be done by night, as well as by day, provided that the air be not charged with a low cloudy atmosphere, or any other dark vapour.

Although the operation is performed in public, advice is communicated with the greatest secrecy, as it can neither be heard nor understood but by the persons who assist at the machines. Nay, if he who sends or receives the advice is desirous to conceal it, even from these persons, there is a method of doing it freely.

In fine, this operation is performed with great be expedition; for, in a quarter of an hour may communicated a period, containing about two Add to this, that the machine hundred letters. situated at the place A not only communicates advice to the other at the place B, but does not attempt it before being certain of being heard

at B.

Although SO apparently precise, this description sadly lacks detail concerning the apparatus employed. Can that detail be ALFRED F. ROBBINS. found elsewhere ?

SIR JOHN CHANDOS.-In 'The Life of the Black Prince, by the Herald of Sir John Chandos,' recently edited by Miss Mildred K. Pope and Miss Eleanor C. Lodge of Oxford University, and published at the Clarendon Press (1910), it is stated in the 'Index of Proper Names, p. 242, that Sir John Chandos was son of Thomas Chandos, Sheriff of Herefordshire." This is an error the repetition of which in this important edition of the Chandos Herald's poem increases the need for its correction.

The great Sir John Chandos, a knightfounder of the Order of the Garter, Viscount of St. Sauveur in Normandy, Constable of Aquitaine, and Seneschal of Poitou, was son and heir of Sir Edward Chandos, a distinguished Derbyshire knight. Sir Edward,

who received rewards for his service in the
war with Scotland and for other services
in the early reign of Edward III., was a
constant friend and companion of that king.
Sir John's parentage is correctly stated
in his life in the Dictionary of National
Biography, which expressly cautions the
reader against the above error, and that
authority is, moreover, referred to on p. 242
mentioned above. M. Fillon, who is also
there cited as an authority, and some other
writers had earlier made the mistake of
confusing this Sir John Chandos, the last of
the knightly house of Chandos of Derbyshire,
with another Sir John Chandos, son of the
above Sir Thomas Chandos, and last of
the male line of the baronial house of
Chandos of Herefordshire and Shropshire.
The latter Sir John died within the years
1428-30 (the 'D.N.B.' says 10 Dec., 1428)
without issue, some sixty years after the

25

death of his renowned kinsman, his sister's
descendants becoming, in the eighteenth
century, Dukes of Chandos.

R. E. E. CHAMBERS.
Pill House, Bishop's Tawton, Barnstaple.

The knightly family of Chandos of Derby-
shire, sprung from the baronial house, and
seated in the county of Derby for five
generations, is now represented by Chandos-
Pole of Radbourne, through the marriage
in the reign of Richard II. of Peter de la Pole
and Elizabeth, niece and eventual sole
heiress of Sir John Chandos of Radbourne,
the famous warrior. The above Sir Thomas
Chandos was in the King's division at Crecy,
while his contemporary Sir John Chandos
of the Derbyshire branch of the family was
and fighting beside,
in attendance_upon,
sixteen years old.
the youthful Prince of Wales, then only

JAMES FORSYTH.-The article in the 'D.N.B.' on this Indian traveller needs some corrections.

some

Capt. Forsyth joined the Bengal Army (not the Civil Service) in February, 1857, After after receiving a university education not in England, but in Scotland. Assistant Conservator, and acting Conseryears of military service he was appointed vator of Forests in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories. He was subsequently transferred to the Central Provinces Commission, and after a time was nominated Settlement Officer, and then Deputy Commissioner of He joined the Bengal Staff Corps Nimár. in 1861, and was promoted to the rank of contained captain 20 February, 1869. Highlands of Central India' accounts of some, but by no means all, of his travels and explorations in the Central

Provinces.

His book 'The

R. E. B.

Glen"ELZE "ALREADY.-' Glints o' gonnar,' by Christina Fraser, recently published, consists of a series of sketches illustrating the life of dwellers in a remote district of Upper Clydesdale. The writer manifestly knows her people well, and perhaps the most fully presented character in her group is

66

Easie," the local shopkeeper, an incomer who has permanently retained certain impressions received in her native parish. Among these is the use of some words which are unfamiliar to her youthful auditors :—

"Easie had twae words she used often, 'elze If a baker or cadger had come and efterhin.' suner than she expected, she wad say, 'Is that Juist Are ye back, elze? you, elze? I didna think it was that time o' day': quick, she wad say, If it was something she wad or, if we had been sent an erran' an' cam' back rin like a whittret.' do later, she wad say she wad do't efterhin."

66 Efterhin " or efterhend," for afterwards, and "whittret" for weasel, are still in fairly general use throughout the Lowlands; but elze" in the sense of already is less commonly known. Indeed, it is questionable if many who are familiar with the native speech ever heard it, to say nothing of including it in their vocabulary. It is an interesting survival of the form 66 ellis" or els," which Jamieson in the Scottish Dictionary' illustrates by quotations from Barbour, Gavin Douglas, Sir Egeir,' and Archbishop Hamiltoun's Catechisme' of 1551. That it signifies already," and is distinct from the other ellis or 'elles," which means else or otherwise, there seems to be no doubt whatever. All Jamieson's examples support the distinction. Mr. Small in his edition of Gavin Douglas either ignored or discredited this specific meaning, for he gives it no place in his glossary. Douglas uses the word in his version of 'Eneid' iv. 135, where the poet describes Dido's waiting hunter :—

66

66

66

Hir fers steid stude stamping, reddy ellis,
Rungeand the fomy goldin bitt jingling.

It might, of course, be suggested that the word in this instance means "otherwise," or apart from his rider"; but it seems better to take it in the sense of the Latin jam, conveniently rendered in English as already."

the

Mr. Small glosses an example of "ellis " which occurs in Douglas's Proloug of the First Buik of Eneados.' In this curiously critical and apologetic deliverance translator makes it clear that he thinks himself unworthy to stand English sponsor for Virgil, but he reflects that at least one predecessor has made a disgraceful show, and he concludes that he is warranted in offering his experiment. Then he brings the matter to an issue in this wise :

:

when he hears them, and then he strenuously proceeds as follows:

:

For quhat compair betuix midday and nycht,
Or quhat compare betuix myrknes and lycht,
Or quhat compare is betuix blak and quhyte,
Far gretar diference betuix my blunt endyte
And thi scharp sugurat sang Virgiliane,
Sa wyslie wrocht with neuir ane word in vane,
My waverand wit, my cunnyng feble at all,
My mynd mysty, thir ma nocht myss ane fall.
ostensible attitude, and gives warrant for
All this and more shows the exponent's
his later statement,
haue I said."
Ellis [i.e. already]

Jamieson's commentary on
ready," runs thus :-

'Ellis, al

"There no evidence that A.-S. ealles was ever used in this sense. Nor have I observed any Moes.-G. allis, A.-S. eallis, omnino (plenarie, cognate term; unless we view this as originally Benson), used obliquely. The phrase in Virg. reddy ellis, if thus resolved, would signify pleatly ready.' It merits consideration, that this E. synom. already, q. omnino paratum.' is evidently analogous to the formation of the

6 com.

LONGFELLOW ON DUFRESNY.-In Longfellow's Hyperion' occurs the following: "After all,' said Flemming, with a sigh, 'poverty is not a crime.' But something said when he married his laundress, because he worse,' interrupted the Baron; 'as Dufresny could not pay her bill. He was the author, as you know, of the opera Lot,' at whose representation the great pun was made. I say the great pun, as we say the great Tun of Heidelberg. As one of the performers was singing the line, L'amour a vaincu Loth' (vingt culottes), a voice from the pit cried out l'auteur ! ''"

Gentleman's Magazine (March, 1895) of my A few days after the publication in The article 'Molière on the Stage,' describing the numerous plays founded on incidents of the great French dramatist's life, I received a letter from a former contributor to ' N. & Q.,' asking me for information about Dufresny's the late Dr. Paul Q. Karkeek of Torquay, opera. He said he had been trying for years to obtain a copy of the work mentioned by Longfellow, but had not been successful. I had never heard of such a work, and it is certainly not in any of the editions of Dufresny's collected plays. The only play of Dufresny's bearing some resemblance to the title of Lot,' I could suggest, was 'Le Lot supposé; ou, La Coquette de Village'; but it is a comedy, and there are no songs of any kind in it. There is no mention of a play or opera called 'Lot' in the 'Anecdotes dramatiques (contenant le Titre de toutes nos Pièces de Théâtre, depuis l'origine des

Spectacles en France),' the best compilation Hampshire. I should like to know where of the kind published in the eighteenth she lived in that county. From documents century; and it has no place among the in Somerset House I find that she died at operas in Félix Clément's Dictionnaire des Great Cumberland Street on 15 December, Opéras,' issued near the end of the nine- 1840. It is known that Baron Gerard teenth century. painted two portraits of her in 1829 and 1830. I much wish to trace these portraits, and any other portrait of her, if such exists. She was born in St. Helens, Isle of Wight, the year being variously stated as 1785, 1790, and 1792. Letters of administration were granted in February, 1843, to James Daw or Dawes of St. Helen's, Isle of Wight, Mary Ann Clark of 5, Hyde Park Square, and Charlotte Thanaron, resident in France, her brother and sisters, who inherited most of her great wealth. Is any. thing known of them or their descendants?

In October of the same year I went over to Paris for a few days, and met the late M. Victorien Sardou at the Café Tortoni, on the Boulevard des Italiens, after he had been attending a rehearsal of a new play at one of the theatres close by. In the course of our conversation I mentioned to him the passage in Longfellow's Hyperion.' M. Sardou smiled, and said he had been asked the same question by many American visitors who had been introduced to him, and he had received several letters on the subject from unknown admirers in the United States. He had come to the conclusion that it was one of the few literary sins the charming American poet would have to answer for at the Day of Judgment.

Perhaps some reader of N. & Q.' can give information about a work of Dufresny

which has eluded the search of Dr. Karkeek, M. Sardou, and myself. It is true that Dufresny married as his second wife a laundress, and Le Sage has made this one of the incidents of his novel 'Le Diable Boiteux.' Dufresny, however, was by no means the literary martyr one would suppose on reading Longfellow's Hyperion." As the Abbé de Castres said: "Il avoit deux passions qui dévoroinent tout, l'amour de la table et celui des femmes."

ANDREW DE TERNANT. 25, Speenham Road, Brixton, S.W.

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 answers may be sent to them direct.

SOPHIE DAWES, BARONNE DE FEUCHÈRES -Will some correspondent refer me to the fullest account of the life of this notorious person before she met the Duc de Bourbon, and after his death when she returned to England? I already have a full account of her extraordinary life in France, and I am most anxious to get more particulars of her English career, parentage, childhood, and her life in Hants and in London on her return to England. The 'D.N.B.' states that she died in Hyde Park Square, 2 January; 1841, and that she had also a house in

JOHN LANE.

MISS WYKEHAM, BARONESS WENMAN.Can any reader direct my attention to the best account of Miss Wykeham, to whom the Duke of Clarence is said to have proposed so many times ?

Sophia Elizabeth was the only child of
William Richard Wykeham of Swalcliffe.
She inherited from her grandmother (Hon.
Sophia Wenman) all Lord Wenman's
estates in Oxfordshire, including Thame
Park. The Duke of Clarence-afterwards

William IV. was reported to have proposed
to her in 1818. He subsequently created
her Baroness Wenman, 3 June, 1834.
died unmarried 9 August, 1870.

She

I should also like to know who her representatives are, and if there is any portrait of her in existence; one would like to see the portrait of the lady who so persistently refused to be Queen of England.

Vigo Street, W.

JOHN LANE.

ALDERMAN WILCOX.- Who was this? Mr. Seccombe in his article on Titus Oates in 'Dict. Nat. Biog.' (xli. 300) writes of a dinner given by Alderman Wilcox in the city in the summer of 1680," at which Oates and Tonge "disputed their respective claims to the proprietorship of the plot."

It is certain that no person named Wilcox has ever been elected an Alderman of London, at any rate since the end of the thirteenth century, nor is such a name preserved amongst those returned to the Court of Aldermen by the wards for the Court's final choice. I imagine the person referred to must have been the John Wilcox, brewer," elected Sheriff of London 28 July, 1673, who "fined off " immediately,

on