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children. In "hop-scotch" the ground is marked tion of it in Watt's Bibl. Brit. or Lowndes' Bibl. out in the identical squares and divisions that I Man.: remember in my early schoolboy days in England. The "tip-cat" is also of the same shape, and used in the same way. The question is, did the English bring these games to India, or did they introduce them from India to England, or are they of unknown date in both countries? W. H. W.

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It occurred to me recently that the word probably is not Hurst but Hrust, the Northern name for a race or rush of water (the Roost of Sumburgh, for instance), which would be natural and appropriate. This emendation is simple, but I have never heard or seen it before; and so commit it to "N. & Q.," asking in return if there is any mention of the promontory by name before the castle was erected by Henry VIII. E. KING. Lymington, Hants.

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PRIMROSE: ASH-TREE. Somewhere I have read an authenticated account of a parish in which the primrose was never known to grow wild. Can any of your readers state the part where such a singular phenomenon exists? Also, where the ash-tree cannot be made to last longer than a year or two?

Sunninghill.

JAMES WATSON.

"The Shrubs of Parnassus, consisting of a Variety of Poetical Essays, Moral and Comic, by J. Copywell of Lincoln's-Inn, Esq. London: Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Newbery at the Bible and Sun in St. Paul's Church Yard, MDCCLX."

Amongst the list of subscribers, the names of
D. Garrick, Sam. Johnson, A. Murphy, Dr. Smol-
lett, B. Thornton, and other celebrities occur.
R. C.

Cork.

SPADE GUINEAS.-What can be the reason that a spade guinea is considered more of a curiosity or of value than some other-say Queen Anne of 1714, or George II. of 1734? (Vide " N. & Q." 3rd S. i. 230,299.) GLWYSIG.

THE TAROT.-I cannot anywhere find any scientific explanation of the hieroglyphics of The Tarot, and of the manner of reading them, except in the following passage from Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, vol. ii. p. 355: –

"La manière de lire les hiéroglyphes du Tarot, c'est de les disposer soit en carré, soit en triangle, en plaçant les nombres pairs en antagonisme et en les conciliant par les impairs. Quatre signes expriment toujours l'absolu dans un ordre quelconque et s'expliquent par un cinquième. Ainsi la solution de toutes les questions magiques est celle du pentagramme, et toutes les antinomies s'expliquent par l'harmonieuse unité."

Perhaps some of your readers may chance to have read the book, and could favour me with some explanation of this obscure paragraph.

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OSPHAL.

THE "T MAN.” - Will some veteran novelreader help me to the title of a set of tales, one of which bore this quaint designation? To the best of my recollection, no author's name was affixed to the work, which consisted of detached stories of various lengths, after the manner of Tales of a Traveller, Highways and Byeways, &c. &c., and

QUOTATIONS.-Where do the following passages may (for aught I know) have been published

occur?

"Where is thy horn of battle, that but blown, Brought every chief of Afric from his throne, Brought every spear of Afric from the wall, Brought every charger barded from the stall." "Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;

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I pray for no man but myself;
Grant I may never prove so fond,

To trust man on his oath or bond."

[Shakspeare, Timon of Athens, Act I. Scene 2.]

They who heard the war-notes wild

Hoped that one day the pibroch's strain Should play before the hero's child, While he should lead the tartan train." JONATHAN BOUCHIER. "THE SHRUBS OF PARNASSUS." -I would feel much obliged for any information respecting the author of the following work. I can find no men

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about the same period. But in the early days,
when the well-thumbed copy of "The T Man
(from a watering-place library) procured me so
much entertainment, I took small note of the
"whens or even the "wheres" of publication.
I have therefore no data of the kind to go by or
to give. I can only so far refresh the memories
which I hope may refresh mine, as to state that
the T Man was a thriving grocer in the city of
London, besides being an ardent admirer of the
younger Pitt. The story culminated in that great
minister's obtaining a pardon for the handsome
young sailor beloved by the T Man's daughter,
whom "untoward circumstances" had entangled
in the mutiny at the Nore.
NOELL RADEcliffe.

Queries with Answers.

DANIEL DE FOE.-At a banquet given to the Corporation by the Mayor of Halifax on Tuesday evening, one of the speakers, James Bowman, Esq., J. P. and Borough Treasurer, in speaking of old Halifax worthies, said that Daniel De Foe lived for some time in Halifax, and there, in a street called Cheapside, wrote his celebrated work Robinson Crusoe. As the same assertion has been publicly made before, and is, I believe, inserted in one of the local histories, will you or any of your readers be able to adduce any proof of the above assertion with respect to De Foe's having written his now celebrated work in Halifax ? J. WATSON.

Halifax.

[There is no reason to doubt that Dr. Watson, the author of the History of Halifax (1775) is correct as to one fact, stated on p. 471 of his work, namely, that Daniel Defoe resided for some time at the Rose and Crown, Back Lane, in that town: how long we cannot say, but probably some portion of the latter part of the year 1712, Watson, however, is obviously in error when he states that Defoe there wrote his poem Jure Divino, which was published in 1706, and equally so in stating that in Halifax he wrote his celebrated work Robinson Crusoe, which was not published until 1719.

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Halifax is by no means alone in claiming to have been the birthplace of this work. Among other claimants of the honour is Gateshead in Durham; the Tower of London; a house in Harrow Alley, Whitechapel Market; and a cottage in the little village of Hartley in Kent. We have every reason to believe that Defoe wrote this famed work in the study of his own house at Stoke Newington; and we know that this is the conviction of our valued correspondent MR. WILLIAM LEE.

The only works Defoe likely to have written in Halifax are two pamphlets, A Seasonable Caution against the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites in favour of the Pretender; and, Hannibal at the Gates; or, the Progress of Jucobitism. With the Present Danger of the Pretender. We believe that the Rose and Crown at Halifax no longer exists.]

JOSEPH FLETCHER, of Wilbie, Suffolk, author of The Perfect - cursed - blessed Man (1629.) · Having been fortunate enough to recover considerable new information on this old worthy, I am anxious to pursue lines of inquiry opened up thereby. Toward this I shall be much obliged by correspondents of "N. & Q." communicating anything bearing on these points:

(1.) He married on May 10, 1610, Grace Ashley, daughter of Hugh Ashley, Vicar of St. Margaret's, Ilket's Hall. What Ashleys are these? and where is Ilket's Hall?

(2.) The Perfect-cursed-blessed Man is dedicated to Sir Anthony Wingfield, Knight-Baronet (1629),

to whose father Fletcher had been "chaplain." Who were these Wingfields?

(3.) Christ's Bloodie Sweat is dedicated to "William, Earle of Pembroke," &c. (1613.) Can any one distinguish for me this member of the Pembroke family? ALEXANDER B. GROSART. 15, St. Alban's Place, Blackburn.

[1. Ilketshall is a district in Wangford hundred, Suffolk, containing the parishes of St. Andrew, St. John, St. Lawrence, and St. Margaret. Davy (Suffolk MSS.) in his account of the parish, has no notice of Hugh Ashley, the vicar of St. Margaret's.

(2.) The Wingfields were lords of the manor of Wilby from the early part of the fifteenth century till the middle of the seventeenth. Sir Anthony Wingfield died on July 30, 1638.

(3.) William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, born in 1580 and died in 1630. "He was," says Antony Wood, "not only a great favourer of learned and ingenious men, but was himself learned, and endowed to admiration with a poetical geny, as by those amorous and poetical aires and poems of his composition doth evidently appear." There is a portrait and some account of the Earl in Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ed. 1806, ii. 249: consult also Collins's Peerage, ed. 1812, iii. 123.]

ANCIENT USE OF THE CROSS. In an article entitled "Christian Thought embodied in Christian Art" in the October number of St. Paul's Magazine, it is stated that "it was by no means among the Egyptians only that the cross was a sacred emblem before the time of Christ." Can any of your correspondents inform me by what other nations it was used, and of what it was the emblem? LUMEN.

[The cross was a symbol widely disseminated through the world long anterior to the introduction of Christianity; but scarcely two authors are agreed either as to its origin or meaning. The crux ansata of Egypt is supposed to be derived from the phallus, which is the symbol of life and prolific energy. The cross on the lintel of a subterranean gate in the Pelasgic walls of Alatrium, in Latium, is like the former, a combination of Phalli, and, according to Müller (Ancient Art, p. 627), was a kind of amulet to ward off the "dreaded invidia" (the phallus being used for that purpose at a later period). The Buddhist cross Swastika is composed of two letters, su and ti, or suti, which is the Pali form of the Sanskrit swasti (i. e. “it is well," or "so be it "): it is a symbol of resignation. In Persia and Assyria the cross is the abridged form of the feroher, or emblem of the Deity. In Scandinavia the cross is the battle-axe of Thor. The cross is also a distinctive sign on several Mexican hieroglyphs. The Maltese cross has been found at Otusco, in Central America. Some of the North American savages to this day tattoo their bodies with crosses. In Sir Gardner Wilkinson's work on The Shari, a tribe of Northern Arabia are represented with crosses on their robes-a device which he shows was in use among that people 1500 B.C. Vide Gent's Mag. vol. xv.

pp. 78-80 (Third Series); Rossellini's Egypt, passim; Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, i. 364, art. “Cross," and the works cited by the writer, the Rev. F. W. Farrar, M.A., Assistant Master of Harrow School.]

ROGERO'S SONG IN THE "ANTI-JACOBIN.". There is a story, I forget where told, that Canning wrote the first five stanzas of this famous squib, and that Pitt, coming into the room at Wright's, 169, Piccadilly, where the Anti-Jacobin was edited, improvised the final stanza, which is certainly the best:

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[Our correspondent will find in our 2nd S. vi. 324 the statement to which he refers as to Pitt having written the stanza in question; and in the article two additional stanzas are printed. We cannot say when the stanza first appeared in print, but in the earliest edition to which we have an opportunity of referring, viz. 12mo, 1799, and which, as it does not specify what edition it is, may reasonably be presumed to be the first, the stanza will be found. If our correspondent is anxious to identify the authorship of the various pieces, he would do well to consult the interesting articles upon them in the third vol. of our First Series by the late MR. JOHN WILSon Croker, MR. MARKLAND, and MR. HAWKINS.]

GULE OF AUGUST.-The first day of August is in some public records called "Gula Augusti"; and Edward I. summons the array to be at Carlisle "Le Lendemayn de la Gule Aust." What is the origin and meaning of the term?

B. L. W.

[The Gule of August, or Lammas-day, one of the four great pagan festivals, probably celebrated the realisation of the first fruits of the earth. When Christianity was introduced, the day continued to be observed as a festival on this account, and called Hlaf-mas, subsequently shortened into Lammas. In Latin the name of the day is called "Festum Sancti Petri ad Vincula."

Dr. Pettingal (Archæologia, ii. 67) derives Gule from the Celtic Wyl, or Gwyl, signifying a festival or holiday, and explains "Gule of August" to mean no more than the holiday of St. Peter ad Vincula in August. This is confirmed by Blount, who tells us that Lammas-day (August 1), otherwise called the Gule, or Yule of August, may be a corruption of the British word Gwyl Awst, signifying the feast of August. Vide Brand's Antiquities, and Hampson, Medii Ævi Kalendarium.]

SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS.-Can you give me any clue to the family or descendants of Sir William Chambers, architect? and had he a brother? SOMERSET HOUSE.

[By the lady to whom Sir William Chambers had been united early in life he had four daughters and one son. The eldest of his daughters was married to a son of Sir Ralph Milbank, a gentleman of a most respectable family in the north of England; the second to a Mr. Innis, a West India merchant; the third was united to a Captain Harward, an officer in the Guards; and the youngest to a Colonel Cottin; and his son married a daughter of the late Admiral Lord Rodney. No brother is noticed in A Memoir of the Life of Sir William Chambers, by Thomas Hardwick, Esq., 1825.]

JOHN CREMER.-Can you tell me where I shall find anything about John Cremer, abbot of Westminster circa 1310-15? or can any of your readers give me any information about him? OSPHAL.

[Some account of John Cremer, the alchymist, will be found in The Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers (Lond. 1815), page 15. He is commonly styled an abbot of Westminster, but his name is not to be found in the list of the abbots given by Dugdale and Neale. It appears that he and Raymond Lully lodged together for some time in the abbey of Westminster.]

ANONYMOUS.-Who was the author of Attic Fragments, London, 1825, 8vo? The same person wrote The Modern Athens. A prefatory notice is added from Pen y clawdd.

THOMAS E. WINNINGTON. [By William Mudie.]

Replies.

THOMSON'S "SEASONS."

(4th S. ii. 319.)

In answer to MR. KEIGHTLEY, I would say, first, that I should never think of objecting to such slight emendations as he here proposes, if required by grammar or good taste. Very different were such as I formerly vituperated; such as Bentley's on Milton, or (a flagrant example) those recently suggested in Gray's Elegy by the worthy Mr. R. E. Storer in his book on the Greek Testament.

The particular question suggested seems to me very perplexing. It is undeniable that the sentence beginning "If brush'd" is ungrammatical, and the "For" just below is illogical. "Oft too" would be just right.

But I doubt MR. KEIGHTLEY'S assertion, that the earlier editions have a colon after "spies." I have what I take to be the earliest edition of the Seasons, with the "List of Subscribers," which in books of that period almost always marks, as 1

suppose, a first edition; without the name of printer and publisher, simply "London, MDCCXXX." Now this is two years earlier than the first edition mentioned in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, and only two years later than the first separate edition of the "Spring": and in this the two above defects occur. The passage also is one which the author altered very considerably, in other respects, in later editions.

I have another copy of the Seasons, printed by A. Millar after the author's death, which was found among the books of Mrs. Montagu, the Bluestocking, by a Mr. Montagu, given by him to Lord Spencer, and by him to us. It had belonged to George Lord Lyttelton, who had it interleaved, and noted in the fly-leaf that (underlined by him), "conformably to the will and intention of the author," he (Lord L.) had made several corrections, transpositions, and omissions. My excellent ancestor did much more than this, for he put in a number of new lines and phrases of his own; no doubt exemplifying abundantly the evil tendency I have above spoken of.

Now in this book (which was never printed, all the corrections, &c., being in MS., but which I lent many years ago to Sir Harris Nicolas for an edition of Thomson which he meant to bring out, but which I believe hen ever did) the commentator did not stumble at the "For," but he perceived the fault before the line "If brush'd," and foisted in with a curative purpose the line "Now every bud expanding bursts to life."

I must add that I can by no means agree with MR. KEIGHTLEY as to the certainty of Mr. Wright's emendation. It would probably do, though I have a clear feeling that, while to speak intransitively of "colonies extending" is perfectly right, "to extend a colony" or colonies, transitively is at least very awkward; and it can hardly be meant that "sons" and "colonies" are both nominatives and in apposition. On the other hand, I cannot conceive any one doubting that the old reading is highly and intensely poetical, though I admit it is a question whether the trope is not rather violent.

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to England the news of the victory of Waterloo from the field, I entertain considerable doubts whether his information could have enabled his employer to operate on the Stock Exchange, or conceal the news for any length of time.

Mr. Roworth could hardly have left the field of battle till about eight o'clock on the evening of the 18th. Ostend, his nearest port of embarcation, is some seventy-five miles distant, as the crow flies; and owing to the encumbered state of the roads, he had probably to make some détour to his right.

Now, in the Quarterly Review of June, 1845, p. 222, there is a most interesting narrative by the Knight of Kerry, by which it appears that at seven or half-past seven of the evening of the 18th he was in Ghent, when Sir Pulteney Malcolm requested him to proceed at once to England with the information then in his possession. The Knight-who, it will be observed, had thus about fifty miles' start of Mr. Roworth-on reaching Ostend at once embarked in a man-of-war which Sir Pulteney had placed at his disposal. After they had weighed they were overtaken by a gend'arme in a boat, who stated that news had been received that the Duke was driving the French at all points. The Knight states that they had rather a slow passage to Deal, whence he posted to London, and arrived at the Admiralty at halfpast four P.M. on the 20th. The Ministers were then at the Houses of Parliament, to which he at once proceeded. The Cabinet at once assembled in the Chancellor's private room, when the Knight communicated his intelligence. This was at once forwarded to the Lord Mayor, and became known on the Stock Exchange before the close of business.

Now, admitting that it is not unlikely that a smuggling-boat might beat the royal vessel, and that Mr. Roworth would have the advantage of the Rothschilds' unrivalled stud of horses distributed along the line from the coast to London, and lastly, that the Government information had to be transmitted from Westminster to the Mansion House, the question is, how long had the Rothschilds to operate on the funds before it was made known in the City, when it must at once have stopped the transactions? RUSTICUS.

"ST. CHRISTOPHER" CALLED "OF 1423."
(4th S. ii. 265, 313, 330.)

"Tempora mutantur, etc.," and has it come to this? Can it be true that A.D. 1868 has sounded the knell of the far-famed "St. Christopher," and that in the columns of the most interesting medium of literature the saint's dethronement is deliberately confirmed by such a heading as "called of 1423"?

Shade of Heinecken forbid! and yet, on second

thoughts, you may as well save yourself the trouble, considering that three weeks have elapsed since the treason was proclaimed, and it yet remains unpunished, or rather unquestioned.

Although but an outsider, I resolved to take up a cudgel on behalf of the saint's claim to 1423, and, if possible, to successfully refute MR. HOLT's "pestilent heresy" in asserting that the wellknown impression in the Althorp library had been taken by means of printing ink and a printing press. As you may readily imagine, I at once sought those sound authorities on whose support I had been accustomed to implicitly rely. Great, however, was my surprise when, on turning to Ottley, I found an unqualified admission that the "St. Christopher" had evidently been printed with a press.

Startled by this unexpected rebuff, I at once invoked the aid of the Althorp champion, the doctor of doctors-Dibdin; but only to meet with another confession equally startling, viz. that the "St. Christopher" was printed with printing ink; and that, unable to wriggle out of such an awkward fact, he had tried to make the most of it by declaring it to be "the most ancient specimen extant of the use of printing ink"! Rather too bad of the doctor, knowing as he must have done that printing ink had never been heard of in 1423. Still I felt one great resource was left to me in Mr. Noel Humphreys, our very latest authority; and buoyed up with the hope that, in his work at least, I might still find means wherewith to keep Heinecken's laurels on his memory, I eagerly sought the pages devoted by Mr. Humphreys to "St. Christopher"; but there I met with my quietus, as you will readily admit, when I tell you what I found - Noel Humphreys' loquitur:

"The impression of the St. Christopher,' although dated 1433 [it is not, by the bye, but as times go that is a mere trifle], is printed in regular printing ink, and is not, therefore, one of the original impressions of the block, as the oleaginous printing ink was then unknown."

This statement completed my defeat, and, in the language of the defunct Ring, "I threw up the sponge." On coming to, however, I found Mr. Humphreys possessed greater courage than I could muster; as, notwithstanding he disavowed the particular impression, he stuck to the "block," by declaring that the impression was certainly not taken at the time the block was executed! and probably not till long after printing ink, then unknown, had come into general use, when its advantages, combined with those afforded by the press, caused many old blocks to be reprinted from, which had long been thrown aside.

I tried hard to be convinced by such reasoning; but being obliged to give it up as a bad job, I now report the result to you, as well as my in

ability to urge another word upon the authenticity of the date of "St. Christopher, 1423."

A. W. T.

At the Archæological Institute, in July, 1864, I ventured to ascribe the "St. Christopher" called "of 1423" to Albrecht Dürer. That attribution I still maintain; and it is circumstantially supported by a somewhat singular fact, which I will presently mention. As is well known, "St. Christopher" formed a favourite subject with engravers on copper from the commencement of the art, soon after the invention of printing with moveable types, and was frequently represented by them. Amongst those artists was a devoted friend and ardent admirer of Albrecht Dürer, whose works he frequently copied or adapted. I allude to Israel von Mecken. In Bartsch (vol. vi. p. 231, No. 91) will be found a description of his "St. Christopher," which has this peculiarity, viz. that, unlike any of those artists who had previously engraved the saint on copper, he, in imitation of his friend Dürer, who alone had then represented the subject on wood, added the two hexameter verses found at the base of the "St. Christopher" called "of 1423"-practically substituting the third person for the second. Thus, for the legend on the woodcut, viz. :

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"Cristoferi faciem die quacumq' tueris Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris." Von Mecken engraved —

"Christoferi sancti faciem quicunque tuetur Illa nempe die non morte morietur." Bearing in mind that these are the only two known representations of "St. Christopher" prior to 1500, with the Latin legend beneath themas well as the friendship existing between Dürer and Von Mecken-and the conclusion becomes almost irresistible in favour of my attribution, borne out as it is by Jackson and Chatto (p. 47), wherein it is stated:

"In fact, the figure of the saint and that of the youthful Christ, whom he bears on his shoulders, are designed in such a style, that they would scarcely discredit Albert Dürer himself."

And it further confirms my declaration, that the date 1423 never was intended to represent the period at which the wood-engraving was executed. 6, King's Road, Clapham Park.

HENRY F. HOLT.

In answer to J. C. J., I beg leave to say that I have a fine clean copy of Jenson's Biblia sacra Latina, cum Prologus Hieronymi, lit. goth. rubricated capitals, with large margins, remarkable too for the beauty of the type. Towards the end, at the Apocalypse, stands," Biblia impressa Venetiis opera atq; impensa Nicolai Jenson, Gallici, M.C.C.C.C.LXXVI." This is the first edition of the

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