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"A Panegyric on Our Late most Gracious Sovereign, King William of Glorious and Immortal Memory, as also on His Present Majesty, Our no less Gracious Sovereign, King George. Spoken by James Parkinson, one of the Scholars of BIRMINGHAM School, December 10, 1715, being the Day of their Breaking-up; and published at the Desire of some Gentlemen that heard it. London: Printed for J. Roberts, near the Oxford Arms, in Warwick Lane, 4to, 1715. Price 3d., pp. 22."

This rare pamphlet is of the greater interest, as, although of such slender dimensions, and only one year earlier in date than the Loyal Oration, the title-page will be held to imply that it was printed in London, and thus to substantiate the belief that the later work is actually the "first book printed in Birmingham."

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An old custom of this school was the delivery of public orations by the boys at the "Old Cross on the 5th of November, and the recitation of original compositions on "breaking-up day." The following entries, excerpted from the school accounts, illustrate this:

1656. Paid to the Schollers for their orations at the Crosse

s. d.

4 0

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Paid to the Schollers for orations in the
Schoole -
Paid for an houre-glasse

1664. Paid for setting up a scaffold at the Crosse 1669. Setting up the Scholar's stage, is an item in the Carpenter's Bill.

3 6 0 8 1 6

1671. Nov. 5. Gave the Schollars for saying orations on the stage

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Dec. 10. Gave the Schollars for saying orations in the schoole

1684. To the Gentlemen who declaymed on the

10th December

50

12 0

10 0

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MúσTag means the upper lip. Can any of your readers give a quotation from a Greek writer where it means the hair growing on the upper lip? I can trace the idea no further back than to Hesychius, who is supposed to have lived at least before A.D. 389. In his Greek Lexicon he says, Μύσταξ, αἱ ἐπὶ τὰ ἄνω χείλη τρίχες. The word seems to have reached us through the French or Italians. It may have come to them through their intercourse with the inhabitants of the later Greek empire. Perhaps some of your readers, acquainted with the writings of Anna Comnena, or of some others of the authors of a still earlier period, may

throw light on the subject. Pliny (vi. 32, 19 ed., Lemaire) says of the Arabians, "Barba abraditur, præterquam in superiore labro." What do the Arabians at present call the mustache? Do they still continue the custom alluded to by Pliny? This is the only allusion to the custom which I can recollect in the Latin writers. As a cognate subject, you may allow me to inquire, if it is known when and from what the tuft on the chin was called an "imperial"? The Roman youth seem to have indulged in this foppery as well as the young of our own day. It is curious that the tuft-hunters of ancient and modern times should have their appellation derived, to a certain extent, from the same idea. Those of modern times, hangers-on of noblemen in English universities, derive their names, I believe, from the tuft in the cap of the noblemen; and, in ancient times, it was the tuft on their own chin that gave them the appellation. They were called "Barbatuli." In Cicero (Ep. ad Att. i. 14), he calls them " Barbatuli juvenes, totus ille grex Catilinæ;" and in one of his speeches (Cal. 14) the imperial is called "Barbula." He says:

"I must summon up from the shades below one of those bearded old men; not men with those little bits of imperials, which she takes such a fancy to, but a man, with that long shaggy beard, which we see on the ancient statues and images."

Photius, in his Lexicon, says: Πάππος αἱ ἐπὶ τοῦ κάτω χείλους τρίχες· μύσταξ δὲ, αἱ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἄνω. This is a trace of it in the ninth century, when Photius flourished at Constantinople. Č. T. RAMAGE.

DICTIONARIES (2nd S. i. 212.)-I chanced on one of these the other day, which the lapse of nearly eight years since J. R. J.'s inquiry may have put dehors the Cuttlean statute of limitations. Giving neither definitions nor derivations, but spelling and accentuating every word according to the compiler's own notion of Phonetics, a more thorough uglification of our written or spoken language could hardly have been devised: that it goes near to outwalking Walker, a very few excerpta will suffice to show: Euzidsh, Teetshiz, Vizidsh, Bĕrril, Okaizyun, Kreetyür, Jôrdsh.

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"I had myself, previously to this arrangement, taken the liberty to counsel Mrs. Fitzherbert to leave some evidence in her own handwriting as to the circumstances of no issue arising from this connection, and had advised it

being noted with her own signature on the back of the certificate. To this she smilingly objected on the score of delicacy, and I only state it at present in justification of my expectation that the memorandum I have alluded to is to this effect."

The certificate alluded to above is the certificate of the marriage, dated Dec. 21, 1785. To the remaining part of your correspondent's query I am unable to give any answer. J. F. W.

George IV. had no children by Mrs. Fitzherbert. His natural children were as follows:-1. By Lucy Howard (who, I believe, was a native of Richmond, but whether a Jewess I am not aware) a son, George Howard, who died an infant. 2. By Grace Dalrymple Elliot, a daughter, Georgiana Augusta Frederica Seymour, who married Lord William Bentinck. CHARLES F. S. WARREN.

I do not know whether the Prince of Wales had any children by Mrs. Fitzherbert, but those scandalous chronicles of the times - contemporary caricatures show Mrs. Fitzherbert in the way which ladies wish to be who love their lords; and also, in some cases, as actually nursing a baby. And this suggests a query I have long wished to have solved: Had Mrs. Fitzherbert a child or children by her first marriage? In a caricature entitled "Fashionable Frailties," in which she is represented as enceinte, and walking with the Prince, she is followed by a young female child, dressed exactly like her, and evidently intended for a daughter; while in another called "The Royal Nursery, or Nine Months after Marriage," in which she is seated nursing a baby, with the Prince of Wales seated beside her, on her right hand; there is a lad of six or seven years old standing on his right hand, and on whose head is a crown, apparently a crown of the Holy Roman Empire. Can any reader of" N. & Q" throw light upon either of these allusions? M. F.

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RAM AND TEAZLE (3rd S. iv. 449.) - May I venture to suggest a different explanation of this curious sign to that given by your correspondent A. A.? The teazle, as your readers probably know, is used in dressing cloth, "raising the nap," which is one of the latest processes in the manufacture of that material; and the value of that humble plant (which, I believe, machinery has not yet been able to supersede) is commemorated by its being borne in the arms of the Clothiers Company. Is it not probable, therefore, that the who was a tenant of the aforesaid Company, or sign under consideration was set up by a publican,

manufactory near him? It is easy to believe that the sign would be very appropriate in either case; the Ram representing the raw material, as it were, and the Teazle the finished fabric.

who wished to attract the workers in some cloth

I would further suggest the probability of other apparently incongruous signs being explained by armorial bearings. "The Bird and Baby," for instance, I believe to be simply a corruption of the crest of the Stanleys. A public house in Norwich, bearing that sign, was, I have been informed, opened by a man who had been butler in that family, and instead of setting up "The Stanley Arms," he adopted only the crest.

R.

MOTHER DOUGLAS (3rd S. iv. 451.) — Strange as it may seem, this lady's name was mentioned from the Bench of the Court of Session, at the decision in that court of the great Douglas Cause. I quote from the speech of Lord Pardenstown, as given in Anderson's edition of the Judges' speeches, p. 316:

"The executors of the noted Mother Douglas brought an action against several gentlemen of distinction for payment of tavern bills contracted in her house. We are not to presume that these gentlemen frequented such a house as Mother Douglas's; but even supposing that they took a fancy to go there, we are not to imagine that they would have come off without discharging their reckoning."

In adverting to the Douglas cause, allow me to take the opportunity of noticing the following entry, which I happened lately to observe in the Scots' Magazine, vol. xxix. p. 55:

"At Horsham, in the 63rd year of her age, Mrs. Elizabeth Curtis, wife of Mr. Curtis of that place, of Twins, Male, who, together with their mother, were likely to

do well."

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"ONION AND "AFIOZ (3rd S. iv. 453.)-The word boos means pious towards God, whilst díkalos means just towards man, according to the scholiast on Euripides (Hecuba, 788); тò μèv æρòs leoùs è§ àvθρώπων γενόμενον, ὅσιον καλούμεν, τὸ δὲ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους δίκαιον. The Hebrew word corresponding with Sikatos is P, tsedek, which gives name to the Sadducees, whilst 7, chasid, corresponding with rios, supplies the name DTD, Chasidim, to the more pious and devotional of the modern Jews. In heathen writers dotos often occurs, but in the New Testament seldom; on the contrary, ayos often occurs in the Septuagint, New Testament, and Fathers, but seldom in the classic writers. The word ayos does not mean pious, except by implication, but dedicated, or devoted to good or evil, and chiefly to good: it includes the notion of awe, from ayos, and ayvos, whence it is derived in Greek; its equivalent in Hebrew is , kadosh. I have sought for a derivation of both words in Sanscrit, but unsatisfactorily. In Greek soos may be equivalent to ὅ διος, divine, as Σιὸς βουλή (Sibyl) is equal to Διὸς βουλή.

In the few passages of the New Testament where bolos occurs, there is no difficulty, except in the use of a in the sense of mercies (Acts xiii. 34), which arises from the word 7D, chesed, meaning merciful as well as pious; it is a quotation from the Septuagint of Isaiah (lv. 3).

The word ayos in the New Testament, being used in reference to the service of God, is translated holy (from the Saxon and German), or saint (from the French and Latin), both words having the same meaning, but holy is applicable to persons and things, saint to persons only.

T. J. BUCKTON.

SCOTTISH (3rd S. iv. 454.) — Francis Horner, who came to England from Scotland to acquire the language, does not appear to have used the word Scottish, but Scotch, as he speaks of Scotch inflexion (Memoirs, i. 17), a Scotch lawyer (id. i. 86), Scotch parliamentary reform (id. ii. 46), and Scotch girls (ii. 125). Nevertheless, his tutor, the Rev. John Hewlett, author of Notes to the Bible, speaks of Scottish accent (id. i. 41), Scotch accent (1.43), and Scottish pronunciation (i. 43); and his friend Dr. Parr writes of Scottish learning, and Scottish science (ii. 433). T. J. BUCKTON.

MOTHER AND SON (3rd S. iv. 450.)-The mention of the case of the half-brother of West the painter being seen by his father for the first time when the former was fifty years of age, recals to me a curious circumstance of the like kind connected with the history of my friend Mr. William Dauney, advocate, author of a work on Ancient Scottish Melodies, published in Edinburgh in 1838. (Mr. Dauney died soon after in Demerara.) This amiable and accomplished man informed me that

he never consciously saw his mother till he was thirty-three years of age. Born in the West Indies, he was sent to his friends in Scotland while a very young infant. His mother remained in the colony, married a second husband, and when a widow a second time, returned to her native country. At her request, by letter, Mr. Dauney went with his wife to Greenock to receive his mother on her landing; and a tender recognition between these long-divided relatives took R. C. place on the quay.

THOMAS CHAPMAN (1st S. xi. 325; 3rd S. iv. 425.) - The person to whom John Hawkins dedicated his MS. Life of Henry Prince of Wales may have been Thomas Chapman of Hitchin, who flourished, 1619, and is with great probability conjectured to have been a brother of George Chapman the poet. As to him see Green's Cal. Dom. State Papers, James I., i. 495; Chapman's Odysseys of Homer, ed. Hooper; Introd. xii. xiii. Cambridge.

C. H. & THOMPSON COOPER.

JAMAICA (3rd S. iv. 48.)-If MR. DILLON, who asks for information respecting it, will write to me, I may be able to render him some aid; as nearly one hundred and seventy years. my family has been connected with that island R. C. H. HOTCHKIN.

Thimbleby Rectory, Horncastle.

GANYMEDE (3rd S. iv. 411.)- Your correspondent's conjecture is right, the lines in his MS. are Wither's, and occur in the Emblems, London, Some of the MS. words 1635, folio, p. 156. are incorrect: "husbands" should be harbours; “blood,” flood; "make seeme," make her seeme. EIRIONNACH.

FEMALE FOOLS (3rd S. iv. 453.)—Jane the Fool is certainly an historical personage, as will be abundantly shown by the ensuing extracts from Queen) Mary, whose "fool” she was: the Privy Purse Expenses of Princess (afterwards

"Itm, geuen to one Hogman kep of Jane the fole

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hir horse ijs Iti, payed for housen and shoes to Jane the fole xxd Itm, payed for a gowne for Jane the fole It, for shaving of Jane the fooles hedde

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in August, 1561, and of other female "fules," maintained at court, viz.,-Janet Musche, 1562; "Conny," 1565; and Jane Colquhoun, 1567. N. C.

Allow me to draw your correspondent, A. J. M.'s attention to a female fool of considerable antiquity. Jeremy Taylor, in his Life of Christ, Part i. Section 3, Discourse I., "On the Duty of Nursing Children," makes incidental mention of Harpaste, Seneca's wife's fool. S. L.

AUBREY'S STAFFORDSHIRE GHOST STORY (3rd S. iv. 395.) This identical story is told, more circumstantially and with some variations, of Samuel Wallace of Stamford in Lincolnshire. The strange Old Man, with "coat and hose of a purple colour," knocked at his door on Whitsunday, 1659, and asked for a cup of small beer; prescribed for his consumption, and foretold his cure in twelve days, which was verified by the event. The particulars were taken by "Mr. Laurence Wise, minister of the gospel," from Wallace's own mouth. The story is quoted by Mrs. Howitt in the appendix to Ennemoser, vol. ii. p. 385, from a book called Nocturnal Revels, the author and date of which are not given. Query, is the above version of the story noticed in the last edition of Aubrey's Miscellanies, published a few years ago by Mr. J. Russell

Smith ?

EIRIONNACH.

TEDDED GRASS (3rd S. iv. 430.) - The meaning of this phrase at the present day is certainly that laid down by Richardson, " grass spread abroad," not hay in cocks. If the noun "tod" is derived from the verb "ted," it can hardly mean a cock of hay. There is no reason, I think, to suppose that Milton meant by "tedded grass," hay in heaps. There seems a special fitness in the expression, "smell of tedded grass," for we all know that hay gives off much more perfume when it is lying out than when it is in cocks, so much larger a surface being exposed. The phrase "tedded hay" is used by Coleridge in a short poem, entitled "The Keepsake:".

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I know that in all parts of Ireland, and in many parts of England, the term "to ted" means to shake out or spread the grass after the mower, and for this operation, in fine weather, boys, girls, or women followed the mower with iron or wooden forks to toss out the grass to dry. The mower is considered a superior sort of workman, and in Ireland obtains better wages and food than ordinary field labourers; and in case he possesses a cow, but not sufficient hay for winter use, he

generally receives a small portion from his employer: in that sense it might be called "ted" (Wright). S. REDMOND. Liverpool.

When I was a boy, an old Berkshire man, with whom I used to make hay, always used the word tedding" for the first operation in the process, that of shaking the grass out from the swathe. Those who love the associations of hay-time will readily support me in holding that this was the stage of haymaking at which the smell of the grass (then most delicious of all) dwelt in the fancy of Milton. C. G. P.

MODERN CORRUPTIONS:

"RELIABLE" (3rd S. iv. 437.)-I offer my best thanks to VEBNA for denouncing the word "reliable" as vile; and I heartily wish that it could be altogether scouted and banished. Its irregular formation, and utter superfluousness ought to discredit it with all who study correct language. The word rely is always followed by the preposition upon; therefore if an adjective is to be formed from it, we should say relyuponable; but such a word as reliable ought to mean, disposed to rely upon; and can only be applied properly to a person who is apt, or inclined to rely upon others. It is a gross perversion of language to use it in the sense of any thing to be relied upon. But we have no need of any such clumsily constructed and monstrous innovation. Our language abounds with words expressive of the meaning to which this vile compound has been so lamentably applied. We can use in the same sense a host of legitimate expressions. We can proclaim a person, or a source of information, to be trusty, credible, veracious, authentic, respectable, undeniable, indisputable, undoubted, incontrovertible; or we can say that either is worthy of credit, to be fully depended upon, to be received without hesitation, and so forth. What need, then, of resorting to a new word, and above all, to one so loosely constructed and wrongly applied? One is grieved to see this vile word constantly occurring in the columns of a paper like The Times, and in a respectable literary journal like The Athenæum. In the very last number of the latter, for Nov. 28, in an account of a certain writer, we find the following: "Of his antecedents few are reliable." What could have possessed a reviewer for a standard literary journal to prefer so odious an expression to saying in legitimate English, that few of the man's antecedents were to be relied upon, or depended upon? But I suppose we shall next have just as good a word manufactured from the last mentioned, and be told that few of a man's antecedents are dependable.

F. C. H.

CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE (3rd S. iv. 409.) — It might well be imagined that a parallel case to that

extracted by MR. G. F. CHAMBERS from the English Churchman could scarcely be found, of six brothers meeting together, four of them being clergymen, and all assisting in the church service on a Sunday morning. But I can relate a case, not merely parallel, but much more extraordinary, which occurred forty-one years ago in a Catholic family. There were six brothers, and five of them priests. The youngest of the five, Rev. James Jones, was ordained priest by Bishop Milner on the 31st of May, being the Saturday before Trinity Sunday, in the year 1822, at Oscott College. On the 13th of June, the Octave Day of Corpus Christi, the whole family assembled in the Catholic chapel at Long Birch, near Wolverhampton, where the third brother, the Rev. Samuel Jones, was the pastor. Besides the six brothers, there were present also their respected mother, and their sister, Miss Sarah Jones. A solemn high mass was then celebrated entirely by this pious family. The newlyordained priest, James, sung his first mass on the occasion, his two brothers William and Charles officiating respectively as deacon and subdeacon. William, the eldest brother, preached an impressive and appropriate sermon, chiefly addressed to the new priest. The musical department was also filled exclusively by members of the family. The only brother who was a layman, Mr. Clement Jones, played the mass and sung; and the reverends Samuel and John Jones, with Miss Sarah, completed the choir. The father had died a few years before, but the venerable mother was present with feelings much easier imagined than described. It is an additionally curious fact, that of these six brothers the only survivor is the eldest, William, who is still in excellent health in his eightieth year. The sister is also living, and likewise an elder sister, Miss Ann Jones. This account may be fully relied upon, as all the persons mentioned in it were familiarly known to me, and the occurrence I perfectly remember. F. C. H.

CHRISTIAN NAMES (3rd S. iv. 369, 416.)—I can bear out CUTHBERT BEDE's assertion respecting the prevalence of Old Testament baptismal names in Worcestershire, having recently numbered amongst my establishment, at the same time, both a Job and Shadrach; Nathan and Enoch are both common in the district. Your correspondent F. C. H. asserts that the clergy of the Catholic church are forbidden to tolerate names where there is nothing Christian about them, and quotes the ritual in his support. How then do we account, in a Roman Catholic country like France, for the great prevalence of names derived from classical history, such as Achille, &c.?

Was this class of names first introduced into France at the close of the last century during the great Revolution, and has it since continued to exist? The name Diana has maintained its ground

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INCONGRUOUS SIGNS (3rd S. iv. 449.)-A solution similar to that proposed by your correspondent A. A. will be found in No. 28 of Addison's Spectator:

"I must, however, observe to you on this subject, that it is usual for a young tradesman, at his first setting up, to add to his own sign that of the master whom he served; as the husband, after marriage, gives a place to

his mistress's arms in his own Coat. This I take to have

given rise to many of those absurdities which are comsioned the three Nuns and a Hare, which we see so mitted over our heads; and, as I am informed, first occafrequently joined together."

R. C. HEATH.

CHARLES PRICE, alias PATCH (3rd S. iv. 412.)— There is an account of this person in Hone's that his father also bore the Christian name of Every-day Book, ii. 1469, wherein it is stated Charles, but which does not mention the Christian names of his children. Thomas Price is said to have died young, and may therefore have been unmarried. W. H. HUSK.

REV. WILLIAM PETERS (2nd S. xii. 272, 316, 482.)-Permit me to add a few slender memoranda I have gleaned respecting this clerical painter. He was born in Yorkshire, and married a native of that shire, a co-heiress of the Rev. John Knowsley of Burton Fleeming. In early life Mr. Peters settled in Dublin, hoping from his mother's connections, who was a Younge, to succeed as an artist. He was disappointed, but obtaining the living of Knipton Woolsthrop, co. Leicester, he settled there, and painted many pictures for the Duke of Rutland. His father was Mr. Matthew Peters of Freshwater, Isle of Wight, an engineer of some celebrity.

Peter Pindar thus commences his 12th Lyric Ode:

"Dear Peters! who like Luke the Saint, A man of Gospel art and paint." Mr. Peters was a great friend of Alderman Boydell, though, singularly enough, both were affected with a constitutional infirmity that rarely permitted them to meet,-Boydell from a chest complaint dare not risk the cold winds of Leicestershire; Peters, from asthma, the confined atmosphere of London. Perhaps some of your

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