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it. The Century' vaguely guesses the word to be "African." Yet there are plenty of dictionaries which would have decided its origin. I turn to the Dictionary of the Amharic Language,' by the Rev. C. W. Isenberg (London, 1841, p. 157), and I find that zebra is Ethiopian, Amharic being, I need hardly say, the court and official language of Abyssinia. Isenberg prints it in Ethiopic characters, which cannot be reproduced here. The transliteration is zěběra. The short e's, corresponding to the Hebrew sheva, are practically silent in pronunciation, and the stress should be upon the last syllable.

JAMES PLATT, Jun.

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[See 1st S. x. 448; 6th S. ii. 386; 7th S. xii. 442, 493; 8th S. i. 197, 238. See also under Wroth Money."]

of this gruesome story may be found in EDGAR A. POE'S 'HOP-FROG.'-The original Barckley's 'Felicitie of Man,' 1631, pp. 63-4, and may, no doubt, be traced further back:

"The French King Charles the Sixth, his mind A PASTILLE-BURNER.-We have a china being distempered, committed the governement ornament, that has been in existence upwards of his Realmie to others, and gave himselfe to of sixty years, in the form of a cottage, four nized in his Court, where the King was disposed to pastimes: there chanced a marriage to bee solemby five by three inches, and that, in spite make himselfe and others merrie, he put off all his of its preposterous floral embellishment, in-apparell, and disguised his face like a Lion, annointdicates a purpose in its construction. The base is recessed, and pierced, as it were through the floor, in four places. At the sides and back of this base there are three inlets, measuring three-quarters of an inch each, apparently for air. The doorway at the back is ample and unobstructed by a door. There are six window-spaces at the front, also open; and the flues of the two chimneys connect with the interior. This is doubtless one of the old pastille-burners, the pastilles being placed in the chimneys, and obtaining by means of these various contrivances sufficient air for their free combustion.

ARTHUR MAYALL.

HENRY CAVENDISH.-The notice in the 'Encycl. Brit.' of this celebrated chemist states that he was educated at Newcombe's school at Hackney. This seems to have been a notable seminary in the middle of last century. It would be interesting to glean some facts about its exact site, &c., and respecting any scholars who were contemporaries of Cavendish, and made their mark in science, letters, or arms. M. L. BRESLAR.

“WROTH SILVER."-The following, from the Liverpool Echo for 13 November, 1899, may be of interest :

"At sunrise on Saturday morning the ancient custom of collecting wroth silver' on the Duke of Buccleuch's Warwickshire estate was observed at Knightlow Hill, a short distance from Rugby The duke has rights over the common lands in a number of parishes, and he therefore claims to take dues from those parishes. One group is called upon to pay ld. each, another lot 1d., and so on to 28. 3d. A large number of people go out at sunrise and follow the Buccleuch agent into a field where stands the cross at which tribute is paid. As a rule the money is forthcoming, not from the official coffers

ing his body with pitch, and fastned flaxe so artificially to it, that he represented a monster, thus attired, and five others as wise as himselfe, rough, and covered with haire. When he was they came into the chamber among the Lords and Ladies, dauncing and singing in a strange tune, all the Court beholding them. The Duke of Orleance, whether that hee might better see, or for some and held it so neare the King, that a spark falling other toy, snatched a torch out of a mans hand, upon him set them all on a flaming fire; two of the five companions were miserably burnt in the place, crying and howling most pitifully without any remedie; other two dyed in great torment two where was water and wine, to wash himselfe, was daies after; the fifth running speedily into a place saved; the King having more helpe than the rest, before the flame had compassed his body round and gowne about him, and quenched the fire." about, was saved by a Lady that cast her traine RICHARD H. THORNTON.

Portland, Oregon.

"WOUND" FOR "WINDED."-It is rather to be regretted that in the 'H.E.D.' under Horn, Scott's line ('Lady of the Lake,' I. xvii.)

But scarce again his horn he wound should be quoted without comment. It would instance of a false past tense. have been more in place under "wind," as an C. C. B.

THE PRINCE OF WALES CORNWALL. (See 7th S. xii. 362.)—I would AS DUKE OF supplement this note-which illustrated the fact that for nearly the first month of his life the present heir-apparent bore only the title of Duke of Cornwall, to which he had the right by birth, and that it was not until 4 December, 1841, he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester-by a reference to the phrase used by Henry VI. in 1455 in reference to his unfortunate son Edward,

and to be found in the Rolls of Parliament jacket, and so an appropriate Kinnui (vernacular (vol. v. p. 293), "His best belovyd first form) of Jacob." begotten sonne, tyme of his birth is Duke of Readers of Jewish history are familiar with Cornewayle." It is separately entered that such curious forms as Rambam, Rashbam, the King, "by his Letters Patentes under his and Rashi, which respectively stand for grete Seall, hath creat Edward his moost Rabbi Maimun ben Maimun (Maimonides), entierly belovyd firstbegottyn sonne and Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, and Rabbi Solomon heir apparaunt, Prince of Wales, and Erle ben Isaac. Borrow, in his celebrated eulogy of the Counte Palatyne of Chestre" (ibid., on prizefighting ('Lavengro,' ch. xxvi.), says, p. 290). The birth had taken place on "The Jews may have Rambams in plenty, 13 October, 1453; the creation here noted but never a Fielding nor a Shakespeare. on 15 March, 1454. ALFRED F. ROBBINS. The ordinary Hebrew names Berachyah, A PASQUIL. Isaiah, Eleazar, are converted into Benedict, rare and curious Deulesalt, and Deusaie (or Deus adjuvet), and From a pamphlet in Latin and Italian of the fifteenth so forth; and the common form Hyams is century which I have before me, it appears vulgarized Hebrew for Chaim (life), also that pasquils or pasquinades were not always found in the forms Vives, Vivard, Vivelot, synonymous with lampoons or libels, but &c. The same may be said of other common might be applied to any written or printed Jewish names, as Myers, Bear, Ursel, and so news and report of exciting interest. They forth. Some Jews cast off their Hebrew were probably at first stuck upon pillars (ep. patronymics altogether, and, if I remember the columna of Horace's 'Ars Poetica') at Rome, and afterwards in other large cities of had extensive premises in Aldgate, when he rightly, the well-known clothier Moses, who Italy, where the public could read them. retired from business and occupied a WestNow the pasquinade, which is not mentioned End mansion, called himself Beddington, in Brunet'sManuel' (where nine earlier and under that name left a large fortune. pieces of a similar character, printed 1512- I suppose "Barney Barnato" 1526 in Rome, are described), and may Kinnui. But it seems that the Jews not deserve a brief record, bears the title 'Carmina apposita ad Pasquillum in personam business, but as only confuse their names while alert in a last resource, to cheat Victorie [sic] MDXXXIII.' It is a pamphlet of 12mo. size, without place and date, but most Jacobs tells us that "it is a Jewish custom Azrael, change them when dying, for Mr. probably printed at Rome in 1533, the year to change a man's name when in articulo after the eventful victory to which its title mortis, in the hope that the Angel of Death refers, comprising twenty-four pages. The title-page is adorned with the large woodcut name." Surely a very strange superstition. will not recognize him under the altered figure of a woman, and the text with four woodcut medals representing the goddess Victoria. The Latin text is followed by four pages of Italian Pasquini,' and the whole work concludes with a curious Latin song of six lines in hexameters, each word of which begins with the letter p. Considering its subject, this pasquil is evidently not satirical, subject, this pasquil is evidently not satirical, but really an historical poem or hymn, which purposed to glorify the famous victory gained by the Emperor Charles V.'s captain Sebastian Schertlin over the Turks near Vienna on 19 September, A.D. 1532, when the Papal see was held by the Roman Pontiff Clemens VII., who reigned 1523-34. H. KREBS. Oxford.

KINNUI: JEWISH EKE-NAMES. In Mr. Joseph Jacobs's 'Jews of Angevin England' (1893, p. 370), in a dissertation on old AngloJewish names, it is stated that

"English is indeed conspicuous by its absence in the list, except for Alfild, among the ladies, and Jurnet (Jornet), among the men, if the latter be, as has been suggested, derived from jornet, a jerkin or

Norwich.

was

pure

JAMES HOOPER.

"WAITS" AND "GAITAS."-Talking a few days ago in Berlin to Don Pedro de Muxica, Professor of Castilian in the Oriental Seminary there, about the false etymologies and absence of etymologies which he criticizes so justly in the Dictionary' of the Royal Academy at Madrid, I suggested that gaita, the name of a kind of bagpipes used in some parts of Spain, might be of Keltic origin, from a word meaning wind, as it is eminently a wind instrument. Gustav Korting, in his 'Lateinisch-Romanisches Wörterbuch' (Paderborn, 1891), explains the word as little as the Castilian Academy. The choice of an etymon seems to confine itself to the tribe to which English gay, Basque jai, Manx gaih ('A Dictionary of the Manks Language,' by A. Cregeen, Douglas, 1835), belong, or to the wind-words represented by Manx geay, gheay. Prof. Muxica, however, is inclined to connect it with English waits. In discussing this

word Prof. W. W. Skeat makes no allusion favourite haunt - -a potter's workshop, under the form of some earthen vessel. Thus the epitaph Catharine Gray to abate their grief, since after a above mentioned advises the weeping friends of run of years,'

to the Iberian instrument. But Spanish gaiteros wear gaiters, and are waiters upon those who like gay music upon festive occasions, no less than those ale-knights who wind up their notes before English homes at Yuletide. PALAMEDES.

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In some tall pitcher, or broad pan,

She in her shop may be again.'

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Moss Side, Manchester.

"BYRE."--To enable them to appreciate the humour of the subjoined cutting from the Aberdeen Evening Express some readers may need to be informed, as the Poet Laureate evidently does, that in Scotland the "byre" is the cow-house :

In a note Sir William refers to the "158 Partridge, the ALMANAC-MAKER.--In the but also referring to 9, 66, 68, 79, 89, 103, 138, Rebáayát," mentioning particularly No. 111, accounts of John Partridge, the almanac- and 146. These precise references will serve maker, and George Parker, the astrologer, to show that Sir William Ouseley had an given in the Dictionary of National Bio-intimate acquaintance with the verses of graphy' (vol. xliii. pp. 428 and 234), their Omar. pamphlet warfare of 1697-9 is noted; but there is no reference to a legal action of 1700 which ensued upon it. Record of the commencement of this is to be found in the Post Boy of 7 May, 1700, in the following paragraph: "This Week commences a Tryal at Guild-Hall, between Partridge, the Almanack-maker, and Parker, the Astrologer; the first is Plaintiff: He brings an Action of a 1000l. against the other, for Printing in his Ephemeris this Year, That He's a Rebel in his Principles; An Enemy to Monarchy: Ungrateful to his Friend; A Scoundrel in his Conversation; A Malignant in his Writings; A Lyer in his Almanack; And a Fool of an Astrologer. Tho' they are great Men in the way of Predictions, they can't tell how the Cause will go. We hear the polite Gipsies, alias Judicial Fortune-tellers, lay great Wagers on both sides."

But there is no mention of the result of the trial in such immediately succeeding issues as I have been able to search.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

OMAR KHAYYAM.-A place must be found for Sir William Ouseley in the list of the students of Omar Khayyam who preceded Edward FitzGerald. In some 'Observations on some Extraordinary Anecdotes concerning Alexander; and on the Eastern Origin of Several Fictions popular in Different Languages of Europe, which was read before the Royal Society of Literature, 15 Nov., 1826, and is printed in the Transactions (vol. i. part ii. pp. 5-23), Ouseley very judiciously

says:

"Alfred Austin, the Poet Laureate, has made several contributions to the literature of the war, To Arms!' being his latest effort to represent the position of the nation. In Scotland, however, Mr. Austin's verses will provoke smiles rather than admiration, for he has credited Scotland with a small share of Britain's glory. He tells us that

From English hamlet, Irish hill,
Welsh hearths, and Scottish byres,
They throng to show that they are still
Sons worthy of their sires.

The poetic licence is great, but it does not cover
slander. Sons of sires that pass from Scottish byres
are, Mr. Austin may be informed, found oftener in
English cattle showyards than on foreign battle-
fields, although in both cases the sons usually return
covered with honours."

R. M. SPENCE.

ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, BASSISHAW.-AS some one is certain sooner or later to inquire for the date of the demolition of this ancient church, the following cutting from a local paper of Saturday, 9 Dec., 1899, might usefully be transferred to the pages of 'N. & Q.':

"St. Michael's Church, Bassishaw, near the Guildhall, was put up for auction on Tuesday, the "It is not, however, my opinion that every coin- sale being conducted in the building itself. It is cidence of this kind must be pronounced an imita- about to be demolished under the Union of Benetion of some Eastern prototype; the resemblance fices Act, after a history that dates back to 1140. between parallel passages (of which different lan-Four churches have stood upon the site, the present guages furnish a multiplicity) must be, in several instances, regarded as merely accidental, notwithstanding a conformity both in sentiments and expressions."

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He enforces this caution by the following example :

"I cannot for a moment suspect that the wellknown epitaph on a celebrated vendor of earthenware at Chester was borrowed from a Persian tetrastich, composed in the twelfth century by Omar Khayám, who calls for wine that he may banish care, expecting to be once more in his

one, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, being the
successor of the one destroyed by the Great Fire.
The building has no claim to architectural beauty.
There were few persons present at the unique
auction
gained was 180/. for all the lead covering to the
on Tuesday, and the highest price
steeple, flats, and gutters.' The weather vane was
bought for 2. 15s., and eight ornamental coloured
glass lead lights brought 21. 5s. Other articles were
sold at a ridiculously low figure. Two lots, com-
prising the whole of the brick and stone work of the
church and tower, failed to find a purchaser. The
whole amount of bids accepted just exceeded 2007,"

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WE must request correspondents desiring infornation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

PORTRAIT OF MADAME LAFFITTE AND HER DAUGHTER.I have two life-sized pastels of Madame Laffitte, wife of M. Laffitte, a celebrated banker in Paris during the reign of Louis Philippe, and her daughter, who became the wife of an English gentleman, Mr. Lockwood; and afterwards the wife of a gentleman in the English army named Jenkins or Jenkyns. Can any one give me the artist's name or any other information? The first named is a three-quarter figure, and the last a little girl, whole figure, with large hat. A. W. HANCOCK.

The Limes, Magdala Road, Nottingham.

CORRESPONDENCE OF ENGLISH AMBASSADORS TO FRANCE.-What correspondence has been published by English Ambassadors to the Court of France from 1620 to 1648, and what were the names of such?

G. J. LE TEXIER. 188bis, Boulevard Pereire, Paris.

ON A PINCUSHION.'-I wish to know the publisher of a child's book called 'On a Pincushion,' consisting of five or six separate stories, one entitled 'Jacky through the Fire.' I bought it twenty years ago; it was supposed to have been written by Miss De Morgan, but published anonymously. DORA LLOYD. The Coppice, Hindhead, Haslemere.

GENERAL LAMBERT IN GUERNSEY.-I have often endeavoured to learn something of the later life of this great Parliamentary leader in the Civil War, who was exiled to Guernsey, and it is said died there, broken in mind and spirit, in 1683. But I have seen it stated that he died at Plymouth. Is the place of his interment known; or is it known where in Guernsey he lived? H. S. [Mr. C. H. Firth, an admirably competent authority, in his life of Lambert in the Dict. Nat. Biog.,' says that General Lambert died a

prisoner in the winter of 1683. The context seems to imply that it was in the Island of St. Nicholas, in Plymouth Sound. From N. & Q.,' 1st S. iv. 339-40, it is evident that he died there after being imprisoned there from fifteen to sixteen years. What is said at this reference merits your close attention. Other interesting references to Lambert are traceable in the Indexes to 'N. & Q.']

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"THE DUKES."--Stablemen, &c., refer to the itch in horses as the dukes." A dukey horse" means a horse suffering from itch. What is the origin of this word? The itch affects the hands, or "the dukes," hence the name. This is the only explanation I can invent, but it is far-fetched and probably erroneous. Perhaps some of your readers can help me. Dictionaries do not give it, and I know of no word in French, German, &c., which would afford a clue.

GEORGE PERNET.

'METHODIST PLEA TO A CHURCHMAN; or, the servant's reply to his master on deriding him for being become a Methodist.'-The above is the title of a poem sixty-five lines long, of which I possess a written version. The opening lines are:

Master I beg you pardon while I speak
That I with you such liberty should take
But thinks the subject your about to hear
Will please if you will please to lend an ear.
The concluding lines are:-

He strives to sooth himself but strives in vain Till God to him the mistry explain He sees and feels the deadly strokes of sin Nor can ougt ease the grief that he is in Until he hears the cheering still small voice That quits his fears and bids his soul rejoice. I have not altered the spelling of the original or placed stops, as in the copy there are none. The time the poem was written is about 1822.. I should be glad of any information referring to the above.

GEO. D. HARBRON.

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AUTHOR WANTED.-Who wrote "The Home Life of English Ladies in the Seventeenth Century. By the author of 'Magdalen Stafford.' London, Bell & Daldy, 1860," 12mo.? The same author wrote also 'The C. W. S. Romance and its Hero.'

MOSELEY HALL.-Will any one kindly tell me who now owns or lives at Moseley Hall, the property of the Whitbreads? I am very E. A. STRONG. anxious to know. Windermere Bank, Bowness-on-Windermere.

"REMOTE."-Among the records of Quakerism in Wiltshire which I am contributing to the Wilts Notes and Queries appears the birth of Remote Edwards, 1678/9, at Brinkworth. Is Remote a male or female name? Are other instances of its use known?

Tottenham.

NORMAN PENNEY.

assist me to a definite certainty in the matter? Dr. Brewer and Halkett and Laing give Wm. Combe. J. P. MORICE.

STOP-PRESS EDITIONS.-What are the earliest "stop-press" editions of our newspapers ? And are there any allusions to them in our literature? ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

118, Pall Mall, S. W.

J. M. BULLOCH.

"THOMAS TOMKINSON, GENT."-There was MARYLEBONE CHURCHYARD PUBLIC VAULT. printed in London in the year 1729 a volume-Can anybody tell me whether the record entitled "A System of Religion, Treating of of the interments here has been preserved ; the following Heads......Faithfully collected and, if so, where? from a curious Manuscript, found among the Papers of Tho. Tomkinson, Gent." Can any fellow-reader give me information about Thomas Tomkinson? CHARLES HIGHAM. 169, Grove Lane, London, S. E.

[All the information obtainable or desirable concerning this Muggletonian writer is to be found under his name in the Dict. Nat. Biog.' It is difficult to understand the ignorance concerning this monumental work, or the reluctance to consult it, which generally prevails.]

LIEUT. JAMES.-Information wanted of the family of this officer, who served on board the Vanguard at the battle of the Nile. He was uncle to one Frances Boniface, born 1791, in or near Yapton, Sussex, and member of a very old family of that name in the county.

F.S.A.

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ST. EANSWYTH. (See 9th S. iv. 461.)-Will MR. HEMS be so kind as to give a short account of the discovery by him, in 1885, of the relics of this saint? The bare statement of fact at the above reference whets one's appetite considerably for more particulars. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire. WAGNER'S MEISTERSINGER.' Can any musician inform me what was the cast of Wagner's Meistersinger' as played at Bayreuth in the year 1888? Did Wiegand sing, and in what character? JAS. PLATT, Jun.

DR. SYNTAX.-Is there any doubt that Wm. Combe wrote Dr. Syntax'? In a magazine article (which I unfortunately cannot find again) I lately saw the author given as "Sheriff" or "Shireff." Can you

TOAD MUGS.--Will any reader kindly tell me the origin and places of manufacture of the curious beer mugs with small figures of a toad or toads affixed within, and appearing as if climbing up the sides of the mug? The toads are usually hollow, and are of the trick order, placed so as to spurt out the liquid in the bottom of the cup on the unwary drinker. Do these mugs mark any particular local events? or were they made for any special occasions, or were merely freaks of cup and pot makers?

W. H.

there was a sale of some of the pictures from SIDNEY, YOUNG, AND BROWNLOW.-In 1764 Penshurst. Horace Walpole writes to George Montagu on 10 May, 1764 (Cunningham's ed., vol. iv. p. 233), respecting some purchases made at the sale on Montagu's account, and adds: "The picture of Lord Romney, which you are so fond of, was not in this sale, but I suppose remains with Lady Sidney......In general the pictures did not go high, which I was glad of; that the vulture who sells them may not be more enriched than could be helped." Who is the Lady Sidney mentioned above? As regards the "vulture," Cunningham, in a note, states that this was Lady Yonge, "who inherited half of Penshurst by the will of Lady Brownlow." How were these ladies connected with the Sidney family? H. T. B.

HOGARTH'S 'SIGISMUNDA.'-I shall be glad to know the whereabouts of this painting. A. COLLINGWOOD LEE.

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