Brus or the daughter of the Duke of Brabant (who had also been offered to him), which for the reasons already given would be much against our interest; or lest he should marry the sister of the King of Scotland, which would be still more dangerous for us, as Scotland is so much nearer to Ireland and to the Marshal's domains.

Considering, therefore, the valour and power of the Marshal, and the faithful service he has wrought in Wales, where he wrested from the hands of Llewellyn Prince of North Wales our castles, which but for him had been lost to us; and also considering the example of Philip sometime King of France, who married his daughters, sisters, and nieces to the Count of Lemur and the Count of Ponthieu and others of his subjects, just as the present King of France lately married his niece, the daughter, to wit, of Guiscard de Beaujeu, to the Count of Champagne. Considering the premises and the great things which are expected from the Marshal, it occurred to us and our council, after weighing all the circumstances, that we could not marry our sister in any other quarter so much to our profit and honour: we have therefore by their counsel, after careful deliberation, given to the Marshal our younger sister to wife without any loss of land, castles, or money."

The Princess Eleanor afterwards married Simon de Montfort, but they were married in secret under doubtful circumstances, and Simon was a Frenchman, brother to the Constable of France, and only English through his grandmother, the coheiress of the earldom of Leicester. The second marriage is that of Joan, daughter of Edward I., in 1290, to Gilbert de Clare, in whom the earldom of Hertford was united with the semi-royal honour of Gloucester and with the Irish principality of Strongbow, and who is called by Matthew of Westminster "the most powerful man in the kingdom next to the King." The Earl was compelled as a condition of his marriage to surrender into the King's hands the whole of his vast possessions in England, Wales, and Ireland, and the King took formal possession of them. They were then regranted to the Earl and the Princess Joan, and their heirs, with the reversion to the princess, to the exclusion of the family of Clare.

The third marriage is that of Elizabeth, eighth daughter of Edward I., in 1302, to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, and High Constable of England, who submitted to the same conditions as Earl Gilbert; for he resigned to the King his nine castles and forty-nine manors, and his hereditary office of Constable, and accepted a regrant of the same with a proviso of a reversion to the Crown in exclusion of his own kindred.

It will thus be seen that, whatever excellent reasons there may be for the approaching marriage of Princess Louise, such a marriage is in many respects without precedent in English history.

TEWARS.

EARLDOM OF LOUDON: ABEYANCE. The case of the Countess of Loudon affords a complete and satisfactory proof of the difference between the Scotish and English law on the subject of abeyance. Her ladyship's brother, the Marquis of Hastings, was an English, Irish, and Scotish peer. The earldom of Loudon came to him in virtue of a Scotish patent under a destination to heirs. His Irish earldom and English marquisate were to heirs male of the original patentee. His English baronies were held under writs of summons.

Upon his death, November 10, 1868, the Irish earldom and English marquisate lapsed for want of heirs male, and the latter became extinct. The baronies by writ fell in abeyance amongst his four sisters, Lady Edith, Lady Bertha, Lady Victoria, and Lady Francis. But the Scotch earldom, in consequence of the destination to heirs, fell to the eldest sister, according to the law of that country. If the English doctrine of abeyance could have had any operation in Scotland, the Loudon earldom would have fallen in abeyance between the who through a female descent was Earl of Loufour sisters of the deceased Marquis of Hastings, don. But such was not the case. sister became jure sanguinis Countess of Loudon, the honours passing, without any form of service, to her as the next heir. Excepting to prove propinquity, when it is disputed, a service is unnecessary, as it only proves a fact, but has no upon a title of honour. In some cases a service would be a very dangerous affair. For example: if a peer or a baronet die in debt, his next heir incurs no liability, although he takes and uses the honours, these coming to heir, he becomes liable for the debts of his predehim by right of blood; but if he were to serve

effect

cessor.

The eldest

Thus, although the countess succeeded to the earldom enjoyed by her brother, and took the honours of Loudon, she incurred no liability for his immense debts by so doing.

These observations may not be without their value in England, where the rules of succession to dignities in Scotland are not unfrequently misrepresented before tribunals where English lawyers should be better instructed. By the Act of Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, the law of the latter country was to be preserved, which it assuredly would not if the doctrine of abeyance was to be imported into the law of

Scotland.

the very old barony of Hastings, which was given to the descendant of a younger sister, whilst the representation was vested in the ancient family of L'Estrange as heirs of line of an elder sister. J. M.

STRAY NOTELETS ON HERBS AND LEAVES. No. II.

"Whare I killed ane a fair strae-death,

By loss o' blood and want of breath," exclaims Death in Burns's Death and Doctor Hornbook (24th stanza); and I take this "fair straedeath" to be a death of quietness and old age in one's own quiet bed containing or consisting of mostly a straw mattress or straw pallet in poor households. Thus "Martha of bad repute in Goethe's Faust, part 1. Werke in 40 vols., vol. xi. p. 122) exclaims

"Gott verzeih's meinem lieben Mann,
Er hat an mir nicht wohlgethan!
Geht da stracks in die Welt hinein,

Und lässt mich auf dem Stroh allein."

Left her, sweet Gretchen's bad angel, alone on the "strae." And this expression will help Eng

lish readers better to understand a German word

"straw

the meaning of which I have often been asked about: Strohwittwe, i. e. literally a widow" (mock-widow, as the German-English dictionaries give it)-a wife left alone on the "straw" during her husband's temporary absence. It is a most common every-day expression of all classes in Germany, just like the word Strohwittwer, "straw-widower." Thus Baedecker, the German Murray, in his well-known handbook of Germany, speaking of Vegesack, near Bremen,

says:

"It is the head-quarters of many sailors' widows and 'straw-widows' (Strohwittwen), who live here in small houses fitted up cabin-like." [Who does not involuntarily think of dear old Pegotty's home?]-Vide Baedecker's Deutschland, ed. 1858, ii. 51.

During the time of the Fronde (middle of the seventeenth century) all the adherents of the royal princes, and decided antagonists of Cardinal Mazarin (Prime Minister in 1643), wore a small bunch of straw, most probably in remembrance of the Middle Ages, when a broken straw was the sign of the French vassals' renouncing their loyal obedience. Mademoiselle de Montpensier† ap

This is an older barony than the one in the person of the historical Lord Hastings, who was put to death by Richard III., and which honour subsequently merged in the earldom of Huntington.

† Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans (born 1627, died 1693),

Duchesse de Montpensier, better known under the name of Mademoiselle de Montpensier or " Mademoiselle," grande Mademoiselle," in Madame de Sévigné's Lettres. (Vide her well-known letter of December 15, 1670, treating on the first news of "Mademoiselle's " marriage with Lauzun; ed. Grouvelle, Paris, 1806, i. 132-134.)

peared in public with a small bunch of straw tied with ribbons of the colours of the royal princes fastened to her fan. (I owe these facts to my memory, but cannot remember in which Mémoires or Lettres I have seen them stated.)

This

Not many years ago it was still the hereditary custom in Germany that when a young country girl had lost her greatest pride, her honour (Ehre), she was led through her native village in a straw wreath or straw crown-a mockery of the bridal wreath or crown of the vestal myrtle, which by rights only belonged and still belongs to a virginal bride. ("N. & Q." 4th S. May 1.) It was also the custom in Germany formerly to present the bride with a straw wreath the day after the wedding. witty, and often probably very coarse speeches, ceremony was always accompanied by funny, tions). When Frederick the Great of Prussia was celebrating the nuptials of his brother in 1742 this old ceremony was celebrated too, in spite of the French polish of the court (grattez le Russe). That great king had chosen Baron Bielfeld to deliver the speech or oration to the_royal bride. de Bielfeld, 1763, ii. 94.) This took place the (Vide Lettres familières à la Haye. Par le Baron day after the marriage, of course, just when the royal party was going to sit down to supper. A straw wreath, which was adorned with small young cavalier was carrying the prettily arranged images of wax. Twelve cavaliers with wax torches were at the same time marching round the apartment, hinting by gestures that they were looking for what had been lost the night before. Not being able to achieve this, of course they stood still, and Baron Bielfeld stepped forth and began to deliver his Strohkranzrede, which was filled with the most powerful expressions, hints, and allusions, but was nevertheless received with much applause and gusto. The royal bride had to wear the wreath for a short time, after which the royal bridegroom had to do the same.

the so-called Strohkranzreden (straw-wreath ora

Who of us has not put a rose-leaf into a book, and has found it in after years without being able to remember when and why it was put there?

"A withered, lifeless, vacant form,

It lies on my abandoned breast!"* Who of us does not know, too, the charming story of Smindirides the Sybarite, who could not sleep on account of a creased rose-leaf on his couch? worse than Andersen's, dear Andersen's, real princess, who could not rest on account of the pea under her twelve mattresses, and was on that account discovered to be a real and no sham princess? And who does not know the still more charming story of that Eastern sage Abdul-Kadri,

who could not be received as a resident within the walls of Babylon, putting a rose-leaf on the

Shelley.

surface of the brimful vessel which was shown to him as a symbol? Is this, then, the reason why, as a young friend from Smyrna told me, a roseleaf (I am alluding here to the petals of course) there and elsewhere in the East is considered as the symbol of "let me or my love not trouble you"? Who has not heard of Goethe's "Wenn ich dich liebe, was geht's dich an ?" Less known, perhaps, than that pretty "story" is, that the Greek youths took a rose-leaf, and slightly drawing the left-hand together, put it on the opening thus formed; then with their right-hand they gave it a blow to produce a clapping noise. He whose rose-leaf did not "report" was said to be unhappy in love. (Vide Theocritus's Idylls, the third.) And a somewhat similar custom still prevails on the Continent, where a rose-leaf is gathered together in the manner of a small pouch; this has to be cracked with a loud noise either on the forehead or the upper part of the left hand. If it produces a pretty pleasing sound when thus cracked, the person you have in your mind or heart thinks of you; or some say it means the foreboding of a kiss.

Until lately it was always conjectured that the old name of Morea for the Grecian Peloponnesus owed its origin to its fancied resemblance to a mulberry-leaf; but this seems to have been a fanciful delusion of some poetic geographer or delineator of maps. As an emblem, however, the mulberry-leaf was taken by Ludovico Sforza (the hero of Massinger's exquisite gem, The Duke of Milan), who adopted it or a branch of the mulberry-tree as a surname-Moro (Lat. Morus). It is the type of wisdom, prudence, foresight, as the mulberry-tree (Morus, L.) only puts forth its leaves when night frosts have no longer to be feared. Legend, that sweetest deceiver, tells us that the white berries (Morus alba, L.) of the tree were changed into purple ones (Morus nigra, L.) by the blood of Pyramus, a mulberry-tree overshadowing "old Ninny's tomb "

"To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain;
Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast.
And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
His dagger drew and died." *

In that pleasant book, Nares's Glossary, the venerable archdeacon writes under the head of "Rosemary":

"Rosemary was also carried at funerals, probably for its odour, and as a token of remembrance of the deceased; which custom is noticed as late as the time of Gay [ob. 1732] in his Pastoral Dirge. Mentioned also here

*Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act V. Sc. 1.

'Prithee, see they have

A sprig of rosemary, dipp'd in common water,
To smell at as they walk along the streets.'

Cartwright's Ordinary, Act V. Sc. 1. Is this custom of carrying such a sprig of rosemary at funerals still now and then observed in England, and in which counties? I remember a very large Odd-fellows' or Foresters' funeral in the North of Yorkshire (1864), where two men always walked abreast, with their little fingers of two hands linked together, whilst they were carrying small sprigs of rosemary in the other hands. I still recollect that most of the men were most anxious to have real rosemary and no substitute, as, for instance, box.

Rosemary, which, by the bye, makes an excellent ingredient for a no less excellent pomatum, was until lately always used in this country for a Todtenkranz (death-wreath) for any young girl dying shortly before her wedding.

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance." †

Garlic (Allium sativum, L.) is still believed to possess anti-witchcraft properties in Germany, but especially in Greece and Turkey. Allium ne edas (eat no garlic) has become proverbial, as eating it-in the way onions are used-is said to produce quarrelsomeness. In ancient times it was the emblem of belligerent life and feelings; but it was also known as a remedy against the charms of Amor and Eros, on which account the Greek ladies ate of it and carried it about them during the skirophoria celebrated at Athens in honour of Minerva, Ceres, and Proserpine, when the parties celebrating these festivals had carefully to avoid any conjugal connection with men. fancy that the smell would keep the latter at a noli-me-tangere distance. On account of its antiwitchcraft properties it was dedicated to the Lares at Rome. HERMANN KINDT.

Germany.

I should

"Saladin was an English surname temp. Edw. I. H.R." The name has probably nothing to do with the Saracens, but may be derived from Castel-Sarrasin, formerly Castel-Sarrazin, a town of France, in Languedoc, so called from its situation on the rivulet Azin (sur-Azin). Conf. Azincourt or Agincourt, Dep. Pas de Calais. R. S. CHARNOCK.

Gray's Inn.

HANDEL'S CONCERTO FOR THE HARP.-Did not I read in "N. & Q." that Mr. Brinley Richards had found a most valuable composition for the harp in the British Museum? At any rate I read it in many other papers, and I think it well to make a note upon the subject. Be it known unto all men (with your permission, Mr. Editor) that the concerto in question has been familiar to Handel students nearly ever since its composer came to England; indeed it is one of those popular pieces which have kept players upon keyed instruments from starving (according to some historians) almost from Handel's day until this. When I say that it is nothing more nor less than the sixth of the first set of organ concertoes published by Walsh, your musical readers may well wonder that anything so familiar could be discovered now. Dr. Arnold, too, published it in score (as Mr. Richards has just done at great expense), and there have been editions of it without end-some good, some bad, some indifferent. In Dr. Arnold's copy it is said to be harpa e organo; so there can be no pretence of bringing forward a new version of an old work W. J. WESTBROOK.

even.

Sydenham.

per

LA BRUYÈRE AND THE BOOKSELLER'S DAUGH

TER.-In looking over the Life of La Bruyère, the translator of the Characters of Theophrastus and author of the Mœurs de ce Siècle, I met with the following anecdote of that interesting literary man. It may not be unsuitable for "N. & Q.":

"La Bruyère used to frequent the shop of a bookseller named Michallet, where he amused himself with reading the new pamphlets, and playing with the bookseller's daughter, an engaging child of whom he was very fond. One day, taking the manuscript of his Characters out of his pocket, he offered it to Michallet, saying, Will you print this? I know not whether you will gain anything by it, but, should it succeed, let the profits make the dowry of my little friend here.' The bookseller, though doubtful with respect to the result, ventured on the publication: the first impression was soon sold off, several editions were afterwards sold, and the profits on the work amounted to a large sum; and with this fortune Miss Michallet was afterwards advantageously married."

Islip Rectory.

FRANCIS TRENCH.

BALLOONS AND THE SIEGE OF PARIS."It may be worth while to mention, before the fact is forgotten, that fifty-four aerial engines were despatched from Paris during the siege, and carried altogether about

2,500,000 letters, making a total weight of about ten tons. The first balloon, the Neptune, left Paris on the 23rd of September; the Armand Barbés, which started on the 7th of October, took out Gambetta and the first flock of carrier pigeons; the Jules Favre, which went away on the 30th of November, has never been heard of since, and is supposed to have been lost at sea; the last of all, Général Cambronne, was sent up on the 20th of January."

The above is from a correspondent's letter in the Daily Telegraph, written in Paris on Feb. 17, 1871, and is, I think, worthy a place in "N. & Q."

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

THE PHENIX PARK.-There is a curious simi

larity of signification in the French Fontainebleau and the Irish Phoenix Park. The former, it is well known, signifies "spring of fair water," and the true and proper Irish name of the latter is Fionn Uisge, that is "fair water," to which if we prefix tobar, that is "spring," which I am almost certain was the case, the identity of the name is perfect.

The change of Fionn Uisge to Phoenix was, I believe, made by the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield when lord-lieutenant. To commemorate this intellectual feat he raised, not very far from the spring, the column still existing with a phoenix on its summit. THOS. KEIGHTLEY.

ANECDOTE OF DR. JOHNSON. -The following anecdote of the lexicographic moralist used to be told by a well-known lawyer and bon-vivant of Edinburgh, who died from thirty-five to forty years ago. The Doctor, riding along the road during his Scottish tour, asked the way of a country lad who was running with swollen cheeks and reddened complexion. Receiving no answer, he came down on the lad's shoulders smartly with his riding-whip. The cheeks collapsed, and a white fluid spurted forth, when Johnson was thus accosted :-"Oh, sir, what hae ye dune? an' me rinnin' seeven mile wi' a moothfu' o' milk to a sick wean!" This story I have never seen in print. W. T. M.

BALLADS BY LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU AND LORD CHESTERFIELD. - Perhaps one of the most remarkable cases was that attributing to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu the ballad on Arthur Gray, which made not only Mrs. Murray, its victim, but also her friend Lady Hervey, forswear her ladyship's acquaintance. Lady Mary acknowledged the sufficiently annoying ode of the erotic footman to his mistress, which the noble editor of her works has lately included amongst them, with perhaps slightly questionable taste. The ballad is said to have been a much more scandalous affair, and was not acknowledged.

This ballad took, because Gray the footman was for many days under sentence of death in Newgate. The court had just reprieved a brutal German doctor for a much more horrid crime

which he accomplished, and by the entreaties of the amiable family aggrieved the other silly fellow was let off for his insane conduct. Gray was sent to the North American settlements, much as the Irish prisoners were lately sent to New York, but nothing seems to be known of his future existence." Lord Chesterfield wrote a ballad on the order of the Bath, which was said to be equally witty and satirical, and to which his fall was attributed when a change of ministry was made about the time. It was perhaps the match which set the powder on fire, but there was probably a magazine of explosive materials somewhere.

Queries.

E. C.

BELL-HARP.-What kind of instrument was the bell-harp, which used to be played upon in the early part of last century? Perhaps some musical reader will be able to answer this query in an early

number.

L. J. [The bell harp is a musical instrument of the string kind, thus called from the players on it swinging it about as a bell on its basis. It is about three feet long; its strings, which are of no determinate number, are of brass or steel wire, fixed at one end, and stretched across the sound-board by screws fixed at the other. It takes in four octaves, according to the number of the strings, which are struck only with the thumbs, the right hand playing the treble, and the left hand the bass; and, in order to draw the sound the clearer, the thumbs are armed with a little wire pin. There is an engraving of it in The London Encyclopædia, xi. 50.]

Bezant, or Besant, was a coin of pure gold, struck at Byzantium in the time of the Christian emperors; and hence the gold offered by our kings on festivals is called besant. It seems to have been current in England from the tenth century till the time of Edward III. Its value is not precisely ascertained, but it is generally estimated at 9s. 44d. sterling. The origin and use of bezants are pointed out by Camden, Remains, art. "Money." Consult also N. & Q.," 2nd S. v. 258.]

[* The Epistle from Arthur Gray, the footman, to Mrs. Murray, after his condemnation for attempting to commit violence, is also printed in The Letters and Works

of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, edited by W. Moy Thomas, edit. 1861, ii. 478. The circumstance took place on Oct. 1, 1721. See Select Trials, 12mo, 1742.-ED.]

BOBADIL.-Ben Jonson's bully and coward is named Bobadil. Could it be because the first governor of Cuba, who sent home Columbus in chains, was "Bobadilla"? Ben's "Bobadil" is a most agreeable braggadocio, and in this respect very different from the sullen ruffian who disgraced the Spanish name by his atrocious conduct to the great navigator and discoverer. G. E.

[Gifford's note on this cowardly adventurer is interesting. He says: "Bobadil has never been well understood, and therefore is always too highly estimated; because he is a boaster and a coward, he is cursorily dismissed as a mere copy of the ancient bully, or what is more ridiculous, of Pistol; but Bobadil is a creature sui generis, and perfectly original. The soldier of the Greek comedy, from whom Whalley wishes to derive him, had not many traits in common with Bobadil.... Bobadil is stained with no inordinate vice, and is besides so orifice of his stomach,' satisfy all his wants. Add to this frugal, that a bunch of radishes and a pipe to close the that the vanity of the ancient soldier [in the Greek comedy] is accompanied with such deplorable stupidity, Bobadil is really amusing. His gravity, which is of the that all temptation to mirth is taken away; whereas most inflexible nature, contrasts admirably with the situations into which he is thrown; and though beaten, baffled, and disgraced, he never so far forgets himself as to aid in his own discomfiture. He has no soliloquies like Bessus and Parolles, to betray his real character, and expose himself to unnecessary contempt. . In a word, Bobadil has many distinguishing traits, and till a preceding braggart shall be discovered with something more than big words and beating to characterise him, it may not be amiss to allow Jonson the credit of having depended entirely on his own resources."-Jonson's Works, by Gifford, ed. 1816, i. 160.]

CHAUCER'S "SHIPMAN."-What is the meaning of the line (Prologue, 400) ?—

"By water he sente hem hoom to every land."

Professor Morley puzzles me by paraphrasing (English Writers, ii. 298), "he sent home his wine by water to every land." I have sometimes been inclined to think that the line meant "he made the vanquished walk the plank"; but I doubt if Chaucer's typical sailor was given to such piratical habits Probably to many people there is no difficulty in the passage. Will one of these "write

me down an ass"?

JOHN ADDIS.

Rustington, near Littlehampton, Sussex.

DOMESDAY. Among the various books and papers which have been written upon Domesday, is there to be found any attempt to trace how many persons recorded there as holders of land have representatives in the present day? D. A.

ENGLISH QUEEN BURIED AT PORTO FINO.The inhabitants of Porto Fino (a village lying at the foot of the headland of the same name in the Gulf of Genoa) have a tradition that an English queen was once buried there. What are the probable historical grounds for this belief?

DOYLL.