expense-had been the mainstay of à Beckett's serial. It was continued under the editorship of H. Mayhew, with Seymour once again as its artist; and I believe (query) that two volumes were thus published If such is the case, Figaro in London had an existence of four years, which included the period of the 'Sketches by Boz' and the wondrous rise of 'Pickwick,' with Seymour as its artist. On Jan. 1, 1833, Gilbert à Beckett started Figaro's Monthly Newspaper, price threepence, and also edited the Comic Magazine (1832-4), to the earlier numbers of which Seymour contributed numerous designs. It seems quite possible that Charles Dickens may have been a contributor to Figaro in London. Is there any proof of this? If such was the case, it would be not a little interesting to find that he and Seymour were engaged on the same publication while as yet Mr. Pickwick was unborn. CUTHBERT BEDE. NOTES ON EPICTETUS.-Mr. T. W. Rolleston, in his admirable introduction to the recent volume of the "Camelot Series," entitled 'The Teaching of Epictetus,' has enumerated two previous English renderings of the Helot sage, the " one [he says] by Mrs. Carter, published in the last century, the other by the late George Long, M.A. (Bohn Series)." It may not be amiss to add that the translation of Mrs. Carter was first published in 1758, and that many years anterior to this Dr. George Stanhope, Dean of Canterbury, born 1660, died 1728, a voluminous author and translator, a prominent member of the Established Church, distinguished alike for the strength of his intellect and the refinement of his imagination, published a work bearing the following title: "Epictetus his Morals, with Simplicius his Comment. Made English from the Greek by George Stanhope, 1694." Another edition of this, with a 'Life of Epictetus,' followed in 1700, 8vo. The translation of Stanhope is clearly the work of a purist, but of a purist who, with all his elegance of phrase and delicate turn of expression, does not lose sight of the real end of literature. Anent the doctrines of the Pyrrhonists, which in the introduction of Mr. Rolleston are stated with clearness, brevity, and precision, we shall make no apology for inserting the excellent remark of Plato : "When you say all things are incomprehensible, do you comprehend or conceive that they are thus incomprehensible, or do you not? If you do, then something is comprehensible; if you do not, there is no reason we should believe you, since you do not comprehend your own assertions." Armley. C. C. DOVE. QUEENIE AS A PET NAME.-Of late years the fashion has been somewhat prevalent of giving to little or young girls, instead of their own Christian name, the pet name of "Queenie." This practice is not new, however, for in a book of dialogues (in Italian and English) between an Italian master and his English young lady pupil, written by Joseph Baretti (London, 1775), I find, in p. 168, the young lady, whose real Christian name is supposed to be Esther, called "Queeney" (sic) by her master, who says to her, "Reginuccia mia, a che state voi pensando?" My dear Queeney, what are you thinking about1" It will be observed that the book is written by an Italian, and that the Italian in this case precedes the English which is intended to be a translation of it. The question arises, therefore, Did Mr. Baretti use "Queeney" because he had heard it used in England, or did he use it because in similar cases "Reginuccia" was then used in Italy? I have some ground for supposing that he did find Queeney" in use in England, for I once met with it in an English book of somewhere about the same besides which, it is scarcely probable that an Italian time, but, unfortunately, I did not take a note of it; writer should have introduced the use of an English word into England. But "Reginuccia" may, for all that, have been used similarly in Italy. Sydenham Hill. F. CHANCE. COLT, COLTES.-A recently published 'History of Walsall' gives obscure details of some local colts, by which it appears that a shilelagh, or club, is personified as a warrior. This seems to suggest a reference to "a good thrashing," which I have heard termed "a colting," but do not see it so defined in Bailey, Halliwell, Skeat, or Stormonth. We read that the excesses of the above colts became a Star Chamber matter; that at one time their number amounted to a thousand; but they became extinct in 1870. A. HALL. [In the Encyclopaedic Dictionary' a rope's end knotted and used for punishment is given as a figurative meaning of colt.] Reverend and Reverent.—Will these quotations be of use to Dr. Murray if he lives to get to R? informs us that in the northern dialects the mean- O bury me by the bracken bush, That ere a kindly Scot lies here. Scott, 'Border Min.,' ed. 1861, vol. i. p. 360. I have, however, come recently upon a very good instance of it in reading Prof. Knight's 'Principal Shairp and his Friends.' Shairp and some friends of his were in the woods near Loudoun Castle, and he said to them :— "Now, friends, this is the last time we shall all meet together; I know that well. Let us have a memorial of our meeting. Yonder are a number of primrose bushes. Each of you take up one root with his own hands; I will do the same; and we shall plant them at the manse in remembrance of this day. So we each did, and carried home each his own primrose bush.”—P. 27. It would be interesting to know whether these primrose bushes are growing still in the manse garden. If they are, they form a pathetic living memorial of a man of whom all Scotchmen have reason to be proud. EDWARD PEACOCK. Bottesford Manor, Brigg. shire. true, our Australian cousins might try the experi- "TACE," LATIN FOR A HORSELOCK.-The usual proverb or caution runs thus: "Don't you know that tace is Latin for a candle?" In the Beaufort Papers,' just published, pp. 48 and xvi, may be found this anecdote : "The reason of Edmond of Langley impress of the Falcon in a Fetterlock was an intimac'on that he was shutt up from all hope of this Kingdom when his brother John began to prtend to it: Whereupon observing his sons to be looking upon this device sett up in a window, Asked them what was Latin for such an Horselock, whereat ye young Gentlemen considering: The ffather sayd, Well if you cannot tell me I will tell you, Hic ha'c hoc Taceatis, as advizeing them to be silent and quiet, and therewith all sayd, Yétt Gód knoweth what may come to pass hereafter. (Thence perhaps may proceed the usual caution to keep a secret, which I have often heard in Worcestershire and elsewhere attended with these words, Tace is Latin for an Horselock)." If my memory serves me, an explanation of the caution, "Why is tace said to be Latin for a candle?" has been more than once demanded in your columns. BOILEAU. [See 7th S. v. 85, 235, 260, 393.] CASANOVIANA.-' Mémoires,' vol. vi. pp. 46-47. Scene, a court of justice : en présence du célèbre auteur de Tom Jones,"" LONDONSHIRE.-The City of London, with its liberties, is, or was, a county in itself, located in Middlesex. Our new jurisdiction creates a county "Au fond j'aperçus, assis dans un fauteuil, un vieillard of London, it being the great metropolis minus the qui portait un bandeau sur la vue et qui écoutait les exCity, extending into Essex, Kent, and Surrey.plications de plusieurs inculpés. C'etait le juge; on me Upon the precedent of Yorkshire, Leicestershire, dit qu'il était aveugle et qu'il s'appelait Fielding. J'etais &c., this new jurisdiction should be named London- Casanova was in London in 1763. The author of A. H. 'Tom Jones' died at Lisbon in 1754. The judge FLIES AND WOLVES.-When visiting a friend here mentioned was probably Sir John Fielding, last summer he called my attention to a curious half-brother of the novelist and his successor as a plan for preventing the plague of flies in his house. justice for Middlesex. Though blind from his The upper sash of one of the windows in his sitting-childhood, he is said to have discharged his office room being open for ventilation, there was suspended with great credit, and died 1780. An error on the outside a piece of common fishing-net. My friend part of a foreigner easily accounted for. told me that not a fly would venture to pass through it. He has watched for an hour at a time, and seen swarms fly to within a few inches of the net, and then, after buzzing about for a little, depart. He told me the flies would pass through the net if there was a thorough light-that is, another window in the opposite wall. Though the day was very warm, I did not see a single fly in the room during my visit, though elsewhere in the town they were to be seen in abundance. I suppose they imagine the net to be a spider's web, or some other trap intended for their destruction. My friend mentioned the curious fact that in Russia no wolves will pass under telegraph wires, and that the Government are utilizing this valuable discovery, and already clearing districts of the country from these brutes. If this information be 33, Tedworth Square, S. W. RICHARD EDGCUMBE. etymo A CURIOUS ETYMOLOGY.-If ever an logy" deserved to be "gibbeted," certainly the following deserves it richly. It is from the Gentleman's Magazine, Dec., 1888, p. 605 :— "One word in conclusion on the word gallows. The old word for the gibbet is galg, and gallow is the low or place for the gibbet." It follows that gallows are "the places for the gibbet," which is highly satisfactory. In what language the "old word" galg occurs in a monosyllabic form we are not told. Such is "etymology" in the nineteenth century. CELER. HAMPOLE'S VERSION OF THE PSALMS.-I have said in 'Specimens of English,' part ii. p. 107, that Hampole was "the author of a metrical version of the Psalms," &c. I took this statement from Prof. Morley's English Writers' without suspicion. Since then Mr. Bramley has edited Hampole's version, and lo! it is in prose! How, then, did the error arise? Perhaps thus. The copy of the work in MS. Laud 286 begins with sixty lines of verse, which may easily have induced the consulter of the MS. to suppose it was wholly in verse. However, these sixty lines are a mere prologue; they are not by Hampole, but by another hand; and they do not appear in any other of the rather numerous copies. I conclude that a verse translation of the Psalms by Hampole does not exist. If it does, let its existence be proved. WALTER W. SKEAT. POPE'S PROPHETIC VISION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. It seems worth noting the curious prophecy which in Pope's Windsor Forest' is put into the mouth of Father Thames : I see, I see, where two fair cities bend Their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend! There mighty nations shall enquire their doom, The world's great oracle in times to come. There kings shall sue, and suppliant states be seen Once more to bend before a British Queen. If one could substitute the Houses of Parliament for Whitehall it might be taken as a poet's vision of the Jubilee. Much in the same strain follows which no stretch of imagination could suppose to be applicable to Queen Anne or her reign, illustrious as it was. C. G. BOGER. St. Saviour's. MEDIEVAL NAMES.-In the various charters and conveyances relating to the parish of Hendon I have found several names which may interest HERMENTRUDE. In a charter dated in 1258 the name Marsilla occurs, being that of the wife of Robert, son of Benedict de Hamstede, and among the witnesses to the same document is Robert le Engyniur, which I presume is equivalent to Robert the Engineer; but I should like to know what an engineer's calling really was in those days-if, indeed, there was any civil occupation which was so designated. The very curious names of Burlerd and Giteburst appear among the witnesses to a charter dated 18 Edward II. I also, in the time of Richard II., find the names Pymberd, Chalkhill, Philbow, and Rippon. 63, Fellows Road, N.W. E. T. EVANS. were discovered years afterwards among the Caffres by the Landdrost of Graaf Reynet, who went into Caffraria in search of survivors. They were dressed in the small apron and little else of the Caffre women, and having been married to Caffres, by whom they had families, preferred to stay where they were. In Macgillivray's 'Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake' is recorded the rescue of a young Scotchwoman, who had lived nearly five years with the blacks on an island off Cape York, they having rescued her from a wreck in which her husband, the owner of a small cutter, and his crew had perished. She was compelled to become the wife of one of her preservers, and was in appearance hardly distinguishable from the black gins, being as dirty and as nearly naked as they. But she eagerly returned to civilization, and was restored to her friends at This was in Sydney "in excellent condition." 1849. Another girl seems to have met the same horrible fate about the same time; for in a letter written early in 1850 (No. lxxv. in his 'Life and Letters'), Robertson, of Brighton, mentions reading the melancholy story of a young English lady, returning from school in England to her parents in Australia, but wrecked, and all the party slain but herself. She was taken by the blacks, and had been forced to live with them ever since. I shall be grateful for any information about this last case, and any others that have occurred, though I sincerely trust that none has occurred. CHEGOCRA. SHEFFIELD PLATE.-It is well known that there is a considerable difference in value between articles manufactured by the electro-plating process and those by the older method of overlaying base metals with silver, known as "Sheffield plate." The following extract from the Derby Mercury of September, 17, 1788, is interesting in this connexion: "On Thursday se'nnight died at Whitely Wood, near Sheffield, Mr. Thomas Bolsover, aged 84. This Gentleman was the first Inventor of Plated Metal: which like many other curious Arts, was discovered by Accident. About the Year 1750 (at which Time he kept a Cutler's retail Shop at Sheffield) Mr. Bolsover was employed to repair a Knife Haft which was composed of Silver and Copper; and having effected the Job, the cementing of the two Metals immediately struck him with the practicability of manufacturing Plated Articles, and he presently commenced a Manufacturer of plated Snuff Boxes and Buttons. Consequently from Mr. Bolsover's_accidental Acquirement, the beneficial and extensive Trade of plated Goods had its origin. He has been justly esteemed one of the most ingenious Mechanics that Sheffield can boast." The name Bolsover indicates a Derbyshire origin. ALFRED WALLIS. MARRIAGE ONLY ALLOWED AT CERTAIN TIMES oF THE YEAR.-The last paragraph in a pocket almanac (Gallen's) for 1678 runs thus : "Times prohibiting Marriage.—Marriage comes in on the 13 day of January, and at Septuagesima Sunday it is out again until Lowsunday; at which time it comes in again, and goes not out until Rogation-sunday: thence it is forbidden untill Trinity-sunday: from whence it is unforbidden till Advent-sunday: but then it goes out, and comes not in again till the 13 day of January next following." I find no such notice in any other almanac of the 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 the answers may be addressed to them direct. tion about Hart's parentage and early career before THE GREAT SEAL OF QUEEN KATHERINE PARR. In Archæologia for the year 1779 appears an engraving of this seal. Can any of your readers inform me whether any impression of it is still extant; and, if so, where it is to be seen? SIGILLUM. MONTE VIDEO.-What is the proper pronunciation of this name and its derivation ? Such a Macaronic preposterous mixture of Portuguese and Latin as "Mount I see" is, of course, out of the question. It surely means Vineclad Hill." 66 R. C. A. P. [The pronunciation is assumed to be Mon-te Vid-e-o, "Video" does not with the e's sounded as in French. "Ver" is the word ordimean "I see" in Portuguese. narily used ] JOHN BUNYAN.-Some recent correspondents of the Echo have communicated particulars concerning Bunyan which seem worthy of record, and perhaps require sifting, in N. & Q. Unhappily, references are wanting. The question was raised whether Bunyan was a Baptist, as has always been hitherto supposed. Mr. J. H. Stephenson (who, oddly, pleads that Bunyan was a Baptist) says that "in the licence to preach, granted by the wretched Charles II. on May 15, 1672, he is allowed to teach as a Congregational person, being of that persuasion.' Another correspondent gives the BISHOPS OF NORWICH.-I shall be very much dates of baptism of two of Bunyan's children-a obliged if any of your readers will give me the daughter, at Elstow Church, 1654, and a son, at authority for a statement made by Thiselton, in St. Cuthbert's, Bedford, 1672. No names are Regia Insignia,' p. 267, that " a former Bishop given. A third writer, who signs "Thomas Han- of Norwich held the appointment of Paymaster cock," quotes from a pamphlet by Edward Bur-[of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners] till his rough, the Quaker, wherein Bunyan and John death." H. BRACKENBURY. Barton are referred to as "Independent ministers, so called" (Burrough's Truth the Strongest of All,' 1657). If these quotations are to be trusted, they settle the question of Bunyan's Baptist persuasion in the negative, and plainly show him as an Independent. But where is the original licence of Charles II. Will any one at Bedford and Elstow examine the registers for the baptisms of these and other of Bunyan's children? Was he married in church; and, if so, can we have the registers of both his marriages? I find none of these details in Mr. Offor's memoir, further than a quotation from the records of Leicester concerning the royal licence, wherein it is stated that Bunyan was "of the Congregational persuasion." HERMENTRUDE. LONGITUDE AND MARRIAGE.-' N. & Q.' having dealt recently with legal questions, I may take the opportunity of calling the attention of some of the legal luminaries to another question, which sundry of the gens togata to whom I have proposed it have admitted to be knotty. A. B. goes from London to Naples, leaving his wife resident in the former city. But he, unfortunately, falls in love with a young lady at Naples; and being a wicked man, with no fear of God and little fear of the law before his eyes, he determines to deceive her by a bigamous and invalid marriage. He is, accordingly, married, to all appearance legally, on board an English man-of-war in the bay, in the presence of the captain, at eleven o'clock in the morning of February 10-the time being unquestionably ascertained. But the wife left in London died on that same February 10 at half-past ten in the morning, the time being certified beyond all question. Well! the case is clear and simple. A. B. had been a widower for half an hour when he married, and could, of course, legally do so. But, stay! When it was 10.30 in London it was 11.23 in Naples. Had a telegram been de Dec., 1607. Polidorus Vanham, alias Watkins, sepultus. Feb. 18, 1662. Polydor Evans, late Rector of Marksbury, was buried. This would seem to point to some connexion with Polidore Vergil, the versatile ecclesiastic and voluminous writer, who in Henry VIII.'s and Queen Mary's time had considerable preferment in England, and is known to have been Archdeacon of Wells in 1507. He remained in England till 1550, and died in Italy five years later. Can it be shown that he had any more immediate connexion with Marksbury? Possibly he was rector of the parish; but I have no means of finding out. W. S. B. DEATH WARRANT OF CHARLES I.- Where can I find a good engraving of this, with the seals attached thereto? These are considered the first examples in which lines in different directions indicate the tinctures, therefore the popular lithograph is of no use. ACCURATE. CROSS TREE. In the Court Rolls of the Manor of Wimbledon, March 1, 34 Hen. VIII., there is this entry: 66 Amercement 1s.-Robert Wrediche has unjustly cut down and carried off a tree called 'an asshe' growing between this demesne and that of Rychemond, which was 'a crosse tree' and one of the marke stakes between the said demesnes, therefore," &c. What is the meaning of "a crosse tree"? I should be glad of an explanation. F. B. LEWIS. Putney. THE SORBONNE.-Where can I find a description of the old chapel of this college? It was dedicated to St. Ursula, and in the seventeenth century was pulled down, by Cardinal Richelieu's order, to make room for the present church, where his tomb now stands. JOHN A. RANDOLPH. "A LAITY WITH A STRONG BACKBONE."-I have seen quoted a saying, ascribed to Pope Martin V. (as Martin III. is generally styled), to the effect that he "sighed [or longed] for a laity tell if such an expression, or anything to that with a strong backbone." Can any of your readers effect, was used by him or any other Pope? If so, by whom, when, and on what occasion? F. SOAPSTONE FIGURES FROM SHANGHAI.-Would some of your travelled readers kindly inform me anent the nature of soapstone; and, secondly, whether these figures are idols, or priests, or what? EBORACUM. |