ever

VENISON BOILED (4th S. iii. 406.) - Your correspondent. J. P. F. asks if "such an act of barbarism" as a boiled haunch of venison was committed in the present day." I can assure him that such an instance is on record. Not very many years since, the Earl of according to his annual custom, sent a haunch of venison to the mayor of (I here the names, but ensuppress close them for the Editor's satisfaction.) It had been usual for the mayor to invite the corporation and his friends to dine upon my lord's venison; but Mr. neglected to do so, and kept the haunch for his own private eating. A few days after, he mentioned the circumstance to a gentleman, saying that he did not think the venison equal to mutton. "How did you cook it?" asked the other. "Oh, the usual way," replied Mr. Mayor; we boiled it and had caper-sauce with it." CUTHBERT BEDE.

66

THE STUARTS AND FREEMASONRY (4th S. iii. 532.) The fact mentioned by MR. SLEIGH is not generally known to Freemasons. Is it known whether the Stuart family were connected in any way with the French Ordre-du-Temple, which has authentic records since Philip of Orleans held a general assembly in 1705? The charter of transmission anathematises the Stuart, or "Scotch Templars, with their brethren of St. John of Jerusalem." Prince Charles was elected grandmaster of the Scotch order of the Temple at Holyrood in 1745; Earl Marr held that dignity in 1715. James III. granted a charter for the Rosy Cross from Arras in 1721 to London brethren; but the branch of St. John and the Temple connected with Freemasonry claim prior to 1686. vd

JOHN YARKER, Jun.

43, Chorlton Road, Manchester. PROVERB (4th S. iii. 529.) The proverb mentioned by MR. C. W. BARKLEY takes the form near York of

"As proud as a dog with two tails."

I do not think that either form is very commonly used in Westmorland. Supplementing the Editor's reply to MR. BARKLEY on a point of genealogy in" Answers to Correspondents," (p. 496), I may mention that I have a considerable number of

extracts from parish registers and other sources, extending Burke's pedigree, to copies of which MR. BARKLEY is heartily welcome if he will oblige with his address. JOHN YARKER, JUN.

43, Chorlton Road, Manchester.

LIST OF SHERIFFS (4th S. iii. 382.)-There are lists of the sheriffs of the different counties, up to his time, in Fuller's Worthies of England. I suppose, for the continuation of the lists to the present time, reference must be made to the county histories. I have a tract, I believe privately printed, entitled —

"Remarks on the present System of the Appointment of High Sheriffs, with a List for the Counties of Huntingdon and Cambridge. By James Duberly, Esq. London, 1857."

of Huntingdon and Cambridge, two counties have From this brochure I learn that, as in the case sometimes only one sheriff between them.

E. H. A.

DERBY DAY (4th S. iii. 503.)—There is a rule of the Jockey Club, that "there shall always be an interval of one month between the 2000 guineas stakes and the Derby." The 2000 guineas are run in the first spring meeting, which takes place one fortnight after the Craven meeting; which latter is the opening of the racing season at Newmarket, and the date of which is settled by the Jockey Club. It usually, but not always, takes place on Easter Monday. The Tuesday's Riddlesworth was established because the late Lord Exeter conscientiously objected to travel to a racemeeting on Easter Sunday, so as to be in time to see the Monday's Riddles worth run for. Duke of York was not so scrupulous; but by way psalms for the day as he posted along the road, in of "hedging," he used to read the lessons and hopes that bis piety would bring him luck for the

week.

The

The authorities controlling Epsom races (and not Lord Derby) established a race to be run, in 1779, by fillies. It was called after "The Oaks," Lord Derby's seat at Banstead. It was won by Lord Derby's filly, Bridget; whereupon another race for colts and fillies, to be run in 1780, was established and called "The Derby."

"The Oaks" originally belonged to General Burgoyne, well known at Saratoga. He was a natural son of Lord Bingley, and ran away with a Lady Stanley. He fell into difficulties, and his father-in-law bought the villa to keep it in the family. Upon the marriage of Lady Betty Hamilton (daughter of the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning) with Lord Derby's son, General Burgoyne the fête given in consequence of the marriage. wrote "The Maid of the Oaks," to be produced at

J. WILKINS, B.C.L.

LOCAL SAYINGS: HUNTINGDONSHIRE (4th S. iii. 425.)-I have frequently heard in Renfrewshire

MODERN GIPSIES (4th S. iii. 405, 557.). The following paragraph from the Birmingham Daily Post of June 7, 1869, is perhaps worth permanent record in "N. & Q.," either as a record of facts or as an opportunity for corrections, if any errors of description have occurred. ESTE.

"GIPSY ENCAMPMENT AT KIDDERMINSTER. "A company of gipsies, very different in their appearance and manners from those generally met with in the Midland Counties, are at present encamped in the neighbourhood of Kidderminster, where they are regarded with some curiosity by the townspeople. They are a colony of the Epping Forest gipsies, and comprise seven families, numbering about fifty individuals, children included. Each family has a van and tent to itself, but the former is only used as a living-place when the tribe are migrating from one locality to another. The tents are tolerably roomy affairs, the framework being constructed with long supple sticks, which are bowed towards each other, and covered with a warm flannelly material. Visitors are freely allowed to enter these nomad dwellings, and can judge for themselves of the kind of habitat they have. The interiors are warm and snug, and more than this, there is an air of comfort about them which house

dwellers would scarcely believe could be had under gipsy conditions of life. Chairs and tables are not a prerequisite here as in ordinary dwellings, but the gipsies appear to be abundantly supplied with such fabrics and appointments as give a somewhat Eastern air to their habitations. They are well dressed, not uncommunicative, and very easy and self-possessed in their manners. It appears that the men belonging to the different famiies in the camp rely for a livelihood on horse-dealing, and the other sex are, no doubt, able to do a little business by reading a horoscope or revealing a destiny. They use the Romany tschib or language among themselves, but do not seem to attach any importance to their children learning it, except so far as they may do so by haphazard. Some of the words they use are very similar to words for the same things used by East Indians-so said one of the party, to whom our correspondent spoke; and there have been some statements of the same kind published in the Transactions of one of the learned societies. Since the arrival of the party at Kidderminster, a little babe has been born in one of the booths, the midwife's offices being performed by a woman belonging to Kidderminster. It was suggested a doctor should be sent for, but the reply was that a gipsy woman would sooner die than have one to attend her.

"On Saturday evening the gipsies held a gala in their camp. A circle was fenced off with iron hurdles for dancing, and a band had been engaged. The gipsy

women and children turned out in fête costume, and dancing was kept up at intervals during the evening. There was a fair number of visitors present, and the gala is to be repeated."

KENTISH WORDS (4th S. iii. 56.)-Deek for "ditch." In West Flanders a ditch is also called dik, and pronounced very near the same as in Kent (dic, A.S.; dig, Irish); but in East Flanders this word spells dyk (read "dike "), and is used, not for ditch, but for the raised bank at the side of rivers and canals (moles, Lat). The French digue has only that last signification. There reigns a similar apparent confusion of meanings in the word wall (wal, Fl.), it being in the one province applied to the earthen works thrown up for the defence of fortified places, and in the other to the large ditch which has been delved to supply the same said earth. So that the proverb, van den wal in den dyk vallen (to fall from the mound into the ditch), is well understood at Ostend, but unintelligible to a burgher of Ghent. J. VAN DE VELDE.

SIR THOMAS GARDINER (4th S. iii. 531, 560.)— Sir Thomas was a younger son of Rev. Michael Gardiner, rector of Greenford Magna, Middlesex; and the arms on his father's monument in the chancel of Greenford church are- Quarterly, 1 and 4 per pale, or and gu., a fess between three does all counterchanged"; 2 and 3, "Az. two bars arg. in chief, a talbot of the second " (Gardiner); impaling, "Or a chev. engrailed barry of six arg. and az. between three cranes proper" (Brown). See Lysons' Environs, ii. 440. TEWARS.

The EDITOR MISC. GENEALOGICA will, I hope, excuse me if I give some of the dates he has quoted a little more precisely. Sir Thomas's knighthood is assigned to November 25, 1641, not 1640, in Walkley's Cat. of Knights of Charles I. p. 142. He was sworn Recorder of London on January 25, 1635-6, not 1635-a slight, but far from unimportant addition. To the other dates concerning Gardiner may be added the resolution for his impeachment by the House of Commons, which was come to on March 22, 1641-2. (Verney's Notes of the Long Parl.) In the year 1643 he was appointed Solicitor-General. In the State Papers of Car. I. in the Public Record Office, there is (among others) a letter of Gardiner's, dated April 22, 1637 (vol. cccliv. No. 61), which is sealed with a seal bearing barry of five, argent and or, in chief two pheons, in base one. These arms, it will be observed, are very different from those stated in Berry's Encyclop. Herald. to have been borne by Sir Thomas. A. L.

SIR ORLANDO GEE (4th S. iii. 337.)-I enclose a copy of inscription on the monument of Sir Orlando Gee in Isleworth church, Middlesex. He died in 1705. The monument has his arms

quartered with those of Chilcott, from which family he took his second wife, having married the daughter of Robert Chilcott of that parish, Esq. I am desirous of tracing the pedigree of this Robert Chilcott up to the Robert Chilcott, alias Comyn, who lived at Tiverton in 1611, and founded some charities there.

They are the same family, as is proved by the identity of the arms which are given in the Heralds' Visitation for Middlesex in 1663, and for Somerset in 1623, and also in the Harleian MS. If any of your readers can assist me I shall be much obliged: very

To the Memory of

Sr ORLANDO GEE, KNIGHT,

Son of Mr John Gee, Vicar of Dunfford in Devonshire.

The truely noble Algernon, Earle of Northumberland, Employed him for many years in yo Management of his weightyest Affaires,

And for his fidelity Equall to the Greatness of his Trusts,

After the Restoration in 1666 Commended him to
the Office of

Register of the Court of Admiralty,
Which he Enjoyed five and forty Years.
He Continued serviceable in no less trusts to his Patrons
The Right Honorable Joceline, Earle of Northumberland,
And to his daughter ye most noble Elizabeth,
Duchess of Somerset.

PLESSIS (4th S. iii. 506.)-Sir Walter Scott, in the second chapter of Quentin Durward and with reference to the forest with which the royal castle of Plessis-les-Tours was surrounded, says:—

"These woodlands comprised a noble chase, or royal park, fenced by an enclosure, termed in the Latin of the middle ages plexitium, which gives the name of Plessis to so many villages in France."

He thus considers plexitium or plessis as equivalent to chase or park, but I doubt whether the notion of deer was originally associated either with park or plexitium. Does not the compound parc-aux-cerfs, by which the famous or infamous retreat of Louis XV. was designated, imply that a park could exist without deer? and is not the notion of net-work or fence conveyed in the low Latin plexitium from Latin plexus? Certainly the Greek Epxos, from which, whether correctly or incorrectly, our word park is commonly derived, signified first a fence, and then also the place enclosed, but without any notion of deer: so, the same notion is excluded from park in our phrase

park of artillery. I should like to know the exact meaning of the Saxon parruc, from which our modern word is derived. W. B. C.

SUBSIDENCE (4th S. iii. 589.)-Not having by me the last three writers referred to (after Facciolati) by LORD LYTTLETON, I must content myself with dealing with the from Lucretius, passage which, as far as it touches the question, runs as follows:—

66

et multæ per mare pessum

Subsedere suis pariter cum civibus urbes." In which I am willing to grant that subsedere does bear the sense "of descent with motion." But I am far from being prepared to admit that it has anything to do with subsideo. On the contrary, I believe it to be the third plural of the perfect of subsido, which LORD LYTTELTON needs not to be informed makes both subsidi and sub

sedi. How far the opinion of Facciolati has support from the other authors I cannot say, but I am sure that from the best among them-the only one, I should presume, possessing much weighthe has none that can be relied on as authoritative or unexceptionable. From sedeo and its compounds the notion of rest seems, to my mind, inseparable.

I so far agree with MR. BEALE, that in the pronunciation of English, usage is to be followed; but when in derivatives a question is raised as to the quantity of a syllable, it can be settled only by a reference to its primitive. Many lawyers pronounce marital as if the penultimate were short, but it is, all one for this, as long as any lawyer's arm, if not, peradventure, of his head. EDMUND TEW, M.A.

Patching Rectory.

MR. TEW is clearly right in deriving this word from subsido, to the rejection of subsideo, but nevertheless I think it should be pronounced subsidence; custom, "quem penes arbitrium," &c. seems to me decidedly in favour of this pronunciation, so also is the genius of our language, the tendency of which is to throw the accent on the antepenultima, whatever may be the length (in Latin) of the penultimate syllable; witness such words as cónfidence, diffidence, órator, and a host of others. W. B. U.

LORD LYTTELTON forgets that quotations in the PASSAGE IN GALATIANS (4th S. iii. 551, 558.) New Testament seldom adhere to the ipsissima sition of the words will make the end of a good verba; and that in this instance a slight transpoiambic line. May not the original have been

ἐν καλῷ τὸ ζηλοῦσθαι καλόν.

TEWARS.

MEDAL (4th S. iii. 528.)-The first of the two medals described by I. N. O. may be one of the medals given by George III. to the chiefs of the North American Indians, or the heads of the

tribes in Africa, who had rendered some service to British subjects, or whom it was desirable to attach to the interest of this country.

These medals, which are of silver, are of three sizes, the largest being three inches in diameter; the second, two inches and four-tenths; the third, one inch and a half, 19, 16, 12 of Mionnet's scale. Would it not be a great boon to collectors, and those interested in the subject, if the British Museum would print a catalogue of these medals and coins? The sale of it would soon more than repay the cost. BELFAST.

GAINSBOROUGH's "BLUE BOY" (4th S. iii. 576.) I cannot add much to the history of this picture, but there is not a shadow of doubt as to the authenticity and genuineness of the "Blue Boy" in the possession of the Marquis of Westminster. The first Earl Grosvenor, who is stated by Fulcher to have purchased the picture from Hoppner, died in 1802, so that if the author of The Life of Gainsborough be correct, it must have been in the possession of the Grosvenor family nearly seventy years, and twelve or fifteen years before the "Blue Boy" exhibited at the conversazione of the Institution of Civil Engineers came into the hands of Mr. Hall. The Grosvenor picture was one of twelve paintings by Gainsborough exhibited at the British Institution in 1815; and more recently, at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester, it formed one of the leading attractions, hanging near the lovely portrait of Mrs. Graham, also by Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Contemplative Youth," and other works of the highest quality. With these surroundings, it maintained its ground thoroughly, and attracted general admiration by its beautiful and harmonious colouring, its brilliant execution, and its perfect state of preservation.

As to Hoppner not being likely to possess such a picture, I see nothing to prevent it. He was a fashionable and well-employed portrait-painter, and artists at all times have been noted for collecting pictures and works of art; and at the date of its purchase modern pictures fetched a very different price in the market to that which they obtain at the present time. G. D. TOMLINSON.

KENT FOLK-LORE (4th S. iii. 479.) — A similar strange and superstitious custom as that mentioned by MR. DUNKIN, of the herdsman going to each of the kine and sheep at Dartford Priory farm, and whispering to them that their old master was dead, I find mention made of in that wild and omnifarious romance by Karl Gutzkow (b. 1811), Der Zauberer von Rom (the Sorcerer of Rome), which custom the author ascribes to a certain part of dear old Westphalia. The heroine Lucinde, who by-the-way outdoes all the unwomanly heroines of the Feydeau-Sand--Braddon-OuidaCometh-up-as-a-Flower school, visits the village

school, being herself the daughter of a village dominee, and finds the household of the schoolmaster better regulated than that of her own father :

"Amongst the garden utensils she also found a Bienenhelm (a wire mask to protect the face and head in general from the sting of the bees when cutting honey), which latter a servant-man out of the village was just borrowing of the schoolmaster, in order to announce to the bees the death of his just deceased master. A strange custom, here at home, to cause the death of the master of the house to be announced by the servant-man to the bees, going amongst the bee-hives with these words-The mistress sends her best compliments and the master has died.'"(Vide antè, ed. 1863 (Leipzig, Brockhaus), vol. i. pp. 82-83.) HERMANN KINDT.

Germany.

SMITING THE THIGHS (4th S. ii. 238, 261.) — The quotations from the Iliad in the earlier of these paragraphs, and perhaps the observation of common life, show, I think, that this was only a boisterous and somewhat vulgar habit of Mars and his worthies, under excitement, and whether threatening, rejoicing, or crying; and that it was emphasis, and not religion. But I remember to have observed some years ago, as rather singular, that expressions of this kind, although, as your correspondent has shown, common enough in the later books of the Iliad, are nowhere to be met with in the earlier ones, showing thus a change of phrase and manners. I say this in my own wrong, for I firmly hold the unity both of the poem and the author, and will never be persuaded to the contrary. RICHARD HILL SANDYS.

89, Chancery Lane.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.

Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Hovedene. Edited by William Stubbs, M.A., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, &c. Vol. II. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Monachi Cestrensis; together with the Translations of John Trevisa and of an unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century. Edited by Churchill Babington, B.D., F.L.S., &c. Vol. II. Annales Monastici. Vol. IV. Annales Monasterii de Osencia (A.D. 1016-1347); Chronicon vulgo dictum .Chronicon Thoma Wykes (A.D. 1066-1289); Annales Prioratus de Wigornia (A.D. 1-1377). Edited by Henry Richards Luard, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Registrar of University of Cambridge, &c.

Annales Monastici. Vol. V. Index and Glossary. Edited by Edward Richard Luard, M.A.

We have to call the attention of our readers, neces

sarily very briefly, to four new volumes of the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, now publishing under the direction of the Master of the Rolls.

The second volume of Hoveden contains that portion of the compilation of Roger of Hoveden which corresponds with the "Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi,"