or custom? Of course, many words alter their Fair dewy roses brush against our faces, J. T. F. trembles as I suggest, Is not DR. MURRAY on a Roll 7 Henry IV., 21; chimere in Wheatley's 75, must be the same as abolla. Rochdale. J. HAMILTON WYLIE. "GOFER" BELLS: "GOFER" MONEY (7th S. vii. 47). Halliwell has :- " When I was a boy, about 1843, we had a read-of flour, milk, eggs, and currants, baked on an iron made Gofer, a species of tea-cake of an oblong form, made ing book, one story in which was about The expressly for the purpose, called a gofering iron, and Broken Vase.' My father taught us to read it to divided into square compartments (L nc.)." rhyme with "case," but we afterwards came to If this be the same word with that used at Bridthink it ought to be something between "Mars" and "vauz." port, "gofer money" might be money for buying "gofers," as for doles of bread so commonly given. "Gofer bells" might also be bells carried by itinerant sellers of "gofers," as in some places by sellers of crumpets, &c. There is the verb "goffer," to plait, to crimp; and "gofering work," a sort of crimping performed on frills, caps, &c. Winterton, Doncaster, JOSIAH BURCHETT (7th S. vii. 29, 74).-Burchett had a daughter Elizabeth, who married the first, and was mother of the second, Admiral Sir Charles Hardy. As the second Sir Charles was born about 1717, Elizabeth must have been the child of the first marriage. I have recently come across the following names, which may be interesting to MR. RUTTER : Admiralty Commission and Warrant Books. Paul Burchett, master gunner of the Poole, August 6, 1709. Richard Burchett, certificate as schoolmaster in the navy, August 6, 1709. His latest appointment that I noted was to the Preston, Capt. (afterwards Sir Robert) Johnson, November 26, 1717. George Ann Burchett, comptroller of the accounts of the receiver of the duty of 6d. a month out of seamen's wages for the use of Greenwich Hospital, in the room of Mr. F. Gashry, to have a salary of 100%. per annum, together with such allowances and privileges as his predecessors have enjoyed, September 30, 1736. From the dates, these may possibly be Josiah Burchett's father and uncle, brothers or cousins, and son or nephew, but I have not found any evidence to that effect. J. K. LAUGHTON. CHYMER (7th S. vi. 487).—It is an awful thing to tackle the philologists of 'N. & Q.,' and my pen W. E. BUCKLEY. In Lincolnshire A. J. will find gofers, or gofercakes, and gofer-irons to make them with. The cakes are very nice, and appear to be made of batter, and are cooked by being placed in the irons sufficiently heated; and they come out of the irons in small squares, with indentations according to the iron mould. I always concluded that the name is a corruption of gofrè, figured; and there may once have been a special day for eating gofers, which would account for the gofer bell, just as pancakes have their pancake bell on Shrove Tuesday. T. W. R. REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON O'CONOR (7th S. vii. 68).-The following particulars relating to my late lamented friend may interest your correspondent, and will serve as an answer to his query at the above reference. Mr. O'Conor was born in Cork in 1820, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated B.A. in 1864. He was ordained deacon in 1853, and priest in 1854 by the Bishop of Chester. After holding the curacies of St. Nicholas and St. Thomas, Liverpool, from 1853 to 1855, he served as curate at St. Michael's with St. Olave, Chester, from 1855 to 1858. For a shorttime he was also Latin lecturer at St. Aidan's, Birkenhead. In 1858 he was appointed Rector of SS. Simon and Jude, Granby Row, in this city, which position he occupied till his death at Torquay, March 22, 1887, at. sixty-six. For nearly thirty years Mr. O'Conor was active amongst us with voice and pen in the theological and literary His writings, like his pulpit and platform utterances, were marked by extraordinary originality, power, and eloquence, while his grasp of his subject and his logical acumen made him an awkward opponent. Yet his geniality and courtesy, joined to a rare wit, "racy of the soil," endeared him even to those who differed from him in views. I remember well the flash of humour that sparkled in his eyes as, during the delivery of a lecture on church defence, he ended an eloquent passage on the work of the early Irish missionaries in Britain with the words, "Labouring for the conversion of the Saxons, as [pointing to the writer] their successors are doing to this day!" When his pamphlet on the 'Irish Massacre of 1641' was in course of preparation, I asked him if he intended offering it to some magazine, and he replied, with a characteristic smile," No; the editors are too fond of cutting and carving!" The little work was a trenchant rejoinder to Miss Hickson, et hoc genus omne. It is to be regretted that his signature was not better known to the readers of 'N. & Q.,' and it is a matter of painful though proud recollection to me that his last appearance in its pages was in answer to a stricture of mine on one of his historical hobbies (6th S. xi. 394). No one misses him more than I do, to whom (as to all) the rich store of his knowledge and his large library were at all times available, and I treasure the letters he wrote and the books he gave me as precious souvenirs of a friendship that was never shadowed by a word or a look of unkindness. Peace to his manes ! J. B. S. Manchester. The Rev. William Anderson O'Conor was a clergyman of the Church of England and for many years Rector of St. Simon and St. Jude's Church, Manchester. He was born at Cork in 1820, and died at Torquay on March 22, 1887. Besides 'The Truth and the Church' he wrote: St. John's Gospel. 1874. History of the Irish People. 2 vols. 1881. Second and enlarged edition. 1886. He was a prominent member of the Manchester Literary Club, and read before that society many brilliant literary essays, which will be found in its printed'Papers.' It is the intention of the club to reprint and publish Mr. O'Conor's papers, with a biographical introduction, and I am sure your correspondent and many others will be glad of the opportunity of perusing these really striking productions of a remarkably gifted man, whose death was, and continues to be, felt as a great loss to the social and literary circles of his adopted city. Č. W. S. HERALDRY: DESCENT OF ARMORIAL BEARINGS (7th S. vi. 427, 496; vii. 132).-With regard to the descent of armorial bearings, might I be permitted to suggest that the differencing of coat armour is not, at least in England, so rigidly insisted upon as MR. UDAL would imply? In fact, if coat armour was so differenced that no two members of any family, however nearly related, ever bore exactly the same coat, heraldry would become an impossible science, except for the lucky few who happened to be heads of houses. It surely was never contemplated by heralds that ninety-nine out of every hundred gentlemen of coat armour should have their arms mangled by successive differences piled one upon another. But that this, fortunately, is not the case I think that I am able to show. Two or three years ago I had my pedigree placed on official record at the Heralds' College, which pedigree included, among other things, my descent from the daughter and eventual heiress of one Stephen Grosvenor, a cadet of the Grosvenors of Drayton, a junior branch of the Grosvenors of Eton. I inquired at the time whether, in the event of my assuming the surname and arms of Grosvenor, the kings of arms would permit me to bear the simple arms of the Grosvenors of Drayton without a difference, or whether Gibbon wrote a pamphlet called 'The whole Life and Conversation of Sir John Friend.' Le Neve says he was the son of ". - Friend, of St. Kate they would insist on mangling it first; and the reply which I received, and have still-for I have not destroyed the letter-was to the effect that most certainly I should be entitled to bear the arms un-rines p'cinct, brewer, no descent higher to be differenced, and that, moreover, the kings of arms found." His father died 1665, and was buried in had no power to difference them. My informant St. Katherine's Church, where a monument was was himself an officer of the college, and there- erected to his memory. Sir John was born in "St. fore I may say that the authority is absolute and Katerines p'cinct by the tower," and was also a settles the question. Surely poor younger sons brewer. He was one of the Commissioners of the would be badly off indeed could they not even bear Excise, and was knighted in 1685. He married their family arms unmutilated. first a daughter of - Butcher and secondly a daughter of Huntington, of Stanton Har ARMIGER. THE NIMBUS, OR AUREOLE (7th S. vii. 65).court, Oxon. He built the brewhouse in the According to Didron, H. DE B. H. is right in Minories called "Sir John Friend's Brewhouse." taking the square nimbus as a sign that the person Rapin says:distinguished thereby was living at the time when the representation of him was made: "Men who had attained an undoubted and recognized degree of sanctity were honoured during their lifetime with the nimbus; a fact which is positively asserted by John the Deacon, and repeated on his authority by Ciampini; but in order to preserve the high position due to departed saints, the nimbus of the living saints was square. The square......was held inferior to the circle by Pythagoras and the Neo-Platonists. The square, according to their doctrine, was a geometrical symbolic figure employed to designate the earth; the circle was the symbol of heaven. The circle is a square perfected; the square in the language a diminished or broken circle."-" -Christian Iconography,' vol. i. pp. 76, 77 (Bohn's edition). "Friend had risen from mean beginnings to great credit and much wealth. His purse was more considered than his head, and was open on all occasions, as the party (Jacobite) applied to him. He had a commission for raising a regiment for King James, and he entertained and paid the officers," Macaulay calls him tr a silly, ill-educated man," and says that the multitude who were eagerly looking out for his execution had been incensed against him by reports touching the exceeding badness of his beer, and it was even hinted that he purposely supplied the navy with poisoned beer. He was executed in 1696 for conspiracy against William His trial is to be found in 'State Trials.' Touching colour, the author speaks more doubt-III. fully. He says (pp. 164, 165):— "The colour of the nimbus is occasionally symbolical, a fact which is proved by the black nimbus, the 'nimbe en deuil,' given to the traitor Judas; still in numerous instances it is purely hierarchical." And after describing how it is distributed in a painting of the heavenly paradise which occurs at the end of a MS. in the public library of Strasbourg, he observes that Swallowfield, Reading. CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Though unable to say whether there is a pedigree in existence of the family of this unfortunate gentleman, executed for high treason in the reign of William III. in 1696, yet allow me to refer to the account of him given in Macaulay's 'History of England,' chap. xxi. It is there said of him that he was a nonjuror who had, indeed, a very slender wit, but who had made a very large fortune by brewing, and who had spent it freely in sedition." 66 "the hierarchy of colours might easily, in ideas of the Middle Ages, have allied itself with symbolism. Gold is the most radiant of all colours, and it is here awarded to saints of the highest eminence. Silver, the colour of the There is an interesting contemporaneous account moon, which, though inferior to the sun, is ever his constant attendant, stands next in rank; then red, or fire of his execution at Tyburn in company with Sir colour, the attribute of those who struggle against William Parkyns, who was one of his co-conspirators, passion, which is inferior to the two metals of gold and written apparently by an eye-witness, to be and silver, the sun and the moon, being merely found printed verbatim in 'N. & Q.,' 2nd S. i. 25. an emanation from the former; then green, the colour of hope, appropriately assigned to married It is there said that just before the cart was driven persons; lastly, a sort of yellow, an equivocal tint, partly white and partly yellow, a mixed colour, given to saints who had formerly been sinners, but by prayer and penitence had again become acceptable in the sight of God." Nothing is suggested as to the symbolism of a blue SIR JOHN FRIEND (7th S. vii. 47).-Le Neve gives a short account of Sir John Friend, and John away from under the gallows Mr. Cook, probably dies' the only notice of the name of Howe is an inscription at The Palisades, Port Royal, as follows: "Here lies the body of Stephen Howe, Esq., Brigadr.Genl. and Coll. of the 5th West India Regt., died 19 day of July, 1796, aged 33 years." B. FLORENCE SCARLETT. BOOK MUSLIN (7th S. vii. 69).-Will. Beck, in the 'Draper's Dictionary,' gives the following quotation from some one writing in 1690: "The advantages of the East India Company is chiefly in their Muslins and Indian Silks, and these are becoming the general wear in England. Fashion is truly termed a witch. The dearer and scarcer the commodity, the more the mode. Thirty shillings a yard for Muslins, and only the shadow of a commodity when procured." In 'Social Life in Former Days,' by Dunbar, copies are given of extensive mercantile orders sent by the Elgin firm of Sir James Calder, of Muirtown. In one of these orders, sent to "Alex. Carstairs, merchant in Roterdame, and John & William Gordones, merchants in Camphire," and dated February 24, 1694, occurs the following:"Three peece muelen, wherof one fyne stript about thirty-six gilders the peece; one peece at thirty; another at twenty-eight.' In this same work a letter is given written by Sir Harrie Innes in 1716 "to the Laird of Thunderton" [Archd. Dunbar], in which the following passage occurs : "If ye be to writte to Holland, cause bring home one thousand weight of twyne ffor next years fishing. Also, two or three pieces of holland musline I want, but I understand nott how to commission for itt." Swallowfield, Reading. CONSTANCE RUSSELL. CAPT. MARRY AT (7th S. vii. 9, 74).-Frederick Marryat was born "in Westminster," July 10, 1792. See Life and Letters of Capt. Marryat,' by Florence Marryat, 2 vols., London, 1872. DANIEL HIPWELL. 34, Myddelton Square, W.C. "DOLCE FAR NIENTE" (7th S. vii. 28, 111).Will you allow me to rectify an error in my letter on "Dolce far niente," which appeared at the last reference? "Incidio in Scyllam cupiens uitare Charybdim" should, of course, be Incidis, &c. The line is from Philippe Gualtier's 'Alexandreis,' V. 301, written early in the fourteenth century. As regards the second "puzzling line," "Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis," it will be best to give a translation of Büchmann's own account. The line, he writes, verbialia Dicteria' (Decade 16), which appeared in 1566, and Owen repeats it in his 'Epigrams' (i. 53).” EDWARD BENSLY. A. COLLINGWOOD LEE- Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? at once reminded me of the beautiful ballad 'The Snow,' written by Samuel Lover, the words of which are as follows: An old man sadly said, "Where's the snow The hope of airy birth, like the snow, Is stain'd on reaching earth, like the snow: A cold deceitful thing is the snow, tears, Like the snow. I do not possess Villon's poems nor their translation, but perhaps MR. LEE can say whether Lover, in comparing the transitoriness of our joys and our hopes to last year's snow, was indebted to Villon's ballad, which furnishes this line, "Where's the snow that fell the year that's fled?" A poet does but, as Lord Byron says, "he had better borrow sometimes borrow from his Parnassian brother, anything (excepting money) than the thoughts of another they are always sure to be reclaimed." I think the question may be asked: Did Lover "borrow" the metaphors in his lyric either from Villon or from some precedent poet? Ashford, Kent. FREDK. RULE. interesting particulars respecting the aldermen ALDERMEN OF LONDON (7th S. vii. 128).—Many from A.D. 1579 to 1664 may be found in 'Remembrancia,' privately printed by the Library Committee of the Corporation of London, 1878. It would seem from this volume that the aldermen frequently passed from the presidency of one ward to that of another, e. g. (p. 287), Sir John Watts, clothworker, elected alderman of Aldersgate in 1594, removed to Tower Ward in 1601, back to Aldersgate in 1605, and to Langbourn in 1606, in which year he became Lord Mayor. When did this custom of removal cease? We never meet with it J. MASKELL. in more recent times. (7th S. vii. 108).-Full particulars of this murder will be found in the volume of 'State Trials' reJ. ST. V. S. "is, according to Webster's Dictionary' (ed. by Good-lating to that date. rich, 1862, p. 1374), quoted by Matthias Borbonius, a German, who made Latin verses, as a saying of the Emperor Lothair I.; but I have searched in vain for this line in a copy of Borbonius's Nuge, which appeared at Basle in 1536. With the transposition et nos, the line is already contained in Andreas Gartner's Pro CHAPMAN'S 'ALL FOOLS': "To......SIR THO. WALSINGHAM" (7th S. vi. 47). Since writing the above I have searched in vain for the copy of 'All Fools' which Mr. J. P. Collier said he possessed containing this dedication. Dr. Garnett, of the British Museum, to whom also I applied to know where I could find a sale catalogue of Mr. Collier's books and MSS., most kindly searched it himself without finding any copy. Not at all willing to bring forward another charge of forgery against Mr. Collier without good proof, I would earnestly ask any readers of this who may know of the whereabouts of Mr. Collier's alleged copy, or of any copy of 'All Fools' containing this dedication, to make known the same. While, however, not willing to bring such a charge without due proof, I am bound to say that I cannot detect in this sonnet such traces of Chapman's style as would enable me to say that, judging from this, I believe it to be his. BR. NICHOLSON. THE ROSE, THISTLE, AND SHAMROCK (7th S. vi. 207, 311, 429, 455).—C. C. B. says, "It is well known that the elder Pliny, discussing the etymology of the name Albion, suggests that our island may have been so called from the white roses which abound in it." So far as I know the only mention which Pliny makes of Albion is iv. 16, 30, § 102 (Sillig), where no explanation of the name is to be found. A. FELS. Hamburg. we are "THE ONE" AND 66 THE OTHER" (7th S. vii. 25). | Questions of grammatical propriety are so often nothing but quibbles and quirks that I think the REV. MR. SPENCE should have set down three or four instances of vicious expression at the same time that he drew attention to the evil practice. The Authorized Version seems to contradict itself in the passage cited. It begins by saying a sweet savour," and then that "we are a savour of death unto death" to "them that perish." How can that be? Still that does not affect the grammatical point raised. Does MR. SPENCE find that those who err, err also as to "this" and "that" in sentences of similar purport? for they evidently are similar, and should follow one rule. The forms celui-ci, celui-là, render the mistake almost impossible in French. C. A. WARD. On the day that I read MR. SPENCE's note I also read this sentence in Pearson, On the Creed,' art. iii. (1848, p. 235): "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature (Luke ii. 52); one in respect of his body, the other of his soul." W. C. B. BURTON (7th S. vi. 443, 517; vii. 53).-It may interest MR. PEACOCK that a copy of the 'Anatomy' in my possession is the second edition, and the title accords with his description in every particular. It has the following entry by me on the fly-leaf:"Purchased October 5th, 1841, of Edward Lumley, Chancery Lane; cost 68. 6d." At this shop I met with several other rarities about that time. Wells, Somerset. HENRY W. LIVETT, M.D. LONG PERNE COURT (7th S. vii. 109).-If I might hazard the guess, Perne seems to be a corruption of the law Latin term firma, derived from A.-S. feorme, food. Stephens defines feorme thus: "Farm, or feorme, is an old Saxon word signifying provisions, and it came to be used instead of rent or render, because antiently the greater part of rents were reserved in provisions-in corn, in poultry, and the liketill the use of money became more frequent; so that a farmer (firmarius) was one who held his lands upon payment of a rent or feorme; though, at present, by a gradual departure from the original sense, the word farm is brought to signify the very estate or lands as held upon farm or rent." In the glossary to 'Boldon Buke' (Surtees Society, 1852) firma, or ferm, is described as the sum estimated from the assize rents, the fines, and other issues of the county courts, and rendered yearly by the sheriff of each county on behalf of each county. Bailey defines firma, as used in a different sense, as "a tribute antiently paid towards the entertainment of the King of England for a night." Dr. Littleton gives the same meaning as Bailey. JULIUS STEGGALL. "THERE'S A DIFFERENCE I WEEN (7th S. vi. 447). The second verse of a song in the Universal Songster' (1825), vol. i. p. 269, commences "There's a difference between a beggar and a queen," and continues somewhat similarly to MR. KELLY'S version. There is a good deal of "patter" after each verse, the first one beginning with the line, "Merry Proteus of old, as by Ovid we're told." The song is entitled 'Beggars and BalladSingers.' Liverpool. J. F. MANSergh. SIR ANTHONY HART, LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND (7th S. vii. 7).—A short memoir will be Add. MS. 6674, fol. 288, opinion of Anthony found in Foss's 'Judges of England,' vol. ix. p. 23. Hart, of Lincoln's Inn, upon the tithe suit of Des Voeux v. Whittingham and Burton, 1815. Add. MS. 21,507, fol. 464, letter to J. Wyatt, 1831. DANIEL HIPWELL. 34, Myddelton Square, Clerkenwell, Does the following throw any light on the mystery enveloping Hart's parentage, as stated by your correspondent ?— |