"Dalbeattie, near Dumfries, 24th Aug. 1859. "The manuscript on the other side hereof belonged at one time to a Miss Muiter, who, it is well known, was an intimate acquaintance of the poet Burns, and a frequent visitor at his house in Dumfries. Tradition says that it was a gift from the poet himself to the ladyabove named, and that she in her turn bestowed it on her relative, the Rev. James Little, sometime minister of the parish of Colvend, in Kirkcudbrightshire. From his son-in-law, Mr. Robert Sutherland of Dalbeattie, it was certainly obtained by Mr. Thomas Maxwell of the same place, and by him donated to John Taylor Johnston, Esq., of New York. It has been in possession of the subscriber hereof for many years, and been compared with some of the poet's undisputed autographs, as well

as examined by several parties familiar with his hand

and Gilbert Sadoc. An equal number, at least, of Jewish names also occurs in the early history of Norfolk. These names (with Christian and surname added, and without the "de") are generally found in, or about, some royal demesne; and, it strikes me that, as the Jews assisted the early Norman kings in monetary matters, they may have helped them also in managing their crown lands, forests, chaces, &c. The names occur in the forest and other rolls. The seven kings of the heptarchy had each such properties. They would all merge in Egbert, first monarch of England; pass through the troublous times of the Danes near to the old capital, Winchester) was completed, they would be comparatively useless, and perhaps "utilized" for the Conqueror and his son by the Jews. What, might I ask, is further known upon the subject, and what was the status of the Jews in A. S. times? There are Jewish names as landowners in the Confessor's reign recorded in DomesС. СНАТТОСК, F.R.H.S.

beattie having formed part of the district surveyed by Burns in his capacity of an Officer of Excise, he was in consequence intimately known to not a few inhabitants of the place, and, among others, to the subscriber's (Signed) THOMAS MAXWELL."

mother.

The question arises whether the original address sent to Terraughty is lost; and I suppose that it must be so, as Lord Herries has allowed Mr. Fraser to insert a copy of this autograph of Mr. Johnston in the Book of Caerlaverock, though it is not quite correctly copied. If the original had been preserved in the Maxwell family, this autograph would not have been resorted to. In the copy, which I gave in " N. & Q.," there is a misprint, arising likely enough from my indistinct writing, which it may be as well to notice. Instead of "Roke them like Sodom and Gomorroh," read "Rake." C. T. RAMAGE.

THE JEWS IN ENGLAND (5th S. i. 399.)-I think it can be shown, à propos of the very interesting extract from the Jewish World, that their earliest

status in this country was a much more favourable

one than is there described; and that it was this that moved the cupidity of the early "Christian" priests to "stir up the people" to their persecution, and will account for the "stories" of their "crucifying Christian children on Good Fridays," &c. The fullest investigation upon this point would be of great utility and interest. In Holingshed's Chro., 3, 15, and Stowe's Anns., 103, it is stated that William the Conqueror and Rufus introduced the Jews into England to assist them in monetary matters. In Blomefield's Norfolk, 6, 123, and Parkins's Norfolk, 8, 481, it is distinctly stated that they were land owners, and lords of manors as well as money lenders. References are there given to the public records. The same occurred in co. Salop, and I think other counties also, about the same period; and it appears that it was the succeeding kings, particularly John, who sided with their persecutors and pocketed the spoils. It would seem from the earliest history of Salop, that some Jews turned Christians, for the following (evidently Jews), with Christian and surnames, occur there: from A.D. 1150 to 1300, viz., John Aaron, Joseph Aaron (a priest), Elias Jonas, Ric. Abel, Adam Hagar, Heming Sheakel,

day.

Castle Bromwich.

HANGING AND RESUSCITATION (5th S. i. 444.)— In reference to this subject, the following extract from a paper in the Quarterly Review (September, 1849, p. 393), on "Fontenelle, sur l'Incertitude des Signes de la Mort," confirms the statements quoted by CYRIL. Mr. and Mrs. Manning died on the gallows in November, 1849, for the murder of O'Connor. Just before the execution,

Manning asked the finisher of the law if he should suffer much pain; and I remember thinking at the time that it would have been a solace to the culprit could he have read the article in question, and known that it was a positive pleasure to be hanged !

"An immense number of persons recovered from insensibility have recorded their sensations, and agree in the report that an easier end (than hanging) could not be desired. An acquaintance of Lord Bacon, who meant to hang himself partially, lost his footing, and was cut down at the last extremity, having nearly paid for his curiosity with his life. He declared that he felt no pain, and his only sensation was of fire before his eyes, which changed first to black and then to sky-blue. These colours are even a source of pleasure. A Captain Montagnac, who was hanged in France during the religious wars, and rescued from the gibbet at the intercession of

Viscount Turenne, complained that, having lost all pain in an instant, he had been taken from a light of which the charm defied description. Another criminal, who escaped by the breaking of the cord, said that, after a second of suffering, a fire appeared, and across it the most beautiful avenue of trees. Henry IV. of France sent his

physician to question him, and when mention was made of a pardon, the man answered coldly that it was not worth the asking. The uniformity of the descriptions renders it useless to multiply instances. They fill pages in every book of medical jurisprudence. All agree that the uneasiness is quite momentary, that a pleasurable feeling immediately succeeds, that colours of various hues start up before the sight, and that, these having been gazed on for a trivial space, the rest is oblivion.

"Aug. 3" (1805). "Walked with Fisin round the gaol. The gallows erecting for the execution, F. mentioned that a friend of his had often (?) inquired of a person who had been turned off, and cut down on a reprieve, what were his sensations. He said the preparations were dreadful beyond all expression. On being dropped, he found himself amidst fields and rivers of blood, gradually acquiring a greenish tinge, -imagined if he could reach a certain spot in the same he should be easy, -struggled forcibly to attain it, and felt no more!" - Green's Diary quoted in Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1834.

I knew one who in like manner "babbled of green fields" on his recovery from drowning.

QUIVIS.

LAVINIA FENTON, DUCHESS OF BOLTON (5th S. i. 488.) -I thought most students knew that Hogarth painted one of his best portraits from this lady. It was engraved by G. Watson, and is now, or was while comprised in the Second Exhibition of National Portraits, 1867, in the possession of Mr. Brinsley Marlay; it bore the number 240. It has been also engraved by other hands than those of Watson. (Jack) Ellys likewise painted her, and his work was engraved by Faber, 1728, an important year in her history. Hogarth's likeness shows rather more than a bust, in a low laceedged dress, with a flower in the bosom and a necklace of pearls. The Arundel Society published a fairly successful photograph from the original, taken while that work was at South Kensington. She looks about forty years of age, and probably sat to Hogarth in 1748, or about that time.

F. G. S.

PASTORINI (5th S. i. 408) was the name assumed by Dr. Walmsley, a bishop of the Church of Rome in England, in the title of his work on the Revelation of St. John. In it he predicted the destruction of all heretics in 1825. The falsification of this prophecy has caused his book to be almost forgotten. The same befell a work on unfulfilled prophecy by one Fleming, which foretold the downfall of the Papacy in 1848; and also a pamphlet called The Coming Struggle, which made a great noise just after the close of the Crimean War. S. T. P.

"IBHAR" (5th S. i. 469.) -This word is Gaelic, and means an adder. Highlanders, as a matter of course, declare that Gaelic is older than Hebrew, having been the language spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise. I quote from memory :

"When in the bowers of paradise
Eve first met Adam's view,
The first word that he said to her,
Was Comerashandew."

Of course the spelling of the last phrase is not Celtically correct, and, for the benefit of your readers who do not understand Gaelic, I may state that it means "How are you to-day?" J. H.

The proper name of one of the sons of David, mentioned in the lists next after Solomon and before Elisha. 2 Samuel v. 13-16; 1 Chron. iii. 6; xiv. 4-7. It signifies "whom he (sc. God) chooses." By Josephus (Antiq. vii. iii. 3) it is written Jeban.

Conservative Club.

W. PLATT.

LATIN AND ENGLISH QUANTITY (5th S. i. 464.) -Something might be said in defence of Byron's "tríbunal," strange as it sounds. Anyhow, there are many Latin words of which we English habitually disregard the Latin quantity, owing to our fondness for lengthening the penultimate, like auditor and interlocutor. The story is wellknown of the Scotch advocate who, upon speaking of cúrătors before an English judge, was reminded by him that the word should be pronounced curătors, in the Latin manner. "I supposed," retorted the advocate, "that I was following the English pronunciation; but I bow to the decision of so great a senator and eloquent an orator as your lordship."

J. H. I. OAKLEY.

"TH' BERRIN'S GONE BY," &c. (5th S. i. 468.) — This saying, exactly as HERMENTRUDE gives it, is very common in Craven; but it is chiefly confined to school-boys. At Skipton and Carleton Grammar Schools, when a boy

"Just arrived in time to be too late" for a share of "toffy" or "bull's-eye," he was always greeted by us with the proverb. I never could find any meaning in it. Anthony is a very

common name in Lancashire and Craven.

STEPHEN JACKSON.

"THERE'S SOMEWHAT IN THIS WORLD AMISS" (5th S. i. 468.) - This is in what is now the third verse of Alfred Tennyson's poem, "The Miller's Daughter," p. 83, edition 1848 of Poems:

"Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss:
My own sweet Alice, we must die.
There's somewhat in this world amiss
Shall be unriddled by and by.
There's somewhat flows to us in life,
But more is taken quite away.
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,

That we may die the self-same day."

It is by no means improbable that the last line may have suggested to Miss Dinah Maria Mulock the conclusion of her best work, John Halifax. The poem, in itself one of Tennyson's slightest, is otherwise memorable, if it be true, as was reported long ago, that it was brought under the notice of Queen Victoria by "Johnny who upset the coach," and by its winning the royal favour was the immediate occasion of gaining for Tennyson the newly vacant Laureatship. In the first edition, 1833, there is an opening verse, now omitted :

"I met in all the close green ways,

While walking with my line and rod,
The wealthy Miller's mealy face,
Like the moon in an ivy-tod.
He looked so jolly and so good-
While fishing in the mill-dam water,
I laughed to see him as he stood,

And dreamt not of the Miller's daughter."

Molash, by Ashford, Kent.

J. W. E.

MRS. COWDEN CLARKE'S SHAKSPEARE CONCORDANCE (5th S. i. 485.)—It is a curious circumstance that it would be impossible for any one to verify a certain well-known Shakspearian quotation

"'Tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus," Othello, Act i. sc. 3,

by referring to this excellent Concordance, for the reason that it entirely consists of the simplest words. These the accomplished compiler has naturally omitted, otherwise they would have swelled her book to an enormous bulk.

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

DR. WILLIAM DODD (5th S. i. 488.)-See also "A full.... Account of the life and trial of.... Doctor Dodd," &c. Lond. [1777], 12mo.

"Genuine Memoirs of the Rev. Dr. Dodd; containing many curious anecdotes.".... Lond. [1777], Svo.

"The trial and the life of the Rev. Dr. Dodd." [Pt. I.] 1777, 8vo.

Allibone refers to the Memoirs prefixed to his Thoughts in Prison; Jones's Life of Horne; Gentleman's Magazine, lx., 1010, '66, '77; and Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson.

SPARKS HENDERSON WILLIAMS.

18, Kensington Crescent, W.

FLEUR DE LYs (5th S. i. 489.) -The old name,

flower de luce, is "a plant of the genus Iris; yellow flag; Iris pseudacorus"; Worcester's English Dictionary. The quotation from Shakspeare, Henry VI., Pt. I. Act i. sc. i., commonly cited with the word is

"Cropped are the flower de luces in your arms;
Of England's coat one half is cut away."

The word is still inserted in dictionaries: "Fleurdeliser, to cover with flower de luces." -J. E. Wesseley's French Dictionary, Routledge. Flower de lis is the mode of spelling in Guillim's Display of Heraldry, § III. c. x., p. 143, Lond., 1660 :—

"But of all other, the Flower de lis is of most esteem, having been, from the first, bearing the charge of a

Regal escocheon, originally borne by the French Kings,

though tract of time made the bearing of them more vulgar." ED. MARSHALL.

POPULAR VERSES BEARING SERIOUS ALLUSIONS (5th S. i. 380.) - Your correspondent C. W. may be glad to see what Mr. J. O. Halliwell says (Nursery Rhymes of England, 6th edition, p. 90) concerning "Sing a Song of Sixpence " :

"The first line of this nursery rhyme is quoted in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca, Act v., sc. 2. It is probable, also, that Sir Toby alludes to this song in Twelfth Night, Act. ii., sc. 2, when he says, 'Come on; there is a sixpence for you; let's have a song.' In Epulario; or, the Italian Banquet, 1589, is a receipt 'to make pies so that the birds may be alive in them and flie out when it is cut up, a mere device, live birds being introduced after the pie is made. This may be the original subject of the following song, Sing a Song of Sixpence.'"

CUTHBERT BEDE.

FOLK-LORE OF THE HARE (5th S. i. 427.) -In The Chronicles of Merry England, London, 1856, Book ii., § 4, is-"She" (Boadicea) "had a spear in her hand, and a live hare within the folds of her loose-bodied gown, which, at the end of her speech, she let slip for good luck." The italics are mine.

J. MANUEL.

"FAWS" (5th S. i. 460) are mentioned as "itinerant broom-vendors a northern name." I have not met with this word as a name, nor heard it applied to broom-vendors, or, rather, as we call them, "Bussum-mackers." Faa was the name of a tribe of Gypsies located on the Borders, and of which old Will Faa was, in his day, the king. Sir Walter Scott, I think, mentions this tribe in one of his novels. The name seems, at one time in the border country, to have been applied to a mischievous pickle of a child. A lady of my acquaintance informs me that, when a child, her grandmother, who came from the border country, occasionally reproved her thus: "O, you little Faa!" It would be used, also, playfully, as "O, you little Gypsy!" is

affect themselves as a House. A modern case in point was the claim of the co-heiresses of the late Lord Willoughby d'Eresby to a moiety of the office of Hereditary Great Chamberlain, and the reference to the Peers in cases of attainder or

Gray's Inn.

R. S. CHARNOCK.

YOUNG'S "NIGHT THOUGHTS" (5th S. i. 365.) The above poem may not suit the taste of the present very superior age, but it contains a remarkable number of passages fit for quotation. I would instance the following :

"Humble Love,

And not proud Reason, keeps the door of Heaven." "The spirit walks of every day deceased, And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns."

"Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next,

O'er Death's dark gulf, and all its horror hides." That the poets have read Night Thoughts with attention and sympathy is evident from the manner in which they have borrowed from that production. To cite a very few cases :

"Man wants but little, nor that little long."
Night 4th.

"Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long."
Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina.

"A previous blast fortels the rising storm."
Night 3rd.

"Coming events cast their shadows before." Campbell's Lochiel's Warning. "His crimes forgive! forgive his virtues too!" Night 9th. "Forgive what seem'd my sin in me, What seem'd my worth since I began." Tennyson's In Memoriam. J. W. W.

UNSETTLED BARONETCIES (5th S. i. 125, 194, 252.)-W. M.'s objection to the House of Lords deciding claims to baronetcies is, I think, very well founded, but some of his remarks are scarcely accurate. For instance, he says that the House of Lords acts as referees and advisers of the Crown in peerage cases, and that peerage claims are always referred to them. This is, of course, the general rule, but there have been cases where the claim to a peerage has been disputed and disallowed by the Peers themselves, on the ground of want of power in the Crown to create such a peerage, as, for instance, the creation of the life peerage of Wensleydale, where the House declined to allow a Peer to sit, notwithstanding a writ of summons from the Crown. Again, W. M., in answer to MR. STRATTON, denies the analogy of the claims to Irish and Scotch peerages with that of claims to baronetcies; but the Lords certainly have, at the instance of the Crown, taken cognizance of claims to dignities which do not in any way

moved by the Crown, supports, to a certain extent, this view of the matter. W. M. also remarks that a baronetcy can in Scotland be indirectly established by a Decree of Service, and that a right under a Service of 1821 cannot now be called in question. But this could not in any way, I take it, affect a baronetcy or peerage; for it is an

undeniable rule that the Crown cannot suffer from neglect or laches, and that no enjoyment of an hereditary dignity, however long, can give an

indefeasible title.

If I might suggest a tribunal to decide claims to baronetcies, I should certainly fix upon the Probate Court, and mainly for this reason, viz., because it already has, under the powers given by the Legitimacy Declaration Act, the power of deciding many, if not most, of the disputed baronetcies, e.g., Payne, Vane, Codrington, Frederick, &c. The process might be very simple. Let the Garter, the Lyon, and the Ulster Kings-at-Arms draw up yearly a roll of the baronets of the three Kingdoms, as is now in the case of the peerage done by Garter and Ulster. Let them admit to such rolls those baronets only who could prove their right to their dignities, in the same manner as a Peer proves his right to a writ of summons on the death of his ancestor, and give them the power in case of any doubt or upon the motion of a rival claimant, whether to a dignity on or off the rolls, to transfer the consideration of the case to the Probate Court, and give the Crown power to attend any proceedings. If a power of appeal should be desired, the most appropriate would be to the Queen in Council, that is, to the Judicial Committee. This is not, and never can be, a popular question ; but if some M.P. or Peer of legal training would introduce well-considered bill on the subject, it is difficult to see what objection there could be to its being carried into law. R. PASSINGHAM.

W. M. says,

a

"If, in the case of Dick, the right to the baronetage was vested in a person so recently as 1821, and the present claim has emerged since that date upon the mere question of propinquity to that person, and is good in itself, the expense of a service would be comparatively trifling."

This I grant; but as no such baronetcy ever existed, no service can be of any avail. SETH WAIT.

SEIZING CORPSES FOR DEBT (4th S. xii. 158, 196, 296; 5th S. i. 490.) - This repulsive subject calls to mind Massinger's Fatal Dowry, wherein is broadly and painfully dramatized the story of Charolois Marshal of Burgundy, whose body, he having died a prisoner for debt, is arrested at the prison door, when his son engages to satisfy the creditors,

"Whose cruelty denied him rest in death," and surrenders himself to obtain its sepulture.

The supposed instance of Sir Barnard Turner, in 1784, was imitated half-a-century later, but no less supposititiously, I hope, as I heard it whispered at the funeral of a friend. I remember, however, an epigram, older, I believe, than the poor baronet's case, when the privations, the afflictions, the squalor, suffered by robbers and murderers, were heaped as heavily on debtors, ad pœnam, as being equally criminal in not paying their creditors :

"Of old, to debtors who insolvent died
Egypt the rites of sepulture denied :
A different trade enlightened Christians drive,
And charitably bury them alive."

E. L. S.

SIR THOMAS STRANGEWAYS (5th S. i. 127, 194, 318.)-I ought to have taken more notice of the fact that J. F. M. spoke of Viscount, not Lord, Beaumont. My reason for doubting the marriage was certainly not the absence of grant or pardon, which, as J. F. M. suggests, would disprove nothing. It was the consideration that I had never met with any allusion whatever to Katherine Neville as Lady Beaumont. I understand him to say that the marriage is proved by documentary evidence; if so, there is an end of the question. My note of the pardon contains no description of Sir Thomas Strangeways; and I think it would have done so, had there been any.

HERMENTRUDE.

BUDA (5th S. i. 287, 374, 417, 458.) -Is there not an error here? It is not from personal knowledge, but only on the authority of books, that I speak when I say that it is Buda, and not Pesth, which is otherwise called Ofen; Anglicè oven or stove. From my own knowledge, I may add that the equivalent of Ofen is, in Eccl. Slavonic, Peshtch, and in Russian, Petch. With the Polish or Bohemian variants I am not acquainted.

W. B. C.

COWPER: TROOPER (5th S. i. 68, 135, 272, 316.) -If the following letter, which appears in the European Magazine, 1814, vol. lxvi. pp. 386, 387, does not materially help to settle the controversy at present being waged in "N. & Q.," it may prove somewhat interesting in showing that sixty years ago the pronunciation of the name of Cowper was a subject of discussion in the correspondence columns of a popular monthly periodical :

"It appears to me rather singular that there should exist a diversity of opinion with regard to the pronunciation of the name of Cowper. That a gentleman of that name, belonging to the House of Commons, is called

Cooper, instead of Cowper, proves nothing, but that that pronunciation is erroneous. One of your Correspondents says, that he knows only one word analogous to Cowper in which the w is dropped in pronouncing it, and that is Snowden; but as this word is evidently composed of snow and down (a plain upon a barren hill), the first syllable ought to retain its original sound, Sno. We say Sno-hill, not Snoo-hill, or Snow-hill. For the same reason Cowper can neither be pronounced Coper nor Cooper, or else we must also say Coard, or Cooard, for Coward. The diphthong ow is pronounced either o or ou, but never 00,

as as know. If in surnames it were to sound like 00, then we ought to pronounce the names Bowles, Brownlow, Crowder, Howard, Howland, Lowther, Lowry, Owen, Rowley, Townshend, &c., Booles, Broonloo, Crooder, Hooard, Hooland, Loother, Loory, Ooen, Rooley, Toonshend, &c."

This correspondence had its origin in a manner characteristic of the times, not, as in "N. & Q.," by a correspondent quoting a verse in which Cowper was made to rhyme with Trooper. "A Constant Reader" relates that, "sitting over the bottle one day with some friends," he happened to ask a gentleman whether he had read Cowper's poems, "pronouncing it as if it had been spelled Cooper," and his friend replied that he had not read Cowper's poems, "pronouncing the first syllable as you would pronounce the quadruped cow" (sic).

It appears to me that the "ingenious" writer (as he would be termed in those days), who, in all likelihood, has been long since gathered unto his fathers, in the letter I have given above, has made a very good defence of the common pronunciation of the name of Cowper. The fact of some versifier having made Cowper rhyme with Trooper should not, I think, be any criterion, and, until I see better reasons for changing my opinion than have as yet appeared on the subject in "N. & Q.," I for one shall continue to pronounce Cowper "as you would pronounce the quadruped cow."

Glasgow.

W. A. C.