In the middle of Prayers, just up the Stairs, waye of preface, I thought yt notamysse* to satisfye Were Bagpipes to my thinking,

hys godly purpose herein, wherby to incyte ye And the Folks below fell singing too

studious mynds of such as have leygure to reade, to As tho' they had been drinking.

yo diligent perusyng hereof, and so much yo more,

for that perceauyng ye co'tents of thys treatyse XII.

collected as principall floweres out of so lerned I did not like such doings there,

wryters, I thynk ye same not so very frutfull and And so I took my Hat;

noble only, but rather neadeful specially for ye I did not think they would a' done so In such a fine place as that;

stayng of them wch. want co'fort and consolation, t

according as, I nothing doubt but by readyng herof, But Nell was for staying till they had done

thou shalt better understand thyself, gentle reader, playing

nether countyng any labour lost, nor tyme nyspent Because she liked the Tune,

co'ferred and employed in yo brewyng and tastyug Tor she was shure she neer did hear

heroff.” Old Grundell play'd at home.

The Archbishop of York is no doubt Edmund XIII. Then we went out of that fine place

Grindal, who became Bishop of London in All up upon a Hill,

July, 1559, and Archbishop of York in 1570. And just below a Dial did grow

After Parker's death he was elected ArchMuch like a Waggon Wheel ;

bishop of Canterbury in January, 1575. The 'Twas bigger by half, which made me laugh

book would therefore probably be issued Just like a Garden Knot. When the sun shone bright, it was as right early in the period 1570-5, and, from the As our Parson's Clock.

sympathies both of Grindal and Foxe, would, XIV.

it may be expected, be a Puritan compilation. And many more fine things we see

I have failed to identify it. That was almost as strange,

WILLIAM E. A. Axon. As when the sun should set and rise,

Manchester.
And when the moon should change.
I did not like to stand so near

“To Ply.” — What is the etymology of When all these things I heard,

For I thought in my heart it was the black art, the verb to ply”-I mean the verb And I was a little afeard.

“to ply” when used for “to practise, XV.

to practise diligently, to use diligently, to The sun being low, then we begun

do repeatedly," as when we speak of To think of going home;

plying a task,”.“ plying the needle," or of But one thing more we had to see

a steamer plying between Harwich and Before we went out of Town. We went apace, for being in haste

Antwerp”? The dictionaries usually identify For fear of being benighted;

this word with the Fr. plier, “to fold, to The hugest men stood strutting within, bend,” Lat. plicare, “to fold.” But there are So Nell and I were frighted.

difficulties in the way of this derivation, for

the French word is nowhere to be found in Nell had colour as red as a rose,

the sense of “to practise," and its meanings And dare not go any further.

“to fold, to bend,” are difficult to connect They had bloody Weapons in their hands,

with the aforementioned senses of the EngAnd ready were for Murder. So we went back and took our Meer,

lish "ply." I think there are grounds for And away canje trotting home,

maintaining with Dr. Johnson that this With news enough to tell Father and Mother verb ply, "to practise,” is not of Romanic And little Sister Joan.

but of Germanic origin. There is no H.

doubt that there did once exist in North

German dialects a verb identical in form PREFACE BY FOXE THE MARTYROLOGIST.In the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum practise," a verb distinct in origin from Fr.

with ply, and used in the serise of " to there is a draft in the handwriting of Jobŋ plier. I have been reading lately. Roinaert,' Foxe, author of the 'Acts and Monuments,' | the famous beast-epic written by the Flemish of a preface to some book then in the press. poet Willems in the thirteenth century. This brief document reads :-

In this poem there constantly occurs the brother co'piler hereof, and yo worthynes of yo glossed by the German editor, E. Martin, by

Although yo studious mynd of thys godly verb plien interchanged with pleghen, and work, hauyng in yt matter enough to com'ende yt selfe, hath no neede of any furtherance of other

* pflegen, üben.” So this Low German plien com'endation, espeacially beyng assigned and suf- is closely connected in form with G. pflegen, rficiently authorised by thapprobation of Ryght reverend in God, yo L Archbisshop now of Yorke, * Alternative reading, not deleted, “labour not bisshop then of London, Yet notwithstandyng amysse bestowed." beyng 80 requested both by yo author and yo prynter † Alternative reading, not deleted, "ych stand in ..also hereof to adjoyne herunto a few wordes by nead of lerned."

XVI.

a

names

an

and is identical therewith in meaning. The the somewhat disconcerting inference of the same word occurs in Old English in the forms essayist. Besides, an unconscious utterance: plēon, plīon (in third per. sing. plīhd, plī8); of any description should not be accorded see Sievers's 'A.-S._Grammar (ed. 1898), literary value.

THOMAS BAYNE. Index. But the 0.E. word seems to have become obsolete, and our "ply" in the sense

M. - This abbreviation for Monsieur is. of " to practise " is probably an importation practically, always placed by English

“ from the Low Countries. It seems to be

scribes before the

of foreigners comparatively late word in English.

of any nationality. Although in keep

A. L. MAYHEW. ing with European names, it has THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.'—Every one

incongruous appearance before those of

Orientals. This is doubtless due to the knows, at least through copies and engravings, some little of what this famous picture civilized intercourse, besides the subtle re.

position of French as a world-wide means of of Holunan Hunt's is like, and from an artistic luctance to write Mr., which does not sound and, I suppose, symbolical standpoint also, dignified, and is confined in addressing it is deservedly a world's picture;, but how envelopes to those of lower middle - class came it to be The Light of the World.?? . My rank, while the good word master is left to impression is that the artist labelled it “Be- the son of the house.* (Apropos, I can hold, I stand at the door and knock"; but I remember youthful perplexity over M. Tullius have seen recently

. (I think in The Times) Cicero.) some letters referring to a duplicate lately painted, and, unless my memory deceives me,

M. de -- is bestowed upon foreigners by

some French writers - e.g., M. de Bismark, calling it by this other name. Has it been

M. de Moltke; but in these cases de propointed out that such a name is quite bably represents von.

It is well known that inapplicable? If the light illuminating the Russians often affect de before their transpicture were from the halo, and the idea in the literated names to imply noble origin. picture was John i. 4, 5, the name would be

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. all right; but to call a figure standing in a Streatham Common. darkness neither it nor its halo illumines, and with a lantern from which the light pro- "THE LIGHTS OF LONDON." - The recent ceeds, The Light of the World,' seems to be references at 10th S. iii. 428, 476, to the wellworse than an absurdity, for it directly mis- known play "The Lights o' London,' proleads from the real idea. I find nothing in duced by the late Mr. Wilson Barrett at the ‘N. & Q.’ touching on this, and the picture is Princess's Theatre, Oxford Street, in the so beautiful that I think this note on it may early autumn of 1881, suggest an inquiry as not be out of place there.

LUCIS.

to when the phrase was first used. On this “ROBERT BURNS'S LAST WORDS."—Writing Gazette of 14 April, 1887, which, I think,

head a note appeared in The St. James's on Sentence of Death' in the little volume deserves reprinting of thoughtful essays which he entitles “The Sensitive, and other Pieces,' Mr. Manning

“It is always interesting to trace the genesis of Foster has this passage :

a popular phrase ; and one of the reminiscences

narrated in the autobiographical sketch Sir John " It is a great thing to know how to die at the Millais this week presented to a Sheffield audience right time. Napoleon, for instance, should, of forms part of the history of one of them. The course, have finished at Waterloo, instead of artist told how, when a child, he was conveyed by dragging out an ineffectual existence at St. Helena, coach from Southampton to London; and that, as while one can hardly bear to think that the last the metropolis was approached, he observed a great days of Walter Scott should have been passed in a red glow in the sky which was new to him, and he sordid struggle to satisfy his harpy creditors, or asked his mother what it was. My, boy,' she that Robert Burns's last words should have been a replied, 'those are the Lights of London.' The curse on a dunning tailor.”

exact date of this occurrence was not mentioned ; This is a somewhat lurid version of the but, as Sir John was born in 1829, it may be conreport given by the poet's son of his

cluded, from other circumstances mentioned in the

speech, that it was in 1837 or 1838 that the coach.. father's supreme moments. For some time ride was undertaken and the particular expression before the end the sufferer, it would appear, used. It would, therefore, be interesting to know was in a state of delirium, and “his last whether Mrs. Millais had been reading.

Oliver expression,” says young Robert, who was in Twist, which was in course of publication in Bentthe mourning group at the bedside,

ley's Magazine during those years; for it was after muttered reference to the threatening letter passing through Highgate Archway on their tramp he had received from the clothier's law- * In Bohemian mistr is the title of those who agent." There is nothing in this to warrant have passed M.A.-e.g., Mistr Jav Hus.

along the Great North Road that Noah Claypole In the minute account which the tract, “ by replied to his sweetheart's question, 'Is it much G. H., an Eye-witnesse,” gives of the exefurther with Look there ! those are the Lights cution, is a dialogue between Bushell and of London.' Mr. Sims revived the phrase, with an unmeaning alteration, in the title of his play The the headsman, in which this occurs (p. 5): Lights o' London' at the Princess's, nearly six years "Is this the Block and Ax which my late ago; and it now, therefore, has some part in the Royal Master received the fatal blow from? history of three forms of art—the literary, the yes Sir, these are the same."

The account dramatic, and the pictorial.”

further states that Bushell produced a “ Rod But the idea goes back farther than is thus Scarf," measuring five yards by three, which traced, for Byron, in the eleventh canto of was laid upon and “covered the Block and - Don Juan,' stanzas xxvi.-xxviii., waxed all the Sawdust," and became, by Bushell's almost ecstatic over the lights of London, gift, the property of the headsman. in the lines beginning :

V. H. I. L. I. C. I. V. The line of lights, too, up to Charing Cross,

Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscation,
Like gold as in comparison to dross,

Queries.
Match'd with the Continent's illumination.
ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

WE must request correspondents desiring in.

formation on family matters of only private interest [See post, p. 50.]

to affix their nanies and addresses to their queries, DUPLICATE WILL REGISTERS.—During the in order that answers may be sent to them direct. Vacation, when Somerset House is closed to literary men, it may save some of my fellow- SIR T. WILKINSON.-Of the many Governgenealogists a long wait if they know that a ment officers who have served in the Chota register belonging to the Commissary Court Nagpur country, the name of one, Capt. T. of London, covering the years 1792–4, is in Wilkinson (locally known as Olkissen Saheb), the Public Record Office, where for the same is remembered by the people to this day. period is a register of the Consistory Court Capt. T. Wilkinson came to Chota Nagpur of London. The official references are Trea- as Political Agent in 1832, and subsequently sury, Miscel. Various, 181 and 182.

was made Agent to the Governor-General for GERALD FOTHERGILL. the South-West Frontier Agency, which in11, Brussels Road, New Wandsworth.

cluded Chota Nagpur. In 1839 Capt. (then ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND WHATELY.-I have

Major, I think) Wilkinson was transferred to somewhere read that the great American

Burra Nagpur, and for several years filled President, when a deputation during the the post of Resident at the Court of the local Civil War ventured on the remark, We

chief. Subsequently he was knighted. trust, sir, that God is on our side," replied, such exists) to hang up in the Court Room

I want to procure a copy of his portrait (if It is more important to know that we are of the Commissioner at Ranchi. I have failed on God's side.” This seems to have been (and to trace any portrait in India, though I have the parallel is striking) an unconscious replica of. Whately's well-known saying, "It been informed that one exists, and therefore is one thing to wish to have truth on our be so good as to help me to ascertain whether

I venture to write and ask you if you would side, and another thing to wish to be on the side of truth.”

J. B. MCGOVERN.

any portrait of Sir T. Wilkinson exists in the

British Isles. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

F. A. SLACKE,

Commr. C. N. Div. CHARLES I.'s EXECUTION.—I do not know Ranchi, Chota Nagpur, India. whether attention has been called to the

ADOLPHE BELOT.-I shall feel obliged if bearing of the tract named below on the controversy respecting the mode of deca- any reader can furnish me with the names,

if possible in both languages, of any novels pitation of Charles I. Brown Bushell was executed on Tower Hill, by beheading, on

(not plays) by this writer which have been Saturday last, being the 29 of March, 1651." translated from French into English.

JAS. PLATT, Jun. This works out correctly. The ‘Dict. Nat. Biog.' makes it 29 April, which was Tuesday. MUSIC t. LOUIS XIV.-Le 20 juin, 1853, il "The British Museum copy (1132 a. 48; an. s'est vendu chez Wilkinson cinq volumes de other copy K. 1 a. 8*) of The Speech And musique, reliés en maroquin bleu aux armes Confession of Capt. Brown-Bushel,' &c., 1651, de Louis XIV., intitulés 'Festivitatum Omquarto, has a woodcut on the title-page re- nium quo in sacello Regis Christianissimi presenting him as stretched at full length, celebrantur Libri V.,' recueillis par Philidor his head projecting beyond a very low block. l'aîné l'an 1691. Ils furent achetés par Durand.

66

a

He may,

Mr. Hodge n'a pu me dire quel était ce IZARD.-Ralph Izard, son of Ralph Izard, Durand, et m'adresse à vous. Je serais très of Charlestown, South Carolina, was admitted désireux de savoir ce que sont devenus ces to Westminster School 17 September, 1764, volumes, et je voudrais trouver quelqu'un and to Trinity College, Cambridge, as qui fit des recherches à mon compte afin fellow commoner, 28 May, 1770. Walter Izard de les retrouver. Pouvez-vous m'aider en was admitted to Westminster School 15 Sepcela ?

J. ECURCHEVILLE. tember, 1766. Can American or other correParis, 2, Rue Jean Bologne.

spondents of `N. & Q.’ give me any details CHAUCER AND THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES

of the careers of these Izards?

G. F. R. B. ABOUT 1590.-I should be much obliged if any of your readers could give me informa- EDWARD AND ELLEN.'—Who wrote 'Edward tion which would enable me to trace the two and Ellen, a Tale, and other Poens'? Dedifollowing allusions. In the letter of Francis cated by permission to H.R.H. the Princess Beaumont (the judge, father of the dramatist) Charlotte of Saxe-Cobourg. Published by "to his very loving friend” Thomas Speght, Walker & Edwards, London, 1817. which is prefixed to the latter's edition (1598)

F. JESSEL. of Chaucer's works, occur the following words :

JENNINGS OF SODDYLT HALL. I wish to

find the pedigree of John Jenninge, who And here I cannot forget to remember unto you lived with Jane his wife, about 1690, at those auncient learned men of our time in Cám. Soddylt Hall

, Duddleston, Ellesmere, Salop. bridge, whose diligence in reading of his workes themselves, and commending them to others of the

(Miss) SARAH WALTON. younger sorte, did first bring you and mee in love

34, Strand Street, Liverpool. with him; and one of them at that time was and now is (as you knowe) one of the rarest schollers of GASTRELL AND SHAKESPEARE'S HOME. the worlde. The same may bee saide of that worthy Who was the Rev. Francis Gastrell, known man for learning, your good friend in Oxford, who with many other of like excellent iudgement have

as the Shakespeare iconoclast? ever had Chaucer in most

high reputation.... From perhaps, be numbered among the remarkable Leicester the last of lune......1597."-Sign. a is. % omissions of the 'D.N.B. and a v.

Owing to friction with the Stratford CorIn the edition (1602) of Chaucer's works poration, he demolished in 1759 what was (sign. a vj.) the words are slightly different : erroneously thought to be Shakespeare's last

"And one of them at that time, and all his life dwelling-house, but in reality the house built after, was (as you know) one of the rarest nen for by Sir John Clopton in 1700 upon the site of learning in the whole world.”

the real homestead of the poet. Gastrell The latter reading seems to suggest that thus unwittingly revealed remains of the the scholar referred to was then dead. Beau- earlier and more sacred erection which Sir mont himself died in 1598, so the alteration John Clopton had ruthlessly destroyed. Ann was probably made before that date. Both Skrimshire, sole heiress of Sir Hugh Clopton, he and Speght were at Peterhouse between conveyed in May, 1756, the property, New 1564 and 1570-Beaumont as a fellow.com. Place, to Gastrell, who is said to have been moner of his college in 1564, Speght as a sizar a Cheshire rector. Possibly he was a son of in 1566. The Cambridge scholar might mean Dr. Francis Gastrell, Bishop of Chester, Archbishop Whitgift, at that time a rising author of 'The Christian Institutes,' who

WM. JAGGARD. man in the university, or possibly William died in 1725. Whitaker, though he must have been rather young to be a scholar in the sixties. I have There is a common impression that General

ENGLISH ANCESTRY OF GENERAL GRANT.no idea who “your good friend in Oxford” U. S. Grant was of Scotch descent, but he may have been.

EVELYN Fox.

himself gave no countenance to this belief. * THE LOVERS,' 1683.-I should be pleased

In his Personal Memoirs' he states his if

you could supply me, through ‘N. & Q.,' descent in the eighth generation from with any particulars respecting

Matthew Grant, one of a band of 140 "The Lovers Fortunate, Deceived, Unfortunate. Puritans who emigrated from Dorsetshire Illustrated with Figures. London: Printed for in 1630, and founded the town of Dorchester William Cademan at the Popes head in the lower in Massachusetts. This Paritan movement walk of the new Exchange in the strand, 1683." was inspired and organized by the Rev. John I have searched the indexes at our Public White (1575–1648), who was rector of Holy Library, but cannot find it mentioned in any Trinity Church, "Dorchester, England, for of them.

J. P. MICKLEBURGH. forty years, and became known as the Norwich

patriarch of Dorchester.” He advocated