Queries.

taining directions in case discovery is not made of that Island, or that it be found unfit for habitation.” "Mar. 26, 1633. After debate, the intended voyage to Fonseca is respited." THOS. D. HILL.

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT.-Can any fellow booklover favour me with the use, for a day or two, of Mr. Collier's reprint of the Metamorphosis of

Tobacco? It forms one of his red series.

(REV.) A. B. GROSARI.

St. George's, Blackburn, Lancashire. CAMEL.-By whom was the camel first called "the ship of the desert"? G. W. TOMLINSON.

BISHOP ROBERT FERRAR.-I have noticed one

or two inquiries respecting Bishop Ferrar in your publication, and should be glad to receive replies to the following queries, as I am preparing for the press a biography of this martyr:.

1. The authority for his having been chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer.

2. The name of the lady whom he married. 3. The age at which his son Samuel died.*

J. C. H., a Lineal Descendant.

ISLAND OF FONSECA.-I shall be glad to know if any of your readers can tell me which of the West India Islands was first named Fonseca by the Spaniards, or whether the island so called has disappeared? The name is found in many old maps, somewhere about the present position of Barbadoes; but the histories of this island do not state that it was ever called after the Bishop of Burgos.

I see by the published Calendar of Colonial State Papers that some information may be derived from them, and I hope some one will refer to the original documents. I extract the following from the Calendar: —

"Nov. 26, 1632. Resolutions for raising money to carry out Captain Hilton's design for discovery of the Island of Fonseca."

"Mar. 4, 1633. The Master's instructions for Fonseca drawn up, letters to be written to Captain Hilton, con

[ Some biographical particulars of Bishop Ferrar are given in the Gentleman's Magazine, lxi. (ii.), 603; and in the numbers for March and April, 1848, pp. 245, 360. Consult also Cooper's Athena Cantab. i. 125.-ED.]

GHOST STORIES.-I am anxious to obtain some really well authenticated narratives of apparitions or other "supernatural" manifestations, not for the gratification of a mere idle curiosity, but with the design of investigating, if possible, the real nature of these interesting and mysterious phenomena. Out of the many stories about ghosts which one meets with, few are supported by the evidence of persons now living. I have no doubt that many readers of "N. & Q." are acquainted with stories of this kind, and I shall feel deeply obliged to any one who communicates with me (in confidence) upon the subject. I may add that one case of actual personal observation is here worth dozens of hearsays.

Union Society, Oxford.

B. W.

EARLY GRAVES AT BARNET-BY-LE-WOLD.— In opening the ground for interments in the churchyard of Barnet-by-le-Wold, Lincolnshire, in places where the surface shows no signs of previous occupation, ancient graves or rather vaults are frequently found made with small blocks of chalk, the material of the soil. The blocks have evidently been roughly shaped, but not cut with any tool, and are fitted together so as to leave a cavity that of an ancient stone coffin, widening from the for the corpse. This cavity exactly resembles feet to the shoulders, contracting at the neck, leaving a slightly oval hollow for the head. These graves are closely covered with slab-like blocks of chalk on opening them, no trace of metal or wood is found, only a perfect skeleton and a slight appearance of brownish dust on the chalk slabs at the bottom. These graves lie east and west. I wish to know whether this mode of interment occurs in other places, and at what period it prevailed. B. S.

JOURNALS OF THE LATE MR. HUNTER. — The absence of any memoir of the late Joseph Hunter in the new edition of Hallamshire, by the Rev. Dr. Gatty, has produced both surprise and regret, however it may be accounted for. It is gratifying to know that, on the hasty conversion into money of everything accumulated by the taste and industry of Mr. Hunter-the sources at once of his pecuniary and his literary competence-so many of his manuscripts found their way into the British Museum. Among these, according to a biographical notice in The Inquirer, and now before me, is "a long series of volumes, comprising his correspondence and biographical collections, and which would afford valuable materials to the writer of his life." I am told, however, that

this collection does not include a personal diary, kept for many years by the learned and estimable historian, and for which eighty guineas was offered at the sale above alluded to by some person from Sheffield. I would ask whether this statement is correct? And if so, who is at present the owner of the interesting document in question ? J. H. PARODIES.-As I want, for an Essay on Parody, to know exactly which are the ballads really parodied in Bon Gaultier's Book of Ballads, I should feel extremely obliged to you if you would kindly inform me who are the authors of the ballads in that case, in the new edition of the book, 1868. DELEPIERRE.

35, Howley Place, Maida Hill.

THE PLAYFAIR FAMILY.-I am most desirous of tracing the pedigree of this somewhat ancient Scottish house. So far as I can discover, a number of families of the name have been settled in the parish of Bendochy, Perthshire, for more than two centuries. Several members of the house have become distinguished for their literary and scientific attainments, and I am not aware that any of the name occupy an inferior social position. CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D.

Snowdoun Villa, Lewisham, S.E.

PETER POMBAS.-Was Peter Pombas, a Dutch painter (born at Gouda 1510 or thereabout, and who died at Bruges 1583), ever in England? And if so, at what time, and what style of pictures did he paint-portraits or landscapes ? Is he mentioned in Wornum's Life of Holbein ?

THOMAS E. WINNINGTON.

QUOTATIONS WANTED.- -Who was it that said of Young's Night Thoughts, that they had been "slowly condensed from the charcoal of ancestral sermons"? Chelsea.

W. N. WILLIAMS.

The Troubles of the Dissenters continuing at home, Sir Matthew Brynton, Sir William Constable, Sir Arthur Haslerig, John Hampden, Esq., Oliver Cromwell, Esq., Names too well known in the Histories of England, and several other Gentlemen, were preparing to remove to New England; at which both the Church and State were alarmed; and on the 30th of April [in margin 1637'], a Proclamation was issu'd forth, to restrain the disorderly transporting his Majesty's Subjects to the Plantations without a Licence from his Majesty's Commissioners; And an Order was made in Council, That the Lord Treasurer of England should take speedy and effectual Course to stay eight ships in the River of Thames, bound for New England, and Commanded that all the Passengers and Provisions should be landed. All Unconformable Ministers were also to be stopp'd; which proceeding, says a Doctor of our Church, increased the Murmurs and Complaints of the People thus restrain'd, and rais'd the

RUSBY OR RUSHBY.-Where can I find a pedigree of this family, believed to be of Yorkshire or Lincolnshire? Berry and Robson give the arms as Argent a saltier engr. sa. between four roses gu. and seeded or. W. H. COTTELL. Brixton, S.W.

A SEVERE COUPLET: NOVA SCOTIA BARONETS. Sir Bernard Burke, in the "Introductory Essay on the Position of the British Gentry" (p. vii.)see his Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry, London, 1868—says:

"The feelings occasioned among the older Scottish gentry, by the institution of the Order of Nova Scotia baronets, was thus expressed in a couplet of the seventeenth century:

"Your servant, Sir James, your servant, Sir John, Noble knights every one:

Thanks to our sovereigns, James and Charles, Those now are knights who once were carles." Is the name of the author of this couplet known, and who were the knights referred to? GEORGE MORRIS.

Bloomsbury.

SIMPSON.-In Add. MS. 5829, f. 13, British Museum, are depositions against John Simpson, Vicar of Mount Bures, Essex, who is stated in the pedigree of the family, recorded in Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, 1665, to have died unmarried; but that he left two nephews, William Simpson of Sheffield, and Lancelot Simpson of Stoke Neyland, in Suffolk. It would be a great favour if any readers of "N. & Q." could give me any information about the Stoke Neyland branch. There was a family named Simpson of Bures St. Mary (Harl. MS. 1542, fol. 104 b); and in Morant's time a family named Simpson, who bore the same arms. as belonged to John Simpson, Vicar of Mount Bures, owned estates at Lamarsh, the adjoining parish to Bures St. Mary. Can any person acquainted with Essex and Suffolk pedigrees inform me if the Simpsons, or Simsons, of Mount Bures, Bures St. Mary, and Lamarsh, were one and the same family?

R. D. DAWSON-DUFFIELD, LL.D. Sephton Rectory, Liverpool.

0:

"Through Eleanora and her Zara's mind

Early though genius, taste, and fancy flowed, Though all the graceful arts their powers combined, And her last polish brilliant life bestowed; The lavish promises in life's soft morn, Pride, pomp, and love, their friends the sweet enthusiasts scorn."

It was about the year 1826 that Lady Eleanor's health began to decline, and her sight, which was never strong, had totally failed. It was now that her attached partner exerted her energies in all the offices of love and duty for her blind companion, over whom she tenderly watched like an angel of mercy. It was not long afterwards that "Zara's look serene "9 was called to part for ever in this world with "gay Eleanora's smile"; for the latter was taken away on June 2, 1829; and it was not till December 8, 1831, that her accomplished and desolate friend was called to rejoin her in another and better state. In a triangular pyramid in the churchyard of Plassnewydd, with three tablets, are inscribed the names of Lady Eleanor Butler, Miss Sarah Ponsonby, and their faithful friend and servant Mary Carryl.

As we have stated, the personal history of these ladies has been frequently written. Miss Anna Seward's account is reprinted in Burke's Patrician, ed. 1848, v. 485. Consult also the British Magazine of 1830, p. 8, edited by S. C. Hall; the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1829, p. 175, and March, 1832, p. 274. Views of Plasnewydd Cottage, Llangollen, have been frequently published; and there is also a portrait of "The Ladies of Llangollen," painted by Lady Leighton and lithographed by Lane.]

"CASTLES IN THE AIR."-Who first used this phrase, and where? I find Burton has it in his Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. 1624, p. 81:-"How many chimeras, antics, golden opinions, and castles in the air do they build unto themselves." But he may be quoting it, as he quotes "golden opinions" from Shakespeare. Burton also uses the expression in his poetical Abstract of Melancholy:

"When I build castles in the air,
Void of sorrow, void of fear."
JAMES J. LAMB.

Underwood Cottage, Paisley. [In the last edition (1868) of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Appendix, p. 603, we find references to the use of this phrase by the following writers: Stirling, Sonnets, S.

6; Burton (as quoted by our correspondent); Sidney, Defence of Poetry; Sir Thomas Browne, Letter to a Friend; Giles Fletcher, Christ's History, part ii.; besides others to Swift, Broome, Fielding, Cibber, Churchill, Shenstone, and Lloyd.]

GERMAN NAMES OF DAYS OF THE WEEK.When were the names of the days of the week adopted by the German races first used? Were

with the Latin races? Monday 1 Lundi; Tuesday, or Tuesc's day Mardi; Woden's day-Mercredi (Woden is the Mercury of the Germans in most of his attributes); Thor's day=Jeudi; Friga's day= l'endredi (Venus' day); Saturday Sammedi. This parallelism is suggestive.

=

HENRY H. HOWORTH.

COPYRIGHT. -What was the law of copyright during 1835-43? My impression is that the copyright of a book then endured for twenty-eight years, or during the life of the author if he outlived that term. If I am correct in this, would the conveyance of the copyright of certain tales to a periodical render those tales the absolute property of the publisher even beyond the twentyeight years-the author being alive-to the effect that the said publisher could then sell or assign the copyright to others without consent of the author? or would the copyright revert to the author at the end of twenty-eight years?

When did the existing law extending copyright to forty-two years come into force? L. B.

Junior Carlton Club.

[In 1835 the Act of 54 Geo. III. c. 156, was in force, which gave to authors twenty-eight years' copyright in their works, and for the remainder of their lives. By the 5 & 6 Vict. c. 45, passed in 1842, the copyright was for the natural life of the author, and for seven years after his death; but if such seven years expired before the end of forty-two years from the first publication, the copyright was in that case to endure for such period of forty-two years.

The question as to the right of copyright in the tales referred to by our correspondent is a question of law, on which we should not think of giving an opinion, even if we had before us the agreement entered into between author and publisher upon the subject, upon the stipulations contained in which of course the whole question turns.]

DENYS GODEFROI. Can

any

of

your

readers

tell me whether any members of the family of the great Protestant jurist Denys Godefroi (born 1549, died at Strasburg 1622) emigrated to England, and whether any of their descendants settled in Suffolk or Essex ? ZETETE.

[Our correspondent will find in "The Catalogue of the Names of the Artizans, Strangers, Denizens, and English born of the Wallou Congregation of Canterbury," printed

W. P.'s hypothetical style (conjecture can be fairly met by conjecture, taking care to premise that we do not put forth our speculations as matters of fact), he would have been very likely to say, in the high-flown and sentimental fashion then in vogue, "I have neither fortune nor friends; I have neither father nor mother, nor brother nor sister.' He does not say he has never known such relations, or possessed such advantages-a much more melancholy, as well as more exact statement, if W. P.'s theory is correct.

I may observe en passant that, in whatever

OF DR. SYNTAX."

(4th S. iii. 545, 569, 589.)

Without attempting to enter on the question of how far the view taken by Mr. John Camden Hotten of the life and character of William Combe can be strengthened at every point by "the logic of facts"- -a matter which may be more suitably dealt with, if he considers it worth while, by Mr. Hotten in person-allow me to indicate certain features in the articles of your correspondent W. P. which give to a looker-on like myself, interested in the subject but having nothing at stake in the controversy, the impression that, whether or not Mr. Hotten can prove a case in favour of Combe, W. P. has not proved his case against Mr. Hotten. Those who pull down a theory on the plea that the evidence brought for it is insufficient, should be especially careful that the evidence they bring against it is incontrovertible. A series of conjectural objections might be raised against almost every memoir that has been written; and when rumours, the authority for all of which is substantially equal, contradict each other, there is little gained to accuracy by their mere substitution. W. P. undoubtedly shows that the date at which a Mr. Combe died while canvassing Bristol is incorrectly given by Mr. Hotten; but it surely does not follow that William Combe was not the son of a Bristol merchant of similar name-since, on W. P.'s own showing, they were so numerousor even of that very Bristol merchant, though the date assigned for his death is inaccurate. The expression attributed to Alderman Alexanderhe "ought to have been" William Combe's father-does not seem a very probable one, if Combe were really his illegitimate son. And as W. P. requires such great exactitude from others, with regard to names, dates, and authorities, it is not hypercritical to ask on what ground he makes the assertion that Combe himself avowed the real nature of his connection with the alderman "to bis later friends."

The letter to Rousseau does not seem very important testimony. If Combe had quarrelled with and isolated himself from his relations (to adopt

it shows bad taste to characterise a writer of such acknowledged eminence as Rousseau by the term "Combe's fellow-scoundrel."

The Letters to Marianne appear to be wrapped in a haze of conjecture on both sides. Anonymous MS. annotations are not of much value as evidence, unless there is something like certainty as to their actual though unavowed authorship. W. P.'s inference clearly is, that these severe marginal notes are by Mr. Ackermann; yet, in the latter's preface to the Letters to Amelia, he throws a doubt on the authenticity of the Letters to Marianne-a pretence which he could scarcely have made had he been so intimately acquainted with every detail of their composition as the annotator professes to be.

It is somewhat disingenuous to say, after admitting the sincerity of Combe's repentance, that he

"would not have been now branded as an habitual

breaker of the Commandments if Mr. Hotten had not adopted the extraordinary course of saying that his hero 'had no ricious tastes' prefatory to the stories about discreditably for the sake of money, and his libelling the his gaming, his thieving, his intriguing, his marrying friends of his earlier days."

and unacquainted with Mr. Hotten's memoir, Any one reading this passage in W. P.'s article, would infer that he (Mr. Hotten) endorsed the scandals; whereas he only mentions them to say that, in his opinion, the worst charges against Combe were exaggerated or unfounded ingossip, consistent with the known facts of his life. Prima facie it seems tolerably clear that the man of whom Horace Smith was not ashamed

to say that he visited him at his "suburban retreat in the Lambeth Road, "and never left without admiring his various acquirements and dured his reverses," could scarcely have been the the philosophical equanimity with which he enunmitigated "scoundrel" W. P. describes.

Finally, it is to be supposed that Dr. Doran took and career before discussing them; and he says some pains to ascertain Combe's real character (Last Journals of Horace Walpole, ii. 185 :)

"William Combe, after a creditable career at Eton and Oxford, burst on the world as a wonderfully welldressed beau, and was received with éclat for the sake of