N. & Q.' ON THE STAGE.-In Mr. Granville Barker's fine play The Voysey Inheritance,' first given at the Court Theatre on 7 Nov., 1905, Mrs. Voysey, the mother of the family, appears at the end of Act II. to be engrossed in a copy of N. & Q.' She remarks to no one in particular : "This is a very perplexing correspondence about the Cromwell family. One can't deny the man had good blood in him....his grandfather Sir Henry, his uncle Sir Oliver....and it's difficult to discover where the taint crept in.... Yes, but then how was it he came to disgrace himself so? Ι believe the family disappeared. Regicide is a root-and-branch curse. You must read this letter signed C. W. A.....it's quite interesting. There's a misprint in mine about the first umbrellamaker....now where was it?....(And so the dear lady will ramble on indefinitely.)" ex In the circumstances of the case her fragmentary remarks are admirable amples of both Philistine complacency and tragic irony. 66 A. R. BAYLEY. MRS. SARAH BATTLE'S WISH ANTICIPATED The celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle," immortalized by Charles Lamb A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game "-had been anticipated in striking degree exactly a century to the very month before it was made imperishable in print. That was in The London Magazine for February, 1821, and in a letter which appeared in Read's Weekly Journal of 11 February, 1721, giving an account of an imaginary meeting of coffee-house proprietors, called to discuss the question whether the provision of newspapers therein repaid its cost, it was written: "Mr. Cocoa of Pall Mall says that a clean Room, a good Fire, and a sufficient Number of Looking Glasses well-fix'd, and a handy Waiter, wou'd draw Company before the News." But just ten years previously a different opinion would seem to have been entertained by some coffee-house keepers, for it was advertised in The Daily Courant of 10 January, 1711, as an obvious inducement to customers, that "Bickerstaff's Coffee-house over against Tom's Coffee-house in Great Russel- street in Covent Garden, will be open'd on Friday next being 12th Instant, where will be all Publick News and Weekly Papers." 66 22 ALFRED F. ROBBINS. "REVELS = PARISH FESTIVALS OR FEASTS: REVEL SUNDAY.-There are not so many revels," in the sense of parish feasts, as there were in my young days, and such as remain are nothing like so noisy. Some continue to exist, in my native district of North-East Cornwall, and "Jacob. stow Revel" I find advertised for 9 August last in the Launceston newspapers. This took the shape in the present year of "a grand fête "at the Rectory, the proceeds being given towards buying an organ for Jacobstow Church. It was not quite like that eighty years ago, when I was a boy, for I remember well the annual Revel" at Week St. Mary, a parish so close to Jacobstow as to be included among the five to which the entries for a cob and pony show at the recent Jacobstow Revel were confined. This used to take place on a Sunday in September, and people came from far and near to see their " Mary Week" friends on Revel Sunday," when, after morning service at the church, there were scenes of much drunkenness and debauchery in the village. The next day was always devoted farmers, the labourers joining in the fun as to a hunt, which was taken part in by the best they could. But the Jacobstow Revel of the present time, with its Rectory string band, afternoon tea, and evening display of fireworks, is a very great improvement on all that. R. ROBBINS... AMERICAN MISER'S WILL.-The following may prove interesting to your readers who delve in queer wills; I found it in an old paper the other day : "Barksville, Ky., May 10.-The will of Dr. Everett Wagner, of this county, has been probated here. Dr. Wagner was a miser and had accumuself of sound mind, he says: lated considerable property. After declaring him "I am about to die, and my relatives, who have heretofore shunned me, cannot now do too much relative. for me. Almost every one of them has visited me Goethe, Thackeray, Richardson, Fielding, since I have been sick, and given me a gentle hint Sterne, Addison, Voltaire, Bacon; V. that they would like to have a small trinket of some kind by which to remember their beloved Artists, Ancient and Modern; VI. Amongst On account of their former treatment the Musicians. I am anxious to learn and their quiet hints, I now take this method of whether the authorship is known and satisfying their desire.' whether they have been reprinted. I should also like to know whether the six dialogues complete the series. I have no volume of Once a Week later than 1868, and cannot find one here. "He then makes the following bequests, each formally set out in a separate section: To my beloved brother Napoleon Bonaparte Wagner my left hand and arm'; to George Washington Wagner, another brother, his right hand and arm; to his brother Patrick Henry Wagner his right leg and foot; to his brother Charles Gardner Wagner his left leg and foot; to his nephew C. H. Hatfield his nose; to his niece Hettie Hatfield his left ear, and to his niece Clara Hatfield his right ear; to his cousin Henry Edmonds his teeth; to his cousin John Edmonds his gums. The will then continues : "It grieves me to have to part with myself in this manner, but then, what is a gift without a sacrifice? I am dying with consumption, and the end will soon be here. I will at once remove myself to Nashville, where I will die in the hospital.' For the purpose of dissecting his body Dr. Everett leaves 1,000 dollars. The residue of the estate goes to public charities. He was worth 12,000 dollars, and the will is dated March 1, 1888. A codicil dated March 3 gives to my beloved sister-in-law Mrs. C. G. Wagner my liver." MAURICE BUXTON FORMAN. SWIFT AT HAVISHAM.-A letter from Swift to Ambrose Philips, which appears in Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century,' was written, according to the printed version, on 20 Oct., 1708, from a place called Havisham, where Swift was staying as the guest of a Mr. Collier, who had been one of Philips's schoolfellows at Shrewsbury. Subsequent letters from Swift indicate that Havisham was in Kent. I am unable to find the place-name Havisham in Kent or elsewhere. It seems possible that the transcriber was at fault, and that it is a misreading of some similar name, such as Adisham, Faversham, Harrietsham, or Lewisham. For any help towards identifying Havisham Swift's host I should be greatly obliged. or F. ELRINGTON BALL. 2 BANISHED COVENANTERS.-In his Traditions of the Covenanters the Rev. Robt. Simpson writes of John Matheson, who was banished to New Jersey, and afterwards returned : "There is a pretty large account of his sufferings and wanderings written by himself, which is at present in the possession of a family in Galloway." Presumably this is the account published by John Calderwood in Dying Testimonies.' The Rev. R. Simpson adds :— "Many such accounts, composed by individual sufferers in those trying times, are doubtless in the country, where they are kept as precious memorials." MONTPELLIER AS STREET-NAME.-Can you tell me the origin of so many streets and squares being named Montpellier (spelt in different ways)? These names appear constantly in towns such as Cheltenham, Brighton, and London, the houses having been built at the beginning of last century. H. L. HANSARD. Stanbridge, Romsey, Hants. SHORT STORY c. 1892.-I should feel grateful to any of your readers who could assist me in my search for a short story which appeared in one of the magazines circa 1892. It was a humorous description of furnishing either a houseboat or a holiday bungalow. I read it either in January or February, 1893. The title unfortunately escapes me. Please reply direct. 62, Fentiman Road, S.W. LOUIS WEIGHTON. POTHINUS AND BLANDINA.-In reading that carefully written and very charming book of Mr. J. W. Taylor's, The Coming of the Saints' (p. 258), I am startled to find him speaking of the prison of Pothinus and Blandina as having been in a crypt, still preserved, under the Hospice de l'Anquitaille Is any such manuscript-written more at Lyons. There is no mention of this particularly by a banished Covenanter-hallowed spot in Murray, or in Hare, who known to exist? It may be noted that at least one repatriated exile (not a Covenanter) printed an account of his wanderings. This was Peter Williamson, kidnapped and sold to an American planter. He returned to Scotland about 1765, published his story, and went from town to town selling the book (see Blackwood, May, 1848). C. draw the attention of confiding travellers to the Church of St. Martin d'Ainay, where the dungeons of the two saints are shown. Of course they may have been in prisons oft and various, and I should like to know what is the likelihood of their having been incarcerated on the hill of Fourvière. Mr. Taylor does not vouch for the trustworthi ness of some of his matter concerning the Hospice and its crypt; but I do not gather that he hesitates as to the site of the prison of Pothinus and Blandina. CANNON BALL ST. SWITHIN. HOUSE, EDINBURGH : SEBASTIEN DAVILONERT. Lovers of Old Edinburgh are face to face with the problem that the preservation of its remains can be attained only through two channels: (1) an intimate knowledge of what is worth preserving; (2) a means of providing the needful cash and power to purchase, on the part of some responsible body, at a fair price immediately the property is in the market. Recently paragraphs have appeared in the local papers advertising the fact that the Cannon Ball House, Castlehill, was to be put up for sale at an upset price of 2,500l. With a view to working up public interest, the history of the house was mysteriously garbled. It has no authenticated history. The initials A M and M N, with date 1630, appear upon it, so that it has seen three sieges of the Castle, and has embedded in its walls a cannon ball of the "Waterloo " type, said to have been fired at Prince Charlie's troops in 1745. That is all we know about it. To drag in Sir David Baird and the Dukes of Gordon, whose town mansion on Castlehill is now represented by a public school in which the old doorway is preserved, is misleading. The two had no connexion, although the hero of Seringapatam might have had some story of his boyhood connected with the neighbours over the garden wall, for the properties adjoin there. I am seeking now for another property in that neighbourhood which I wish to provide with a history. I also wish to know who this historic personage really was. My facts are taken from a manuscript volume in the possession of George Heriot's Trust, as follows:-writ, date unascertained, regarding a tenement situated "under the Castle Wall, on the south side of the King's Highway, bounded on the one side and the other by lands which sometime belonged to Cloud Davilonert, second lawfull son to Janet Adamson, procreat betwixt her and Sebastien Davilonert, secretary for the time to Mary, Queen of Scotts." In FUNERAL PLUMES.-When and why did the custom of using plumes in funeral rites, as an expression of respect for the dead, have its origin? In 1789 John Chater advertised that he furnished very fashionable laces and plain dresses, for the Dead, Sheets, Cloaks, Hangings, Coaches, Plumes of Feathers," &c. Is not this an early instance ? The earliest in the N.E.D. appears to be 1832, in Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott': A funeral, with plumes and lights J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. STAVE PORTERS.-What were stave porters that they should furnish a tavern in Jacob Street, Dockhead, with its sign of "The Stave Porter"? Presumably their burden consisted of bundles of staves; but of what kind? The sign, I think, still exists. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. [Did they carry their loads on staves?] CALTHROPS IN EARLY WARFARE.-Would some correspondent of N. & Q.' oblige by mentioning the earliest reference in Scottish history to calthrops as employed in warfare? They are said to have been in use at the battle of Bannockburn. I know of the authorities cited in the 'N.E.D.' ever.22 The effect of these canons soon made itself felt in the gifts of tithes to religious houses. But many of the smaller lords were reluctant to grant their tithes to bodies at a distance, and preferred to retain them for local use. This object was effected by tonsuring the lord's steward or other lay person who administered them, whereby he became converted into an ecclesiastical person," and as a clerk could hold them without being in holy orders. The lord's grantee thereby became responsible to the bishop for the administration of them, and was called in consequence the responsible person (certa persona), but was commonly spoken of as the parson. 22 The term occurs in the Constitutions of "PARSONS" NOT IN HOLY ORDERS. Clarendon, 1164, and in Canon 6 of the (10 S. xii. 350.) I HAVE a document in which Sir Thomas Sackville claims the great tithe of lamb and wool of some sheep in the parish of Bibury as "person 22 of Bibury. Sir Thomas was Lord of the Manor and Lay Rector of Bibury, and rebuilt Bibury House in 1634. He uses the term throughout as if it belonged to him of right, and the spelling "person" shows that the meaning of the term had not then been obscured by the modern spelling "parson." If I now called myself Parson of Bibury, which I have an undoubted right to do, most people would think that I had created myself a clerk in holy orders in derogation of my brother the Vicar. 66 One cannot imagine an acolyte having the impudence to call himself the Persona Ecclesiæ." Sherborne House, Northleach. SHERBORNE. Before the three Lateran Councils of 1123, 1139, and 1179 tithes were in this country in theory devoted to pious uses, but practically administered by the lords of the land. The fifth canon of the first Lateran Council of 1123 then ordained: "We decree that no laymen, however religious they be, shall have power of Council of York in 1195. The Exeter registers show parsons and vicars or chaplains existing side by side in a large number of parishes in Devon and Cornwall prior to the "consolidations" effected in the thirteenth century. Further information on this subject may be found in a paper read by me before the Society of Antiquaries on 28 Feb., 1907, entitled The Treasury of God; or, The Birthright of the Poor.' Lympstone, Devon. OSWALD J. REICHEL. The subjoined quotation from Gasquet's Parish Life in Mediæval England,' wherein it occurs at p. 71, opening chap. iv., which relates to The Parish Clergy,' may be useful under this heading : 6 The word 'parson,' in the sense of a dignified personage the person of the place' was, in certain foreign countries applied in the eleventh century, in its Latin form of persona, to any one holding the parochial cure of souls. English legal writers, such as Coke and Blackstone, have stated the civil law signification of the word as that of any person' by whom the property of God, the patron saint, the church or parish was held, and who could sue or be sued at law in respect of this property. In ecclesiastical language, at any rate in England, according to Lyndwood, the word "parson' was synonymous with ‘ "rector.' WILLIAM MCMURRAY. |