Italians commonly say "C'è influenza [or "molta influenza "] di catarri, di febbri, di contagi" (Petrocchi), or "di vajuolo, di scarlattina, di morbillo, di rosolia, di miliare," &c.; and by these terms it would seem as if little more were meant than that there is a great prevalence or predominance of these diseases, that they are much about. This seems to me to show that it was only after the term had been used in this way of various diseases that it came to be applied alone, par * It may be also that, as the word is derived from the excellence, to one particular disease. But why, it Lat. verb fluere, which well expresses the flux of matter may be asked, was this one disease thus singled which commonly takes place in the disease from the nose out in preference to many others? Well, the other and eyes, this has had something to do with the adoption diseases early became recognized as more or less of the term. At all events, in Villanova's Italian-French infectious, and so much of the mystery attached to fluenza is "Scorrimento di cosa fluida," though this may Dictionary' (1842) one of the meanings given to inthem was dispelled. But it was not so with in-be intended as a description of the disease only.

century, states that the game of "draughts, no DRAUGHTS.-Strutt, writing at the end of last doubt, is a modern invention." I find, however, in Calepini Dictionarium Decem Linguarum,' published, at Genf, in 1594, under the word

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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 the answers may be addressed to them direct.

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D. ANGELO.-Can any one give me the parentage or pedigree of Domenico Angelo, the fencing master, who died in 1802, and also of his wife, who was an Irish woman, Elizabeth Johnson, a stepdaughter of a Capt. Master, R. N.?

WILLIAM BUTLER.

16, Holbein Buildings, Sloane Square, S.W.

COPE.-Can any reader of 'N. & Q.' give particulars of the wife of John Cope, fourth living son of Sir Anthony Cope, the first baronet? This John Cope was of Hanwell 1616, Cottesford 1629, Brewerne 10 Charles I., and in 14 James I. had property settled to uses of himself, heirs of his body, then lawfully begotten, and to be begotten, for default to his heirs and assigns in fee. The uses clearly point to issue lawfully begotten at that date, especially as those words were used in precedence "to "and to be begotten." Is anything known of these children? HENRY W. Aldred.

CUE: "TO TAKE ONE'S CUE FROM."-For the origin of this in the actor's sense, which has since passed into general use, Wedgwood cites two seventeenth century writers, viz., C. Butler, 'Engl. Gram.,' 1634, "Q, a note of entrance for actors, because it is the first letter of quando, when, showing when to enter and to speak"; and Minsheu, "A qu, a term used among stage-players, à L. qualis, i. e., at what manner of word the actors are to begin to speak, one after another hath done his speech." As to this I should be glad to know, first, where Minsheu says this; I have up to this been unable to find the passage cited, either in the 'Ductor in Linguas,' or in the Spanish-English Dictionary.' Secondly, as to the alleged fact: Do any actors' copies of plays exist, marked with Q or qu, in such a way as to support the statements of Butler and Minsheu ? It is true that Shakspere and earlier writers often have Q instead of cue, as in 'Richard III.,' III. iv. 27:

Had you not come vpon your Q, my Lord, William Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part. But this is not decisive evidence that copies were actually marked with Q. As to the supposition that cue here is the French queue, tail, it is, I believe, a fact that in French itself queue and cue has never been used in this sense (for which the French name is réplique), and that in English we had no literal use of queue or cue (tail), leading up to this sense; so that there is an absolute chasm between the French queue (tail) and the English Q or cue (starting catch-word). In English queue (a tail of hair and a line of people at a ticket-window, &c.), we have comparatively modern borrowings of the French word, which do not count for the history of the actor's Q, spoken of familiarly already in 1553 :

"Amen must be answered to the thankes gevyng, not as to a mannes q in a playe, but by one that preyeth, wherunto he maketh hys answer."-Strype, 'Eccl. Mem.,' iii. app. xi. 31.

Oxford.

J. A. H. Murray.

GILLRAY'S CARICATURES.'-'The Caricatures of Gillray,' with historical and political illustrations, oblong folio (London and Edinburgh), n.d., in parts. On what date did the first part appear?

181, Coldharbour Lane, S.E.

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SIR RICHARD BENET (OR BENESE).—I know of a little work,—

"The hidden treasure discovered by the Surveyor School-master. Teaching and setting forth the most exact and readiest way that is practical in that Art or Sciences With the true measuring of Woodland, Hils, Mountaines, or what ever......by Sir Richard Benet. Revised and enlarged by Thomas Norton."

12mo. 1651. This I cannot find anywhere men-
tioned; and as Norton speaks in his preface of the
"old author," it occurred to me that Benet should
be Benese; yet I do not find it even under Benese.
Can any reader help me to find out something con-
cerning the author?
G. J. GRAY.

Cambridge.

'ELIZA'S CHOICE.'-Can any of your readers Comte de Kearney. Being an only child, the title inform me where I shall find in print, and who of countess was specially conferred upon myself." was the author of this poem, in twenty-one four-I thought that Caryll was Secretary of State to line stanzas, the first of which runs thus?—

If e'er again Eliza's heart

Should from her careless stray,
Oh let it find no conscious smart,
Where'er 'tis doom'd to stay.

E. W. C.

James II. The allusion in the last part of the quotation is probably to one of the titles which the Pope grants from time to time, and sometimes professes to confer upon British subjects, as, for example, Countess Tasker, who, I believe, kept a Catholic school at Brook Green. But what is known of the Kearney descent ? A. I. K.

A copy of the same in MS. (? the original), now before me, appears to be temp. Geo. II., and probably circa 1728. THE HOLY EUCHARIST BURIED WITH PEOPLE. PENAL LAWS.-I am anxious, for a literary pur--I want some instances of the Eucharist being pose, to be referred to some book or books wherein may find,

1. A statement of the penal laws as they affected Roman Catholics in the earlier years of the reign of George III., the mitigation of which was the cause of the Gordon riots.

in a casket or case and laid upon the breast of those who had died in some sudden manner, and who, therefore, had not been able to have the rites of the Church administered to them. It was at one time placed upon the breasts of dead any information relating to this custom, whether ecclesiastics previous to burial. I shall be glad of referring to the clergy or laity.

FLORENCE PEACOCK.

2. A list of the offences which entailed capital punishment at about the same time, or at whatever period the penal code was at its extreme point of severity. 3. When was the old punishment for high treason SAMUEL GOULD, Bookseller.-In Hutchins's abolished by statute and simple hanging sub-History of Dorset,' second edition, 1774, vol. i. stituted? I believe the sufferers for the '45 were p. 374, is a plate representing a view of Dorchester the last victims of this form of torture; but it and the village of Forthington, engraved at Samuel existed as part of the law down to a much later Gould's expense and inscribed to him by his period. obliged servant the author. The British Museum has a catalogue of Samuel Gould's books offered for sale at Dorchester in the year 1780; and the Gentleman's Magazine, 1783, p. 273, has an obituary notice recording his death at Dorchester. Can any reader of N. & Q.' give me any information about this Mr. Samuel Gould?

4. I have heard it said that when Francis Townley and the other Jacobites were executed on Kennington Common, the wives and daughters of the great Whig nobles went there in their coaches to enjoy the sight. Is there any evidence for this?

ASTARTE.

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ABBEY CHURCHES.-Can undoubted examples be cited of parish churches that were partly monastic and partly parochial in pre-Reformation times?

Nantwich Church, built in the fourteenth cen

tury, seems to have been one of these double churches. From its structural arrangements it has every appearance of having been a "collegiate " church; but no records of a college of priests, of a rich town guild, or of endowments for priests are to be found. Its chancel has twenty finely carved stalls with misereres; a north and south door; another north door, leading to an exterior

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