RECOVERY OF SPEECH.-The following, from the Epworth Bells of Saturday, August 20, is, perhaps, of sufficient interest for the columns of 'N. & Q.':

"On Thursday last, the 18th inst., the people of Epworth were surprised and pleased to learn that Mr. Henry Wilkinson, son-in-law of Mr. W. B. Key, ironmonger, had recovered his speech. About three years ago Mr. Wilkinson, then residing at Leeds, had a serious fall, causing concussion of the brain, with the distressing result of his loss of speech, hearing, and memory. For the last twelve months he has resided in Epworth, and his general health has improved. On the 1st of April last he had the joy of finding that his hearing had returned, though not his speech. On Thursday morning last, however, he had a troubled dream; and on awaking, about five o'clock, he found that he could speak, a fact which soon became known to the inhabitants of Epworth, from whom there were on all sides hearty expressions of thankfulness on his behalf."

It should be understood that Mr. Wilkinson appears to have recovered his speech during sleep. He dreamt that, being in imminent danger, he called out, and, waking, found that he could speak.

C. C. B.

'DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY.'May I correct two errors which appear in my notice of Sir Thomas Copley (vol. xii. p. 189). The date of his birth should be 1534, not 1514; and the date of his first election as M.P. for Gatton 1553, not 1533. R. C. C.

In his notice of John Bunyan (vol. vii. p. 282, col. 1) the Rev. Precentor Venables says, "Bunyan did not live to see the revolution. His death took place in 1688, four months after the acquittal of the seven bishops." The italics are mine. It should be two months. The seven bishops were acquitted on the morning of Saturday, June 30, 1688. John Bunyan died on Friday, August 31, 1688. NEMO. Temple.

PULLING BACON."-The expression "pulling bacon," used in the following extract from the Leeds Evening News of September 15, will, I imagine, be new to a good many readers of "N. & Q.,' so venture to send it. I remember it when I was a lad, but have not heard it for very many years, and I have failed to find it in any provincial glossary in my possession :—

"PULLING BACON' AT LEEDS POLICEMEN.-Before

Mr. Goodman and Mr. Farrar Smith, at the Leeds Police Court to-day, George Evans (50), coachman to the Earl of Mexborough, Mexborough Hall, near Methley, was summoned under the Hackney Carriage Bye-laws for having driven on the wrong side of the road. Police constables Moody and Lockwood were on duty in Boar Lane on the 6th inst., when they saw the defendant driving a pair of horses attached to a carriage on the wrong side of the road for a distance of one hundred

yards. The officers spoke to him, when he put his fingers to his nose, and pulled bacon' at them. He had been previously cautioned, but had not taken the slightest

P.S.-The coachman's action would be more correctly described in the words of "Ingoldsby":He put his thumb unto his nose, and spread his fingers. out.

WEEPING.-The following extract from Frances Kemble's 'Record of a Girlhood,' seems to me to be so excellent as to be worthy of being embalmed :

"The power (or weakness) of abundant weeping without disfigurement is an attribute of deficient rather than excessive feeling. In such persons the tears are poured from their crystal cups without muscular distortion of the rest of the face. In proportion to the violence or of the temperament, is the disturbance of the countendepth of emotion, and the acute or profound sensibility ance. In sensitive organizations, the muscles round the nostrils and lips quiver and are distorted, the throat and temples swell, and a grimace, which but for its miserable significance would be grotesque, convulses the whole face. Men's tears always seem to me as if they were pumped up from their heels, and strained through every drop of blood in their veins; women's, to start as under a knife stroke, direct with a gush from their heart, abundant and beneficent; but, again, women of the temperament I have alluded to above (superficial sensibility) have fountains of lovely tears behind their lovely eyes, and their weeping, which is indescribably beautiful, is comparatively painless, and yet pathetic enough to challenge tender compassion. I have twice seen such tears shed, and never forgotten them: once from heaven-blue eyes, and the face looked like a flower with pearly dewdrops sliding over it, and again, once from magnificent, dark, uplifted orbs, from which the falling tears looked like diamond rain-drops by moonlight." Can we marvel at man's weakness under the irresistible influence of a beautiful woman in tears? RICHARD EDGCUMBE.

Mount Edgcumbe, Devonport.

ST. GEORGE'S, BLOOMSBURY.-It seems a pity, now the really very fine outlines of St. George's, Bloomsbury, Church are exposed to view by the temporary demolition of a neighbouring house, that the authorities cannot restore the dragons. I remember them well as a boy, and they gave effect to the spire. Possibly they are structurally dangerous. HERBERT PUGH.

8, St. Stephen's Square, W.

W. M. THACKERAY.-Some few weeks since I contributed an inedited letter copied from autograph of W. M. Thackeray. At the same time I prepared, but did not submit, some remarks on his pseudonym of "Titmarsh." It occurred to me that this name might be a variant of "Titmouse," from Warren's hero in 'Ten Thousand a Year.' mouse is a real word, the prefix (as in titlark) being a diminutive; so with tittlebat or tickleback. Titmarsh, however, is topographical. Ditmarsh in Schleswig-Holstein, which might be

Tit

We find

for Ditchmarsh, as in Yorkshire; also Titchmarsh, Northants. The continental Ditmarsh varies to Dittmarsh, also to Ditmarson, perhaps more. No doubt this low-lying district between the rivers Eyder and Elbe was an early haunt of the people called Saxons. A. HALL

THE ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH WORD "CONVERTISSEUR."-In his 'History of the French Protestant Refugees * Prof. Weiss gives us the story of the origin of this word. In 1677 Louis XIV. had devoted a secret fund to the conversion of the Huguenots. A celebrated convert, Pélisson, took charge of the fund, and paid the bishops and others a price per head for each convert whose name they sent him. The price was, on an average, six livres per head. This method of converting the Protestants became very popular, and won for Pélisson the title of convertisseur, i. e., converter, the word being coined for the occasion.

ROBERT F. GARDINER.

CURIOUS PASSOVER CUSTOM IN ALGERIA.During the Passover week, in the present year, I noticed that many of the houses in the Jew quarter in Oran and in Tlemçen were marked on the outside with the impressions of the human hand. These impressions were in different colours, red, black, yellow, or blue; and in no instance, as well as I can recollect, were they either upon the side posts of the doors or upon the lintels, but always upon the walls of the houses. In some cases there was one impression only, in others there were as many as five, and further, in others they were arranged somewhat in the form of a branch, having three hands at the summit and three at each of the sides. At Tlemçen I saw a man marking an impression with a brush and ordinary red paint. This custom does not appear to be known amongst the English Jews, for after many inquiries I have met with none who has even heard of it. Is it not an outgrowth or survival from that ceremony which was performed on the night of the flight of the Israelites from Egypt; and may not the branch-like figure be symbolical of the bunch of hyssop?

Plymouth.

FRANCIS BRENT, F.S.A.

"Probate was granted in London, on the 21st inst., of the will (dated April 9, 1875) of Victor Marie Hugo, formerly of Rue de Clichy, Paris, No. 21, but late of Avenue Victor Hugo, No. 50, member of the French Academy, senator of the Seine, who died on May 22, 1885, and the value of whose personal estate in England is declared at 92,1267, 8s. by Pierre Philibert Rouillon, of Rue de Novème, Paris, Licentiate of Law, one of the

*Translated by Frederick Hardman (Blackwood, 1854), pp. 60-62.

executors, until Georges Charles Victor Leopold Hugo and Léopoldine Clemence Adèle Lucie Jeanne Hugo, now minors, two of the residuary legatees named in the will, shall attain the age of twenty-one years, power being reserved to grant probate to Adrien Huard, the other executor. The testator states, according to the official translation of the document: This is my will, I must leave, as sole heirs, first, my daughter Adèle Hugo, now in a private hospital in consequence of her mental condition; secondly my two grandchildren Georges and Jeanne, born of the marriage of my son Charles, deceased. The greater part of his fortune, with the exception of his books, being invested in foreign personal securities, the testator directs the realization of all these, excepting such as may be in the English Government funds, and the investments in French Rentes, or shares of the Bank of France, and bequeaths, in trust, for his two grandchildren before named, all his disposable property (including two estates in Guernsey and the furniture of the large house there), in conformity with Article 915 of the Civil Code. With respect to his pubthem is for the most part engaged; but as to those lished works, the testator states that the disposition of which have not been published, or are in manuscript, his will is the master as to their disposition, and having regard to the interest of his legatees in them for fifty years as property, and in the interest of the work itself, to secure the method of examination, the superintendence, the solicitude, and the labour of the publications in a manner consistent with my dignity as a writer and the idea of the work,' he shall make during his lifetime and vigorously maintained by his assigns,' and if either arrangements which are to be scrupulously respected of his residuary legatees should attempt to alter them, the interest in his disposable property of such legatee is to be forfeited. Provision is made of an annuity of 10,000 francs for her life for Madame Charles Hugo, The will is not in the testator's own handwriting; but, as he states, dicté par moi et signé après lecture.'"Times, April 26.

Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury.

HERBERT HARDY.

PORTRAITS OF SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE AND SIR GEORGE LOCKHART.-There is a fine oval portrait of the distinguished lawyer Sir George Mackenzie, who died in 1691, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the Parliament House at Edinburgh. He, who was deemed even by his political adversaries "the brightest Scotsman of his time," is depicted as wearing the flowing peruke of the date of the Revolution of 1688.

Near it hangs a much larger portrait, threequarter length, of his forensic rival, Sir George Lockhart, of Carnwath, President of the Court of Session, who was shot on his return from church, in 1689, by John Chiesley of Dalry. He is have now much faded, and the artist has conveyed habited in his judicial robes, though the colours to his features a very sad and melancholy expression, as if prophetic of his fate.

mausoleum in the Old Greyfriars' Churchyard, They both find a grave in the same conspicuous which Dean Stanley has aptly styled the Westminster Abbey of Scotland.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

Queries.

We must request correspondents desiring information 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.

PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTER.It may not be generally known to your readers that the Council Office has preserved from the year 1540 a record of each meeting of the Privy Council. The first entry in the series sets forth that it shall be the

duty of the Clerk of the Council to enter in a book provided for the purpose the business done at each meeting, and from that day until the present date the record has been faithfully kept up. The condition of the volumes and the character of the entries vary, as is to be expected, with each change in the office of the Clerk of the Council. In some cases the rough drafts only remain, whilst in others we find that a more methodical officer has made a fair copy of his daily minutes, apparently year by year. Carelessness and accident, from which no collection of records can be altogether exempt, have, however, caused several gaps in the series, and my object in writing to you is to ask your permission to lay before your readers a list of the lacunæ, in the hope that the missing volumes may still be preserved in private libraries, in addition to the

few which are known to exist in the Bodleian and British Museum. Many years ago an inquiry of the same nature was the means of bringing to light at least one missing volume, and it is hoped that if any of the others are still in private hands the Council Office may be permitted by their owners to fill the gaps in the series by taking copies of the originals. I may add that this permission has recently been granted by Lord Salisbury in the case of the fragment of the register of the reign of Queen Mary preserved at Hatfield. The missing volumes of the register are 1543 to 1545, 1560 to 1561, 1568 to 1569, 1583 to 1585, 1594, 1603 to 1612, 1646 to 1648. Nothing is known as to the fate of these volumes beyond a tradition that those from 1603 to 1612 were destroyed at the fire at Whitehall on Jan. 12, 1618. Any information as to the others would be most thankfully received by

the writer.

Athenæum Club, Pall Mall.

JOHN R. DAsent.

CANDLE RENT.-What is the meaning of this phrase, of which I find many examples in the seventeenth century? Thus, Överbury's Characters,' 1613 (ed. 1856), 140: "A souldier she [a widow] dare not venture vpon though he have candlerents in the citie, for his estate may be subject to fire." G. Chapman, Mayday' (1611), ii.: "Candlerents, if the wars hold, or a plague come to the town, they 'll be worth nothing." Often in Fuller, e.g., 'Ch. Hist.' (1845), vi. iii. 68: "Buying them generally (as candle-rents) at or under

HENRY, LORD CLIFFORD.-In Rosa's 'Summer Wanderings' (Masters), p. 113, mention is made of one Henry, Lord Clifford, who lived above twenty years disguised as a shepherd boy, until the accession of Henry VII. enabled him to assume his hereditary dignities with safety." It is also added that "he built Barden Tower, in Yorkshire, for the study of astromony, in which he did exceedingly delight" (Pembroke MS.). Do these Pembroke MSS. contain any further particulars of this worthy; or can anything more be learnt about him from any Yorkshire history or other work? S. J. JOHNSON, F.R.A.S.

Melplash Vicarage, Dorset,

Replies.

WHO WAS ROBIN HOOD?

36, Marlborough Street, Dublin. FINGER RINGS: GRETNA GREEN MARRIAGES. -Will any of your readers kindly inform me whether there is any catalogue of the rings in the collection formed by the late Mr. Solly, F.R.S., and whether they have been sold or bequeathed to any public institution?

Apropos of wedding rings, I find in an old book of cuttings from newspapers (no date) the following curious account of a Gretna Green marriage:

"In one of the appeal cases which came on at the Carlisle sessions, it was stated that the love-struck swain met with the object of his passion at Carlisle fair, and an immediate trip to Springfield, alias Gretna Green, was resolved upon. In order to be merry as well as wise, they took a fiddler with them, and, with a young man whom they accidentally met on Carlisle Bridge, arrived at the sacred spot. They were ushered with due ceremony into the presence of his reverence the priest, who commenced the business by inquiring if they had a ring; and being answered in the negative, he asked the bridegroom if he had any tobacco. In this point he was fortunate; a tobacco box was produced, and the priest (said the witness) twined a ring of tobacco and put it on the woman's finger. The witness recollected this very well, for the tobacco ring fell off, and the priest took it up again, and put it again on the bride's finger, said a few words, and the pair were married. The priest then gave the woman a piece of paper (called marriage lines) and the ceremony ended."

It appears that the man afterwards repented of his bargain, for he attempted to take the piece of paper from the woman by force.

I should be glad to know whether any book has been published specially treating on the Gretna Green marriages.

W. J.

525; iv. 32, 153, 198.)

66

CANON TAYLOR will forgive me if I avow myself in matters mythologic a disciple of a school which attaches no great weight to Aryan sun myths," and which believes that legendary tales have a closer connexion with earth than with Nephelococcygia. The Canon himself admits that historical elements have been imported into the great solar myth; and this once granted, there is no reason why Robin Hood should not be equally an historic personage with Theodoric or Charlemagne, to whom the adventures of the solar heroes of Cloudland were assigned." The attempt to verify the personality of an historical character may be foredoomed to failure, but it is within the scope of permissible inquiry. Few countries have been without their popular bandit, and I do not see why our English Robin Hood should be put on a footing with Apollo or Sigurd any more than Neapolitan Fra Diavolo or Henry Morgan of the Spanish main. He lived a little earlier-voilà tout! CANON TAYLOR identifies Maid Marian with Brynhild, the Dawn Maiden. By this I suppose is meant the female correlative of Robin Hood, for the appellation of Maid Marian is of comparatively modern date. Maid Marian is nowhere found in the 'Lytell Geste' or the more ancient ballads; and although she may owe her name to "Marion de la Bruère," in the romance of Fulk Fitz Warine, I doubt if she became a regularly constituted factor in the story till the time of Henry VIII., when she assumed, like Marion the Shepherdess in France, an official character in the May Day games of Robin Hood. Her first appearance in literary English is, I think, in Heywood's play of 'The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon ' (1601), where she is made out to be a daughter of Fitzwater, one of King John's barons. In later ballads the wife of Robin Hood is called Clorinda, a name which recalls the Clarice of Fulk Fitz Warine. The actual designation is, however, of little consequence, or the fact that Robin Hood was blessed with a female companion; for I know of few heroes of ballad or romance, whether "solar or not, who have managed to get through life without one. So slender a thread is sufficient to suspend a myth!

It seems to me, with deference to CANON TAYLOR, that it is quite as easy to find the elements of a solar myth in any modern novel as in the tale of Robin Hood. Take 'Esmond,' for example-a work which is generally supposed to have been the production of one keray. The more esoteric student knows better. He will tell you, in eloquent and glowing lan

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