Municipal Corporations Act, 1883, respectfully request or Here follow the aldermen, &c. "Lord Fitzhardinge having suitably replied, asked for the stirrup cup (made in 1066) and also the original Berkeley mace (made in 1300). His lordship having had the cup filled with wine, drank the healths of the last Mayors." A. E. LAWSON LOWE, F.S.A. Shirenewton Hall, near Chepstow, Mon. THE SCOTCH IN NORWAY.-In the Athenæum's review of Mr. Thomas Michell's History of the Scottish Expedition to Norway in 1612,' the writer assumes, perhaps a little too readily, that the dry historical facts have been given. Acquaintance with the subject will not allow that Mr. Michell's theories as to the battle of Kringelen are correct. The new documents which he has found among Danish, Swedish, English, and Scottish state records are of great interest and value; but they give no countenance whatsoever to his attempt to strip Col. George Sinclair, Stirkoke, of the traditional and heroic leadership of the ill-fated Scots. It has always been found historically dangerous to attack fixed popular traditions, and it would require no great amount of controversial acumen to use the materials now discovered for exactly the opposite to the author's purpose. Opportunity has already been taken of protesting in appropriate newspaper reviewing columns against Mr. Michell's conclusions, while giving him every credit for sin cerity and industry in his research for a year or more since he began his Scoto-Norwegian studies. But it is due to students of history to get the warning put in your columns that the last word has not been said on the Scottish expedition. It may be no disadvantage that near relationship by blood to the real and only leader on the fatal day, Col. Sinclair, induces defence of the Norwegian version of the tragic story. While admitting the undoubted ability of the reviewer's appreciation of the new book, it is an imperative personal duty, founded on long acquaintance with the historical field touched, to state that if the facts given may be unimpeachable, the inferences and theories drawn from them are totally erroneous. THOMAS SINCLAIR. Baronet," and therefore borne by any one entitled to it in addition to any other title he may We write, "the Rev. Lord A.," or "the possess. Hon. and Rev. B. C.," or "the Rev. Sir D. E.," why not "Rev." or "Hon. H. Walpole, Esq.," supposing him to be possessed of an estate and mansion entitling him to the title of "esquire." I had occasion to procure my baptismal register lately; in it my father was designated "Squire," in the column of rank or profession, and this not by an ignorant person, but by Dr. Grey, afterwards Bishop of Hereford, and brother to the late Earl Grey. He, at least, considered it as a title. The late Bishop Wilberforce invented the word "Squarson to describe the combination of "squire" and " parson." E. LEATON-BLENKINSOPP. BANNS.-The following are from the registers of St. Mary Woolnoth, London (lately printed): "1700, April 2.-Married. Edward Lewis of St. Bennett's Paul's Wharfe, Batchellor, and Mary Reed of this Parish, Spinster, by banns published three times in this Parish Church, viz., Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Munday." Whitechappell, widdower, and Elizabeth Bishopp of this A. W. CORNELIUS HALLEN. ODD BLUNDER.-I find the following in the poetical volume of Seeley's series of school-books : So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle behind her he sprung. Young Lochinvar's charger must have been of a very unusual frame to have room for a saddle and Mr. Dinmont's ideal Dumple, who could carry six rider behind his croupe; perhaps something like men "if his back was lang eneugh." Treneglos, Kenwyn, Truro. C. F. S. WARREN. PIAZZA. (See 7th S. i. 463.)-It will be found, I think, that most untravelled Britons fancy the word piazza is equivalent to arcade, or colonnade. In the case cited by MR. DASENT it is evidently so used-"under the Piazza " would mean under ground in the proper use of the word; but it is "under the arcade" that it obviously intended. Americans constantly use it so. I remember one American friend in particular, who, remarking on the absence of arcades at a Roman villa where we were one summer's day, added, "In our parts we ESQUIRE, A TITLE.-MR. WALFORD, in a note, always have a piazza round the house for shade." 7th S. i. 426, quoting the words "the Hon. I have an account of London dating from the Horatio Walpole, Esq.," adds "[sic]," intimat- beginning of the last century, which claims to be ing, I suppose, that the title "esquire" is in-"A more particular Description thereof than has compatible with "honourable," or superfluous. I hitherto been known to be published of any City know of a monument in a church to "Rev. E. in the World," in which Covent Garden is spoken Stanley, Esq.," with "Esq." defaced, as I think, of as follows: A pleasant Square, on the N.W. improperly. "Esquire" is a title, as Knight" and N.E. sides whereof are very stately Buildings partly elevated on large Pillars, which make very fine Piazzas." R. H. BUSK. KENTISH SUPERSTITIONS.-I send you the following, as it is very curious; and as my brother-inlaw is the vicar of the parish, and his son, a B.A. of Cantab, who was ringing, overheard the conversation, I can vouch for its truth. Sexton.-"Leave the tenor' up' [for ringing, not chiming]; I may want it during the week." Ringer.-"Aye, that you will; for the tenor 'hummed' so much to-night in the ringing that it will be sure to be wanted before next Sunday." (The tenor is the tolling bell.) That night there was a death at the Union, so the tenor was tolled on Monday; it was tolled on Tuesday for another death; on Wednesday for another; and on Friday again for a funeral. LAMBTON YOUNG. COMET REFERRED TO BY MILTON.-All are familiar with the lines (Paradise Lost,' ii. 706711) in which Milton describes Satan, when preparing to engage in conflict with Death (a combat which was averted by the interposition of Sin, the mother of the latter) as resembling a comet which From his horrid hair above " Shakes pestilence and war; but perhaps it may not have occurred to many to inquire whether the poet had in his mind's eye any particular comet when he dictated this passage. Gibbon, however, makes a suggestion which seems exceedingly probable. At the end of chap. xliii. of the Decline and Fall,' speaking of the comet which appeared in the fifth year of the reign of Justinian, and which the historian erroneously supposed to be identical with that of 1680 and several others, he refers in a note to the passage in Milton, and says that the famous lines quoted "may allude to the recent [i. e., recent when 'Paradise Lost' was published] comet of 1664." That comet was discovered in November and was most conspicuous early in December, its tail being at one time nearly 40° in length. War with Holland was declared at the time of its appearance, and soon afterwards occurred the first outbreak of that terrible plague which carried off so many thousands in London in the following summer. It scarcely seems possible not to suppose that there was some connexion in Milton's mind between these events and the appearance of the comet in question, unless it can be shown that the lines were written prior to that appearance. Now 'Paradise Lost' was completed at Chalfont St. Giles in the autumn of 1665; but though Milton returned to London early in 1666, the poem was not published until the following year (a bad time commercially, on account of the great losses which booksellers, as well as others, had sustained by the Great Fire). Mr. Masson thinks that the first two books were written before the Restoration, and that four more were completed by the end of the year 1662. But surely it is quite possible that alterations and additions to the earlier books may have been made before the work was published in 1667; and one of the latter may have been the famous allegory of Sin and Death, which, as Mr. Masson truly remarks, has appeared to some "in questionable taste." At any rate, the outbreak of both a war and a pestilence at the time of the appearance of a conspicuous comet was very remarkable; and the reference to this in the accidental, or merely have arisen from a vague can scarcely have been passage referred to notion that evils of all kinds were produced by these celestial visitants. It is worthy of note that from the winter of 1618 (when Milton was about ten years old) no remarkable comet appeared until the one in question, long before which time the poet had become blind. Gibbon's query, "Had Charles II. betrayed any symptoms of curiosity or fear?" does not seem to be of any importance or to have any bearing upon the question. Equally irrelevant is his remark about Italy, for the comet, too, was certainly visible in England and other countries as well. Gibbon, indeed, is no authority on comets; but his conjecture that Milton refers in this famous passage to the comet of 1664 does seem to me to be very probable. As to the expression in the preceding lines "L'AVENIR APPARTIENT À TOUT LE MONDE." This saying, which was made use of by Walewski to Lord Malmesbury in reference to the advice which was to be tendered by England to the Swiss Government respecting the French refugees, seems worth separate notice: "He repeatedly said the demands upon future refugees would not be pressed, and never had been intended, and made use of the expression, L'avenir appartient à tout le monde'" (Lord Malmesbury, Memoirs of an ex-Minister,' vol. i. p. 323, 1884, in a "Letter to Lord Cowley," dated "Foreign Office, March 26, 1852"). ED. MARSHALL. "GRIMM'S LAW."-Prof. Müller, in his 'Lectures on the Science of Language' (vol. ii. p. 216), expresses the belief that he was the first to call the law of sound-shifting "Grimm's law." Perhaps it may interest some of your readers to learn that the professor is mistaken. I possess a work by the Rev. W. B. Winning, published in 1838, in which "Grimm's law" is the term constantly employed. At that time, according to Martin's Contemporary Biography,' Prof. Müller was scarcely fifteen years old. W. H. DAVID. 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. BLIGHT OR BLITE.-It would be a step towards ascertaining the origin of this mysterious word (as mysterious in its advent into English literature as the thing itself in its falling upon vegetation) if we could ascertain the original spelling. With the exception of a doubtful occurrence in Cotgrave -"Brulure, Blight, Brancorne (an hearbe)"-the word appears late in the seventeenth century, and the first users of it, 1660-1738, including Holyday (translation of Juvenal), Garth, Oldys, and notably Dryden (with whom it was a favourite word), spelt it blite. I shall be very glad of quotations showing the original spelling prior to 1740; in particular, how is it spelt in Addison's Spectator, No. 457, where the blighting influence of Lady Blast is spoken of? And where does the following passage occur, which Dr. Johnson vaguely cites from Woodward: "It then blasts vegetables, blights corn and fruit, and is sometimes injurious even to men"? Is not Woodward's spelling blites? As to the origin, an assistant compares blizzard, and suggest that the word is an onomatopoeia of the bash, blash sort, formed under the influence of blow, blast, and bite, which is, I think, the best guess yet offered. Answer direct. J. A. H. MURRAY. The Scriptorium, Oxford. MAYFLOWER.-Can any of your readers inform me if the Mayflower, one of the vessels which conveyed those who are called the "Pilgrim Fathers" to New England in 1629, is the same Mayflower about the use of which against the enemy, "to the overthrow of his voyage and great losse," Samuel Vassall petitioned Parliament January 23, 1657? He with his brother William Vassall were two of the original proprietors and ramed in the charter of March 4, 1828.16 Vide Neal's 'Hist. New England,' vol. i. p. 124. S. V. H. several other poems beside the above, and equally quaint and humorous. Can any reader of ' N. & Q' say if ever they appeared in print; and, if so, where? Worth's version of The Devonshire Lane' must not be relied on; in one line the words are reversed, and the meaning is missed altogether. R. ASCOT PINE WOODS.-Was it Sir Wm. Jenner who first found the value of the pine woods at Ascot for chest complaints; or who? ALFRED. CITIES THAT ARE COUNTIES. (See 6th S. vi. 88, 253, 437; vii. 317.)-I am very anxious to have a complete list of these, which from the above references seem to be :-Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bristol, Canterbury, Carmarthen, Carrickfergus, Chester, Cork, Coventry, Drogheda, Dublin, Edinburgh, Exeter, Galway, Gloucester, Haverfordwest, Hexham, Hull, Kilkenny, Lichfield, Limerick, Lincoln, London, Londonderry, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham, Poole, Southampton, Waterford, Worcester, York. If this list is not full and correct, perhaps some of your readers could supple ment or correct it. J. B. FLEMING. PORTRAIT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. During a recent visit to Glasgow I saw in a friend's house a portrait of Mary Stuart, to which I think there must attach a not uninteresting history. Perhaps some of your readers will be able to tell something regarding it. Of the artistic value of the painting I am not competent to speak, but it certainly strikes an average observer as a piece of good work, and, if not a copy of some other painting, would suggest a faithful representation of the original. The portrait is a bust, 12 in. by 8 in., and is set in framework whose style of carving is not of recent date. An inscription (in Latin) speaks of it as having formerly been the property of Horace Walpole. Before coming into possession of the present owner, it belonged to a Mr. Paillau, who had a considerable reputation in Glasgow as a miniature portrait painter, about the beginning of this century. I am particularly struck by the fact of Walpole's ownership of the portrait, and I should be greatly obliged if any of the readers of 'N. & Q.' could tell me anything of W. BAYNE. its earlier history. 6, Crayford Road, N. BATHING MACHINES. Does any one know when these desirable structures came into vogue? I find in the Academy Catalogue for 1775, "354. A view of the bathing machines, &c., near Margate," &c. "Stained drawings by Mr. Eyre." F. G. S. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY RECTOR.-The following description of an eighteenth century Northof-England rector, which I find in a letter written by a collateral ancestor in the year 1764 to his brother in Virginia, may perhaps amuse some of your readers. The only matter for regret is that the description is so short; one wishes that the writer, who was the curate of the parish, had given a few more details of their "jovial" life : "He [the rector] has always behaved to me with the greatest civility, and I think I may confidently say I am much in his good graces. He is a jolly, fat parson, eats and drinks of the best, and truly we lead jovial lives. If it would not offend your ears in your grave and sober climate, I might tell you that even in the RectoryHouse, and in the Rector's presence, oft we merrily trip the nimble dance : Fraught with all joys the blissful moments fly, with the initials C. A. F., and are engraved by R. L. Wright. Is it known who the artist was? There are twelve designs. W. E. BUCKley. STEWART OF HISLESIDE.-During the earlier part of the seventeenth century we find a family of Stewart occupying the ancient estate of Hisleside, in the parish of Douglas, Lanarkshire. Can any one give me any information about this family, and tell me whether Joanna Baillie was a descendant ? J. MALCOLM BULLOCH. SUBSIDY ROLLS.-Where can be seen the sub While music melts the ear, and beauty charms the eye." sidy rolls of the county of Suffolk? I should be especially thankful to any reader for a glance at a copy of those relating to Blything Hundred. REGINALDUS. Who is the author of these two lines? Ropley, Hants. JONATHAN Bouchier. THE ELEPHANT. - The wood-carving of the misereres of the choir stalls of Exeter Cathedral is supposed to have been executed between the years 1224 and 1244. Visitors to the cathedral are informed that the one containing a representation of the elephant is admitted to be the earliest existing example of that quadruped in England. Can that statement be confirmed? 71, Brecknock Road. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. EXAMINATION IN COURT.- Will some correspondent do me the favour to tell me whether a lawyer, examining or cross-examining a witness in a court of justice, has the right to examine the witness on any matters relating to his private affairs which do not in any way relate to the matter before the court? H. W. COOKES. Astley Rectory, Stourport. [Answers to be sent direct.] SEARL.-What is the origin and meaning of the surname Searl? JAMES D. BUTLER. SATELLITES OF MARS. - Has it ever been pointed out that Dean Swift anticipated modern discovery as to the satellites of Mars? The following passage occurs in the third part of 'Gulthe manners of the inhabitants of Laputa:liver's Travels,' chapter iii. He is discoursing of They have likewise discovered two lesser stars or WHENEVER.-If an Englishman and a Scotch-satellites, which revolve about Mars; whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half."-Tauchnitz edition, p. 203. man were requested to "Give this message to Mr. Smith whenever he comes home," and each were to act according to his own understanding of the directions, the Scotchman would deliver the message as soon as Mr. Smith returned, while the I have no book of astronomy at hand sufficiently Englishman would give it every time that he pre-modern to enable me to ascertain whether the Dean sented himself. Will your correspondents in those was accurate as to the time of revolution of these countries tell us what the American and the Aus- satellites. K. P. D. E. tralian would do? HERMENTRUde. LORD CHESTERFIELD'S VERSES, 1724.-Under date of Tuesday, March 31, 1724, John Byrom, of Manchester, being that day at a dinner party in London with some of his friends, was urged by one Mr. Vernon to answer Lord Chesterfield's verses for him." On the following day Byrom left at Richard's coffee house "a letter for Vernon with some verses for my Lord Chesterfield, twentyfour." This was Philip Dormer, who succeeded as third earl in 1713, and who died in 1726, being father of the well-known author of the 'Letters.' old Red Lion Pit (if they were not identical) I [Is it to distinguish the individual Madame Justice from the typical representation of Justice with her eyes bandaged?] SOMERSET.-Where are the Somerset county records kept? Have they been indexed and calendared; or are they still in utter confusion? J. H. G. BARBER-SURGEONS.-Can any of your correspondents tell me what were the exact causes that led to a separation of the ancient guild of BarberSurgeons into the distinct branches of surgeons and barbers as separate occupations, with the date? Could it have been that some time or other a caucus arose which discovered that the one occupation was far too honest for the other; consequently it became impossible for an honest hunter to ride alongside both the fox and the hounds; or may there be something in the legend told at Geneva about one Chesterfield who, having set up in business there, refused to work on Sundays, on which his partner or assistant struck, and set up in business on his own account, unqualified, of course, in one branch? R. AKINSIDE. LUSUS NATURE: NATURE PORTRAITS ON FLINTS, AGATES, &c.-Several of these curiosities, forming part of the Beresford-Hope collection, were for some years exhibited at the South Kensington Museum, and were sold last month at Christie's. I shall be much obliged to any of your correspondents who can furnish me with particulars of similar freaks of nature preserved in public or private collections. As is well known, there is a most remarkable specimen (a head of Chaucer) in the Natural History Museum and a likeness of Pitt (on a flint, I think) in the British Museum. X. THE COCK-PIT BEHIND GRAY'S INN. - Can any reader of 'N. & Q.' inform me of the site of the above pit, which, according to the author of 'The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century,' was the state cock-pit at the date of the restoration of King Charles II.? Cock-pit Yard, leading out of James Street, Bedford Row, seems to indicate that a pit existed in that locality; but whether it was the one described as "behind Gray's Inn" or the 5, Park Lane, St. James's, S. W. AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. -- We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. Bleak mountains and desolate rocks Replies. BLANKETEER. (7th S. ii. 8.) DR. MURRAY asks, "Who were the blanketeers of 1817 ?" It was a term applied to the radical reformers of Lancashire, who, on March 10, 1817, at a meeting at St. Peter's Fields, Manchester, decided to march to London with a petition for parliamentary reform, each man having a rug or blanket strapped on his shoulder, so that he might bivouac on the road if no better accommodation was available. Several hundreds set forth on the march to London, and some time after their departure the remainder of the meeting was dispersed by the dragoons, who, having arrested those on the platform, then followed on the track of the blanketeers, whom they overtook on Lancashire Hill, at Stockport. Some hundreds were arrested, several wounded, and a cottager who had no connexion with the blanketeers was shot dead by a dragoon. A few persisted in the onward march; about 180 reached Macclesfield, about fifty went as far as Leek, and about twenty persisted until they reached Ashbourne. The deviser of the scheme is said to have been Mr. Joseph Mitchell, a draper of Liverpool, who asserted that the plan was agreed upon at a gathering held at Major Cartwright's, and in the presence of Mr. William Cobbett. Full particulars of the blanketeer episode in the history of parliamentary reform is given in Bamford's 'Life of a Radical' and in Prentice's 'Historical Sketches of Manchester.' WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Higher Broughton, Manchester. Of the three quotations of this word given by DR. MURRAY, the third, whatever it may mean, has certainly no connexion with the first and second, which are not difficult to account for. The inquiry opens up a somewhat painful chapter in our social history; but it is worth pursuing, as illustrative of habits and feelings happily long passed away. A short résumé of the circumstances |