66 have not yet been elucidated in these pages. Four years ago (2nd S. viii. 451), a correspondent asked, "what was a fly-boat of the reign of Elizabeth? but this cognate query has not yet been replied to; though I may say, that Bailey's definition of a fly-boat, a large vessel with a broad bow, used in the coasting trade," does not apply to the modern "fly-boats" used on canals. Hone's Table Book, ii. 560, gives a description and illustration of a boat on wheels, driven like a stage coach, and called "the Malton, Driffield, and Hull fly-boat." The subject appears to possess sufficient interest to warrant me in transcribing for your pages the following passage from the History of Brighthelmstone, the twelfth and concluding part of which was published at Brighton, in December, 1862, its pains-taking and talented author, Mr. John Ackerson Erridge, having dropped dead on Nov. 5, aged 52, "whilst talking cheerfully to the publisher." But his History of Brighton was completed, and is a valuable and entertaining work, to which, however, an Index might usefully be added. "During the erection of the royal stables, in Church Street, in 1809, a carpenter who lived in Jew Street, named John Butcher, uncle to Mr. Butcher of the present firm, Messrs. Cheesman and Butcher, chinamen, North Street, accidentally fell and injured himself. Upon his recovery, not being able to resume the heavy work of his trade, he constructed a machine of a similar make to the sedan chair, and placed it upon four wheels. It was drawn by hand, in the same manner as Bath chairs, while an assistant, when the person being conveyed was heavy, pushed behind. Its introduction was quite a favourite feature amongst the nobility, and a second fly in consequence was soon constructed. These two vehicles were extensively patronised by the Prince of Wales and his noble companions; and, from being employed by them on special occasions of a midnight lark,' they received the name of 'fly-by-nights,' and soon entirely superseded sedan chairs, except for invalids on their conveyance to and from the baths. Butcher, from the great success which attended his project, being desirous that his flys should have a more elegant appearance than his ability in the ornamental could effect, sent one of them, for the purpose of being repainted and varnished, to Mr. Blaker, coachmaker, Regent Street, and he, having an eye to business, purloined the design, and improved upon it by making two or three to be drawn by horses."—P. 192. A note on a college club called "The Fly-bynights," appeared in "N. & Q.," 2nd S. xii. 289. CUTHBERT Bede. JACK PRESBYTER. I think the following spirited verses, which form a sort of prelude to a curious tract in my possession, worthy of reprinting in "N. & Q." The title of the tract is eminently characteristic of the time, and as I am not aware that it has been edited, I subjoin it verbatim et literatim : "A Proper Project for Scotland. To Startle Fools and Frighten Knaves, but to make Wise Men Happy. Being a Safe and Easy Remedy to Cure our Fears and Ease our Minds. With the undoubted Causes of God's Wrath, and of the present National Calamities. By a Person neither Unreasonably Cameronian nor Excessively Laodicean, and Idolizer of Moderation; but, entre deux, avoiding extreams on either hand; that is, a Good, Honest, Sound Presbyterian, a Throwpac'd, True-blue Loyallist; for God, King, and Countrey: And why not for C-t too? Printed in a Land where Self's Cry'd up, and Zeal's Cry'd down; And therefore, In a time of Spiritual Plagues and Temporal Judgements. Anno Dom. 1699. "Unto all Courts, Spiritual and Temporal; the Humble and Serious Advice of the Author. "Jack Presbyter, if you would thrive, Then take my Counsel while it's time; All Achans you must quite out-drive, Least others' sins become our Crime. "Old Perjuries, which still doth haunt Us like a Ghost, where e'er we go, For Breach of Solemn Covenant, Though now forgot by high and low. "All Jesuit Priests, and Papist Pesters, Which still infest this Ruin'd Nation, With Anti-Covenanting Testers, Heart Enemies to Reformation. "All Atheists, Deists, Debauchees, The Brood of Hell, spew'd from the Pit, And Trembling Quakers' Blasphemies, All which, old Nick has you B—. "All Aw-less, Law-less, God-less Catives, The Plague and Scandal of our Land, Deserving not the name of Natives, Whose Souls the D. keeps in Pand. "All who contemn Church Disciplin, Such bold and impudent Pretenders, "And hiss out from all place of Trust, Who, Jehu-like, drives Cursed Self: For all their Oaths they'll break and burst If once you offer Bribe or Pelf. "When you have sweep'd this Rubbish out From Church and State, there yet remains Much to be done, beyond all doubt, By Great and Small, well worth your pains. "All what's Committed to your Care, In Matters purely Ecclesiastick, See for your souls, you Quit on Hair Or hoose, to such as are Erastick. "With zeal and Courage then go on; Stand up for Truth and its professors, Advancing what you have begun, Like to your Noble Predecessors. In this degenerat sordid Age), The great Work of your Generation, Shall shout and Sing forth Zion's Sonnet, When they with Joyful Hearts behold A Glorious Cape-Stone put upon it. "So shall your poor Posteritie, When you are Crumbled into Dust, Proclaim your Fame, both far and nigh, As Faithful Men, True to your Trust." The mention in this tract of " drowning" as one of the cruelties practised against the Covenanters, and " young girls of fifteen," as victims of the "King's Party" in the late unhappy reigns, goes to swell the evidence in favour of the Blednoch Martyr story; but it is not required. The anonymous writer— "recommends to the serious perusal" of luke-warm Presbyterians, with the alternative of sharing the fate of "Belshazzar and Magor Missabib” (Pashur, Jerem. xx. 3) "two small books in octavo, next to the Bible, and its most fit and proper" [Companion, or Commentary?] "for such desperat hardned Sinners; the one called Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soul; the other is that excellent and useful piece, Allein's Alarm to the Unconverted." J. D. CAMPBELL. "In one single point the parodist has failed.-There is a certain Doctor Busby, whose supposed address is a translation called Architectural Atoms, intended to be recited by the Translator's Son. Unluckily, however, for the wag who had prepared this fun, the genuine serious absurdity of Doctor Busby and his son, has cast all his humour into the shade. The Doctor from the boxes, and the son from the stage, have actually endeavoured, it seems to recite addresses, which they call monologues and unalogues,-and which, for extravagant folly, tumid meanness, and vulgar affectation, set all the powers of parody at utter defiance."-Quarterly Review, viii. 181. The Monthly Magazine for July, 1811, contains the following puff: “Dr. Busby (Mus. D.) has issued proposals for publishing his new Translation of Lucretius, in rhyme, by subscription, in two elegant volumes in quarto: the price to subscribers four guineas, to be paid on the delivery of the work. We formerly announced that Dr. Busby had invited the literati of the metropolis to his house in Queen Ann's Street, West, on successive Saturday evenings, to hear this Translation recited by his son, Dr. Julian Busby. Nothing could have been more brilliant 6 66 Impressed, not only with the sensations of a father, but with those of one individual benefited by the exertions of another, I cannot conclude my catalogue of obligations without mentioning the extensive aid this version of Lucretius has derived from the repeated readings by Mr. G. F. Busby; whose style of conveying the sense of the author afforded every advantage to the language of the translator. If any farther credit be wanting to him with my friends, on account of the service he has rendered me, it will not be withheld when I acquaint them that, to promote my great object, he has from time to time voluntarily withdrawn his attention from a work on which he is himself sedulously engaged: An Entire Translation of the Thebais of Statius.” In the Monthly Magazine for Dec. 1814, is this announcement: "The Doctor's third son is intended for the musical profession; and though little more than eleven years of age, already evinces powers of the maturity of which the highest expectations may be justly formed. He now takes the organ at the Cecilian Society's concerts held at Painters' Hall. His execution as an organ or pianoforte performer is truly astonishing." Charles Augustine Busby, architect, a son of Dr. Busby, died at Brighton, Sept. 18, 1834. He was the inventor of the hydraulic orrery, for which he had the gold medal of the Society of Arts; and took out two patents (one of which, by-the-bye, is omitted in the Alphabetical Index published by authority). Dr. Busby died at Pentonville, May 28, 1838, in the eighty-third year of his age. He, in 1801, took the degree of Mus. D. at Magdalen College in this University; and in the Combination Room of that college is a fine portrait of him by Lonsdale, which was presented by his daughter. We are desirous of information on the following points: 1. Had Dr. Busby a son named Julian? 2. What was the name of his third son referred to as intended for the musical profession, and who was little more than eleven in 1802 or 1803? 3. What more is known of George Frederic Busby, or of his projected translation of Statius? C. H. & THOMPSON COOPER. Cambridge. Minor Notes. SQUARE NUMBERS. --- Some doubt has been expressed by scientific bibliographers of the existence of the following work, which I find bound up in a volume of MS.: A Table of Ten Thousand Square Numbers, small folio, London, 1672. At the end: "Having the two, three, or four last figures of any Square Number to exhibit, as many of the last figures of its side is a New Question: To which the just answers are manifold, and not obvious. A particular account of them is ready for the press when it shall be desired. By John Pell." WM. DAVIS. Oscott. ALEXANDER SELKIRK'S CUP AND CHEST.-The following cutting I have taken from the Hull and Eastern Counties Herald newspaper of this date. Perhaps you may think it worth a place in "N. & Q." "The cup and chest of Alexander Selkirk, the worldfamed Robinson Crusoe of Defoe, has now become the property of Mr. James Hutchinson, a person residing in London. These interesting relics have up to this time remained in possession of Selkirk's descendants, in Largo, Fife, where he was born. The cup was put upon a stalk and mounted with silver by Sir Walter Scott. It is made out of a cocoanut, and rudely carved. The chest is very heavy, and is very curiously dovetailed." B. Hull, Oct. 8, 1863. INKSTAND.-There is a sort of inkstand, of which there are some in England, introduced from abroad; but the sort is not generally known: and if they can be procured, I should like to know where; if not, I think that public notice would cause them to be made. This inkstand has two points of superiority over most others. First, the cup which protrudes from the side of the cylinder, and from which the pen is filled, is not level with the bottom of the cylinder, but a little higher up: the consequence is that the pen does not come in the way of the sediment; this of course sinks to the bottom, below the cup. Secondly, the cup is filled or emptied, according as the implement is or is not in use, by a contrivance which cannot get out of order. The cylinder has a lid, which need not be air-tight, through which works a screw the screw ends in an internal cylinder, which is raised or depressed with the screw itself. The depression of the internal cylinder raises the ink into the cup, and, as the internal cylinder need not fit very closely, into the interval between the two cylinders. This apparatus is perfectly simple and permanent: and it would be very easy to bring a linen strainer between the cup and the body of the inkstand, so that every drop of ink should be strained before it is used. In the inkstands I have seen, the whole cylinder stands in a saucer, which has pen-receivers, and a roll of sponge encircling the cylinder. This saucer of course is to be kept full of water. A. DE MORGAN. PETER WALTER.-This great usurer, who left 300,000l., they say, at a time when one cipher less made a good city fortune, is fixed in the mind by two lines of Pope : "What's property, dear Swift, you see it alter, From you to me, from me to Peter Walter." He is said to have died in 1746. If so, the following satire was published during his life: "Some papers proper to be read before the R-1 Society, concerning the terrestrial Chrysippus, Golden-foot, or Guinea; an insect, or vegetable, resembling the Polypus, which hath this surprising property, that being cut into several pieces, each piece becomes a perfect animal, or vegetable, as complete as that of which it was originally only a part. Collected by Petrus Gualterus, but not pub lished till after his death. London: Printed for J. Roberts, near the Oxford-Arms, in Warwick Lane. [Price Sixpence.] 1743." 8vo, pp. 31. Mynheer Gualterus is represented as a Dutchman, and the paper is supposed to be written by him in French. The satire seems to be divided between Walter and the writer on the polypus in the Philosophical Transactions: large extracts are made which seem to have no relation to the guinea, and have little meaning, unless it be insinuated that the polypus is little better than such a fiction as might be made out of the guinea. I suspect that the main object of the satire is the The whole is by Fielding, and the tract is a reprint from the second edition of the first volume of his Miscellanies, also published in 1743. It is a true reprint, differing in type from the volume. A. DE MORGAN. MERCHANT TAYLORS. In Dr. Hessey's letter upon my dear friend, the Rev. T. H. Campbell, he says that he was captain of Merchant Taylors. This is a mistake. I don't know whether, among other innovations, this term and office have crept into Merchant Taylors' School during Dr. Hessey's head mastership, or no. My dear friend was head monitor, President of the Honourable Table, as it was then called-"Primus inter æquales," having a casting vote in all disputes, but no more. I much regret the abolition of old school terms and customs. In our day we had no wish that the school should copy others; we thought it and its customs the best we knew. Many then as now wished to alter its citizen character, and oligarchical government; but certainly they were not its most loyal and affectionate members. X. penter under her direction, which are still in ex- 66 "for a arena "N. & Q." having afforded essential service to ROVER. The 66 PEAL OF BELLS OF EAST WOODHAY CHURCH, HANTS. We have a very pretty peal of bells here, and an old inhabitant informed me the other day that "the lady who stands in the chancel, when the bells were being cast, took to the founder a lapfull of old silver which she had saved up, to improve their tone." The "lady" referred to was a Mrs. Goddard, whose effigy, with that of her husband, habited in the costume of the days of Queen Anne, stands on either side of a monumental urn in the chancel of the church. tomb is a very fine and valuable specimen of carving in alabaster, and both figures are doubtless portraits. My old informant also told me that the lady" resided at a place called "Stargroves," and was, at the time the bells were cast, the only resident of note in the parish. I have since been informed that Oliver Cromwell slept at this house the night before the battle of Newbury. The house has, however, been pulled down, the only part remaining being a portion of the stables to the present building. This note may be of use to the future N. H. R. historian of Hampshire. CROQUET.-The history of this popular game is A notice of the well worthy of investigation. "new game of croquet" meeting the eye of a Leicestershire nobleman, he entered the shop to the toyman that it was no novelty, for it had been played in his family more than thirty years ago. A friend having seen it in Germany, balls and mallets were made by the village car assure -In July of this year I MARSUPITES MILLERI. found at Ramsgate, in the new railway cutting, a specimen of the Marsupites Milleri, which is common in Sussex, but has only been found, I believe, in a fragmentary state in Kent previously. I should J. C. J. like to know whether I am right in this surmise. DOSSITY: CLARE'S POEMS.—I was talking this was liberating her soul by giving me a long catamorning with a Huntingdonshire cottager, who She told me that she had logue of her ailments. fainted more than once: had been very weak, and unable to do her work. "I feel," she said, though I had no dossity in me." 66 as The parish, in which I heard this word used, borders upon Northamptonshire; and I find that Mr. Sternberg, in his Northamptonshire Glossary has given the word, with its meanings, thus:— "DOSSITY, S. Life, or spirit:'She sat herself down soon as got in the house, No dossity in her to stir.' Clare's Vill. Min., p. 156. Among Batchelor's Distortions, we find it written ‘dositi,’ and rendered sharpness.' In Leicestershire, according to Dr. Evans, it signifies 'ailing, infirm.'" Has What is the derivation of the word? dorsum-dossuarius anything to do with it? We talk of a person "wanting back-bone." It will be seen that my Huntingdonshire woman used the word as Clare did. I am tempted to add another Query: When shall we have Clare's Poems published in their collected form, and in a satisfactory manner? I have been told that the Messrs. Routledge wish to give a practical answer to this Query; but that Clare's friends have placed insuperable obstacles in the way. If so, it is a thousand pities: for Clare's Poems are thoroughly English, and are filled with the freshest and healthiest descriptions of rural life; while his versification is generally correct and pleasing to the ear, and always to the mind. The Christmas-book illustrators, who have already used up so many major and minor poets both living and dead, would find abundant inspiration for their pencils in the compositions of Clare; who still lives, at seventy years of age, a harmless lunatic in the Northampton Asylum, wherein the last method of producing variations of patterns withtwenty years of his life have been passed. out end. Even if what Porta says on the subject CUTHBERT Bede. suggested the kaleidoscope, there was no more of suggestion than has been the precursor of ninebe looked at with more caution by unlearned teen inventions out of twenty. Nothing should readers than these statements about the forestalment of discoveries. A. DE MORGAN. EARTHQUAKES. — I know of no better reference for a list of remarkable earthquakes, than to that contained in a book which every one who can have it should possess, I mean Haydn's Dictionary of Dates. Though given with the utmost brevity, it occupies there nearly a page and a half of small octavo print, and I do not think that I am beyond my calculation in saying, what will probably startle some readers, viz., that it would account for at least a million of lives lost by these terrific visitations. At the same time we have to be thankful that there is no record of any life lost in these realms thereby, and the recent shock was attended by the same immunity. "Hæc loca," &c. (Virg., Georg., ii. 140.) The most violent earthquake noticed in Scripture was that in the time of Uzziah, between 800 and 900 years before Christ. There is no absolutely historic account of it, which I am aware of, but it is specially alluded to by Amos the prophet, who gives it as a known epoch:· "Two years before the earthquake," i. 1. He wrote B.C. 787. The record of the same event is filled up by the prophet Zechariah, B.C. 518, when describing the second coming of Christ, and its tremendous accompaniments on the Land of Judæa (xiv. 4, 5), he says, "And ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake, in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah; and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." While on the subject, as a matter of physical interest, and in the remembrance that mariners at sea have described their vessels as affected by the recent shock, I venture to put forth the query, whether any water-mark, higher than usual, has been traced on our coasts. I have not seen the subject noticed in any of the large correspondence on the subject, FRANCIS TRENCH. Islip, near Oxford. Since writing the above I have seen the same question as that with which this note concludes, asked by Mr. Lowe, in The Times. THE KALEIDOSCOPE.-D'Israeli states it as a known fact that the kaleidoscope is to be found in the Natural Magic of Baptista Porta. This I find to be altogether a mistake. In book xvII. ch. 3, he explains, as known to the ancients, that mirrors, presented to each other, will give multiplication of images; as in an octagon room, for instance, walled with reflecting glass. A model of such a room, with one side open for the spectator's eye, was made to give pleasing effects; and Porta describes modifications which have some ingenuity. But there is nothing which at all resembles the circle of images produced by two mirrors placed at an aliquot part of four right angles, or the STOLEN MSS. The following should be in "N. & Q.," if it were only for facility of reference at any future time: "The Ambrosian Library, at Milan, has just suffered a heavy loss. An entire case, containing the autograph correspondence of the Medici with the Dukes of Milan from 1496 to 1510, has disappeared from the very study of Dr. Gatti, the conservator. As it is possible they may be conveyed to France or England for sale, I request you to give, through your intelligent publication, notice, &c. M. Panizzi, of London, will be on the watch incident by one of your constant readers, the Marquis on his side. I have just been apprised of this deplorable d'Adda of Milan, one of the greatest amateurs in Europe, whose library, certainly one of the most remarkable, and of the richest in scarce and valuable books, I had the pleasure of visiting last year. Oscott. "F. FEUILLET DE CONCHES." WM. DAVIS. THE TERMINATION "STER." A query appears on this point in the Birmingham library, where a book is provided for the reception of Queries and Replies; one of the local imitations of "N. & Q." The termination er in English means the actor or doer of something, and is of constant occurrence, there being 1500 to 2000 instances. The termination ster is only a variation of this form, occurring in about eighty instances, as gamester quasi gamist-er, songster quasi songist-er, youngster quasi youngest-er, drugster quasi druggist-er, deemster quasi deemist-er, spinster quasi spinist-er, punster quasi punist-er, tapster quasi tapist-er, whipster quasi whipist-er, maltster quasi maltist-er; like sophist-er, palmist-er, chorist-er, barrist-er, jest-er, forest-er, twist-er, and a few similar words which serve to show that the terminal er in ster is distinct from the st, which belongs to the root of the word. T. J. BUCKTON. Queries. "ALBION MAGAZINE," "MONTHLY RECORDER." I am very desirous of possessing, at all events of seeing, the first number of the Albion Magazine, published in 1835, probably at Ludlow, as the editor, Mr. J. B. Revis, was then residing at Gordon House, in that town. Can any correspon dent of "N. & Q." favour me with the loanof it for a few days, or tell me where I can see a copy? I should also feel obliged by being informed where I can consult a copy of the Monthly Re corder for June 1792? WILLIAM J. THOMS. 40, St. George's Square, Belgrave Road, S.W. |
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