well be assigned for the birth of a granddaughter of Alianora Mowbray, it looks to me probable that Alianora de Welles was not the mother of daughters only four and five years younger than herself. A similar disregard of dates has led to the fixing of a wholly undeserved stigma on the character of a highly respectable lady-Alesia, Countess of Kent-whom one writer after another accuses of being the mother of an illegitimate child of Cardinal Beaufort, not one of them noticing that the lady must have been at least a quarter of a century older than the Cardinal.

HERMENTRUDE.

TEMPLE BAR (5th S. vii. 466.)—The conservative character of Temple Bar is well put in MR. SALA'S communication. The Bar has survived, by nearly a century, many attacks of reformers who worked hard for its extinction. Alderman Pickett, in 1787-8, and others since, in Court of Common Council and before the Livery in Common Hall assembled, were unflagging in their onslaughts. A paper war, for and against the Bar, ensued. Among the best of the pasquinades it gave rise to, one, by a Mr. John Williams, is still cited by City historians. It was entitled The Metropolitan Prophecy, written on the Report of removing Temple Bar in 1788:

"If that Gate is pulled down, 'twixt the Court and the

City,

You'll blend in one mass, prudent, worthless, and witty.

other.

If you league Cit and lordling, as brother and brother,
You'll break order's chain, and they'll war with each
Like the Great Wall of China, it keeps out the Tartars
From making irruptions where industry barters.
Like Samson's Wild Foxes they 'll fire your houses,
And madden your spinsters, and cousen your spouses;
They'll destroy in one sweep, both the Mart and the
Forum,

Which your fathers held dear, and their fathers before them."

It is rather singular that this foreboded admixture of Court and City, of lordling and commercial clerk, has really already taken place, a little in advance of the now fast impending removal of Temple Bar. It is certain that, within the last few years, the City has come to be resorted to by brothers-in-law of royal princesses, and by members of all ranks of the peerage; not only, as in former days, to eat a turtle dinner or draw a dividend, but also for actual participation in the "trivial task, the common round" of City life, or, in other words, in the discharge of salaried duty as brokers, dealers in shares and money, students of the tea or colonial trade, directors of assurance societies, and the like. There may not be much danger of their acting like "Samson's foxes" in our poet's prophecy ; but the final cataclysm about destruction of the Mart and the Forum (qy. the Stock Exchange and Royal Exchange ?) is ominous of evil. reminds one of the dictum of a greater poet :

It

"Trade it may help, society extend,

But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend;
It raises armies in a nation's aid,
But bribes a senate, and a land 's betrayed."
FREDK. HENDRIKS.

"RATCH":"WISE" (5th S. vii. 366.)-These words are well known in the south of Scotland. The latter is in Jamieson, but spelt_weise, wyse. Sir W. Scott makes Mr. Campbell, when trysting Osbaldiston and the Bailie to meet him at the Clachan of Aberfoil, say: "I'll hae somebody waiting to weise ye the gate to the place where I may be for the time" (Rob Roy, chap. xxiii.). In the same novel (chap. xxxiii.) a soldier says, "Weize a brace of balls through his harn-pan.' Ratch is not in Jamieson. It is possibly akin to rach (derived by Bosworth from Swed. raka, to rove or run about) and raik :

"Ouer all the woddis wald he raik ilk day."

Douglas, Virgil, bk. vii. (224, 39, ed. Ruddiman). "And ryght as Robartes men

Raken about

In Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words Sax. wisian, wissian, monstrare, monere, docere. he gives this definition: "Wise, to let in or out. 'Wise him in'; Swed. visa, to show, to exhibit. 'wise out the horse'; 'wise the door open.' It also means to insinuate, to work into; as to wise into company or into favour; that is, to do it cunningly. Wise, to let go: wise off that rope,' wise off your gun." Wise in these senses is in very common use amongst the Northern pitmen. JULIANA BOYD.

Wise is, I believe, a Scotch word; the instance of it which occurs to my memory is in the Antiquary, where Edie Ochiltree shouts directions to Lovel coming down the cliff: "Weize yoursell a wee easel-ward-a wee mair yet to that ither stane." And it figures thus in the glossary to my edition of the Waverley Novels: "Weise, weize, wuss, wush, lead, guide, point out, show the way, direct, put in the way."

C. F. S. WARREN, M.A.

In the dialect of Northern Lincolnshire ratch

does not mean "going about and carrying stories and making mischief." Its primary signification is to stretch, as, "I mun ha' these here boots sent to th' shoemaker to get 'em ratched; they nip sorely." Its secondary meaning is, not to lie or to "If he doesn't lie, gossip, but to exaggerate, as, he ratches strangely, an' that 's ivvery bit as bad." MABEL PEACOCK.

Bottesford Manor.

"Ratco tell great falsehoods. Linc." (see Halliwell. F. D.

"The first congregation of this sect in Europe is said to have been discovered at Orleans, in France, A.D. 1017, in the time of King Robert. Its principal men were ten canons......all eminent for their learning and piety, but especially two of them-Lisoius and Stephen. The impious doctrines maintained by those canons being made known to Heribert, a priest, and Arifastus, a Norman nobleman, King Robert assembled a council at Orleans, and left no means untried to bring them to a better mind. But nothing could induce them to give up the opinions they had embraced. They were, therefore, burned alive."-Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent. xi. part ii. ch. v. § 3.

For the proceedings see Harduin, Conc., tom. vi. par. i. p. 821, &c.

ED. MARSHALL.

MS. LETTERS OF MILTON IN A CONVENT AT VALLOMBROSA (4th S. xi. 62.)-I hope some one will be able to tell us what has become of the treasures of the Conventual Library at Vallombrosa, visited some years ago by DR. DIXON. He records the fact that "one of the fathers stated that they had several letters that Milton addressed to the convent after his return to England, . . . written in the purest Latin." This fact should not be lost sight of, and the letters may yet be recovered and published. Athenæum Club.

JABEZ.

"TO LIGHT OF" OR ON" (5th S. vii. 366.)— This expression surely cannot be a provincialism, but a good old English term :

"And when he was departed thence, he (Jehu) lighted on Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, coming to meet him and he saluted him, and said to him, Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered, It is. If it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot." -2 Kings x. 15.

HYDE CLARKE.

LIMITATION IN CALLS TO THE BAR (5th S. vii. 468.)-The rule in question does not now exist. The late Lord Alfred Harvey, a son of the Marquis C. S. of Bristol, was a barrister.

FOWLER FAMILIES (5th S. vii. 368.)—Visiting lately at an old friend's, a clergyman living where Salop and Herefordshire join, I saw two portraits, one of an elderly lady, the other of a much younger one, most likely mother and daughter. I was told they were purchased at a sale some time since, at a death of some one of the Fowler family. They are beautiful paintings, especially the portrait of the elder lady, evidently the work of a master. By the dress I should say they were painted about Should any of the the time of Queen Anne. Fowler family see this, and wish for further particulars, I shall be most happy to furnish them FATHER FRANK. with the same. Birmingham.

LADY HAMILTON (5th S. vii. 368.)-I have always understood that she was Dr. Graham's Goddess of 'Health, and, in spite of what CYRIL writes, am still inclined to that belief. In his clever book Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs, London, 1869, John Davenport says:—

"In 1793, Dr. James Graham, an humble imitator of the celebrated Cagliostro, commenced giving his sanitary lectures, which he illustrated by the dazzling presence of his Goddess of Health, a character which for a short time was sustained by Emma Harte, afterwards the celebrated Lady Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton, English Ambassador at the Court of Naples, and the chere amie of the immortal Nelson." Davenport gives a long account of the celestial bed. APIS.

upon, meet with.

ALEXANDER KNOX (5th S. vii. 369.)-For biographical particulars of Mr. Knox (who never was M.P. for Derry "), I beg to refer your correspondent to the Ordnance Survey of the County of Londonderry, pp. 96, 97, Dublin, 1837. I may likewise refer him for information to an "Obituary Notice of Alexander Knox, Esq.," by the late Rev. Charles Dickinson (afterwards Lord Bishop of Meath), in the Christian Ecaminer, vol. xi. pp. 562-564, Dublin, 1831. ABHBA.

MARLOW'S "FAUSTUS" (5th S. vii. 388.)—Marlow, in the lines quoted, evidently refers to the subjects of the dramas he had given to the world before he wrote Doctor Faustus. The first two lines refer to Dido, Queen of Carthage; the third and fourth may apply to either Edward II.

"Labouring under the effects of a dropsical complaint, brought on by intemperance, it was prescribed to Ui Wauthek by his physicians, towards the concluding period of life, that he should seat himself in a hot stove, or oven, as soon after the embers should have been withdrawn as it should be endurable. The experiment is said to have been attended with singular success; but, finding such unlooked for and unexpected relief, the monarch was not to be satisfied without a further application of the remedy, with a more violent degree of heat. In this he was obeyed; and perceiving, when too late, that it was beyond his endurance, he beckoned to be taken out of the stove, and expired on the same day, in the latter part of Zilhudge, of the year two hundred and thirty-two, August, A.D. 847, at the premature age of six and thirty."-Retrospect of Mahummadan History, by Major David Price, vol. ii. p. 150.

Dawlish.

R. R. W. ELLIS.

A

of a Usticke family are given, the first few with no date, but it is probable before 1700. This line descends from "John Usticke, Esq., of Botallack, in St. Just, son of John Usticke, Esq., of the same place, m. Jane, dau. of Stephen Pawley, Esq. and was succeeded by his son Stephen Usticke, Esq." The latter married in 1724. Ustick family came to New York in the early part of the last century. Mr. Stephen Ustick, of Philadelphia, a descendant, to whom I am indebted for the following information, writes me that a Thomas Ustick, born in St. Just, Cornwall, was the first who came here. He married Elizabeth Shackerly, probably in New York; died Oct. 11, 1738, aged thirty-four or more years, leaving a widow and four children, Stephen, William, Deborah, and Henry. The Rev. Thomas Ustick, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia, who died in 1803, aged fifty years, was a descendant; so also were the two eminent Episcopal bishops, the Right Rev. Henry Ustick Onderdonk, M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, born in New York 1789, Bishop of Pennsylvania, and the Right Rev. Benj. T. Onderdonk, his brother, Bishop of New York. They were the great-grandsons of the first Thomas Ustick, through his second son William, whose daughter married Dr. Onderdonk. The American family of Ustick is not numerous. Stephen is of frequent occurrence as a Christian name in this line, which, with the other facts, would seem to indicate a relationship with those mentioned by Burke.

Camden, New Jersey.

WILLIAM JOHN POTTS.

"THAN" AS A PREPOSITION (5th S. vii. 308, 454.)-Although it is true that than ought not to be a preposition, yet there is much authority for using the word as if it were. Neither of your correspondents mentions the somewhat curious use found in Milton, when than followed by an objective case precedes that with which comparison is made: "Belial came last; than whom a spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven."

P. L., i. 490.

P. L., ii. 299.

"Which when Beelzebub perceived-than whom, Satan except, none higher sat."

Milton seems to have deliberately used than as a preposition with an objective case in these passages, and to have had in his mind the Latin ablative case, which in such construction could not be replaced by quam and a nominative. He can scarcely be believed to have been accidentally ungrammatical. And here the objective cannot be "governed either by a verb or by a preposition understood." Mr. Masson, whose whole essay on Milton's English is most valuable, says, p. lxxxix :

"Than is used prepositionally in such cases." It seems to be a case in which the position of the words overrides strict grammar. O. W. T.

MR. SPENCE at the latter of the above references has said well and briefly all that need be said on this subject. I myself a dozen years ago in "N. & Q." (3rd S. viii. 166) pointed out Prior's blunder. As to the passage from the Citizen of the World, quoted by J. W. W., I see nothing in it; Goldsmith was not bound to make an ungrammatical conductor speak grammatically. Shall we (horresco quærens) recast and polish the native language of Sam Weller and his con

socialists?

Shinfield Grove.

W. T. M.

BALLAD LITERATURE (5th S. vii. 387, 436.)-I am obliged to W. R. S. R. for his quotation of the verses from the Ipswich Journal, but, unfortunately, he has fallen into the very error from which I tried to guard by the wording of my query. The grotesque version in question I knew; what I still hope for is the recovery of additional fragments of the original ballad from which it has been corrupted. It will not have escaped the notice of your correspondent that one stanza is almost identical with a verse of Clerk Saunders.

B. MONTGOMERIE RANKING.

PHILIP STUBBS (5th S. vii. 87, 289, 356.)-Since sending my queries respecting Philip Stubbs, I have ascertained from the parish registers of Burton-on-Trent that 1590 was the year of his wife Katherine's death; also from the same source that John was the name of the son born shortly before the latter event, both of which particulars were unknown to Wood. Richard Stubbs, of Chiselhurst, Clerk of the Cheque to Henrietta Maria, Consort of Charles I., must therefore have been son either of this John or of Philip by a second marriage, if at least Wood be correct in his statement that Philip Stubbs, Vintner, of St. Andrew Undershaft, London, son of the above Richard, and living when he wrote, was a descendant of the author of the Anatomie of Abuses. I should be much obliged for any assistance in establishing the connexion here. Can any one tell me if the Mr. James Purcell Reardon, who wrote on Stubbs in vol. iv. of the Shakespeare Society Papers, 1849, and who there stated that he purposed furnishing on a future occasion some particulars of his life" which have hitherto escaped notice," is still alive, or where he lived, so that I may, if possible, learn these particulars?

MR. WARD, in his reply, for which I am obliged, refers to Bohn's Lowndes to show that the Anatomie of Abuses was published under the pseudonym of Richard Jones, and the second part under that of Roger Ward. But, as I understand it, these are the names of the printers or publishers,

not pseudonyms of the author, whose own name appears, at all events, on the title-page of the 1585 edition.

In the list of his works given in Bohn's Lowndes is an edition of A Christall Glasse for Christian Women, published in 1647, 4to., "with portrait by Hollar." Will some one who has access to this edition kindly say of whom this portrait is?

I may add that these queries are from a descendant of the subject of them. H. STUBBS. Danby, Ballyshannon.

HALEVY (5th S. vii. 117, 215, 253, 298.)-Having started this correspondence (5th S. vi. 490), I was, like G. A. C., astonished that the learned DR. BIKKERS should profess his belief in H. A. Levy. No Hebraist has shown I was wrong in saying that "ha" is article "the." Curiously enough, the number of the Athenæum of April 14 contains two paragraphs, one relating to the poet Jehuda Halévi, and the other referring to the Hebraist Joseph Halévy, who is now publishing the Prayer Book of the Falasha, or Black Jews of Abyssinia. PHILO-JUDÆUS.

FEN (OR FEND?) (5th S. vi. 348, 414; vii. 58, 98, 178, 218, 313.)-I was much pleased with M. P.'s note on the use of fen. In this country it is very common. Where the Westmorland boy's in England, in playing marbles, say "bar "bar slips," "bar aw" (all), &c., our boys say "fen dubs," "fen everything," &c., pronouncing it fain. But one sentence surprised me. M. P. says:-"Wordsworth, in The Excursion, has a compound which he must either have heard or have formed:

'By thrusting two rude sticks into the wall, And overhanging them with mountain sods, To weather-fend a little turf-built seat.' Surely M. P. must have forgotten Ariel's expression in The Tempest, v. 1, 10:—

"All prisoners, sir,

In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell." J. C. Zanesville, Ohio, U.S.

ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN DOLLAR MARK (5th S. vi. 386, 434; vii. 98, 155, 317, 355.)—I have had daily occasion for many years to use this abbreviatory mark, and have always looked on it as the S of scutum-dollar or crown-with the lines run through it to signify abbreviation: thus in acct for "account," and the like; but s being therefore the stroke is run through perpendicularly, a single letter does not admit of being so curtailed, and doubled ($) to mark multiplication.

Shinfield Grove.

W. T. M.

HERALDIC (5th S. vii. 268, 335, 356.)--I am obliged to ANGLO-SCOTUS for his information. There may be evidence that the Black Prince had a right from his mother to assume, or did