lish documents. It has not, so far as I know, survived in that position to the present time. ASTARTE.

VERSES ON FLY-LEAF OF A HISTORY OF THE WINDSOR-CLIVE FAMILY.'-During a tour in South Wales a few years ago I turned in one day at the "Clive Arms," Caerphilly, for a rest and a meal, and picked up a book to amuse myself with a "History of the Windsor-Clive Family'-on the fly-leaf of which I found the following verses, which may be deemed worthy of preservation in 'N. & Q.' They tell the story of a former traveller detained by stress of weather :

Unbroken solitude and misty gloom

Reigned undisturbed in this well-furnished room,
Whilst whistling wind, and never ceasing rain,
Display their strength against the window pane.
Sweet household literature within is scarce,
The tables unadorned with prose or verse;
And nought conspire to keep my brain alive,
Save this dull monograph of Windsor-Clive.
No matter where in future I may roam,
O'er classic Greece, or catacombs of Rome,
With shudd'ring thought, my niemory back will stray
To dull Caerphilly on a rainy day.

WM. GEO. FRETTON, F.S.A.

Coventry.
LITERARY PARALLEL.-'Richard II.,' I. iii.:-
O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

daughters, one of them married, standing in array ready to receive us. We kissed the girls, but not the married ladies, and thereby greatly offended the latter, but Duval [a French Protestant clergyman] apologized for our blunder, and explained to us that when saluting we must always kiss the senior lady first and leave the girls and children to the last; after dinner it was considered sufficient to kiss the hostess only in recognition of the hospitality received."

Thereafter, he adds, he and all his travelling companions, with the exception of one who could not be prevailed upon, complied most scrupulously with the rules of etiquette.

Bethlen moved in the best society in London. He was received by Charles II. "in publica solenni audientia" surrounded by a throng of noblemen ; he called on the "Dux Eboracensis, Rupertus Palatinus Rheni," and many noblemen of high rank. At Oxford he was entertained and made very much of by the professors, who, he informs us, spoke Latin with difficulty. In fact everybody in England, he tells us, considered it a great torture to be obliged to speak Latin, and he was therefore compelled to air his broken English, which he had picked up at Leyden under the tuition of a poor Englishman.

I have known that passage relating to the custom of kissing for some time, but have hitherto always treated it as a "traveller's tale." Recently, however, I found it again alluded to in a German writer, who gives Erasmus of Rotterdam as his authority. L. L. K.

[See Erasmus on Kissing,' 6th S. vii. 69, 93, 116; viii. 58; xi. 92.]

"Let him who has no money imagine that his coffers are full, and let him see how little this thought will profit him. Or if he is forty, let him think himself seventy, and what will he gain? Let him fancy himself satisfied with food when he is hungry, or that his thirst is quenched though he has not yet drunk, and what boots it? Let him think that he is warmly clad when he is really naked, or that his enemy is dead and no longer to be dreaded when he still lives, able to do him harm. What good will these delusions do to him?"

I. ABRAHAMS.

KISSING THE LADIES AN ENGLISH MODE OF SALUTATION.-Nicolaus de Bethlen, a pupil of Dr. Basire at Alba Julia, visited England during the winter of 1663/4, and relates the following in his 'Autobiography":

"Being unaware of the fact that it was customary in England to kiss the corner of the mouth of ladies by way of salutation, instead of shaking hands as we do in Hungary, my younger brother and I behaved very rudely on one occasion. We were invited to dinner to the house of a gentleman of high rank, and found his wife and three

* Published at Pest in 1856, et seq.

EGYPTIAN HIEROGRAMS ON ENGLISH PICTURES. One of the most familiar Egyptian hierograms is that of a globe with wings, with sometimes a rod entwined by two serpents-the caduceus of Mercury. In Brydges's 'Peers of James I.,' p. 394, there is an engraving of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Mary Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII. The lady holds this emblem in her right hand, and it is surmounted by a cross bar resting on the serpents' heads. From the extreme points of the bar depend little balls. Among the pictures at Longleat there is one of Francis I. and his wife, Eleanor of Austria, in which the lady is represented holding the same emblem slightly varied. The globe looks more like a pineapple or artichoke, and at the ends of the cross bar hang what appear to be two little bells. It has been suggested that in this picture it may be meant

as an emblem of the Peace of Cambray ("La Paix des Dames "), which was concluded in 1529, the same year in which these two high personages were married. But this explanation does not fit the other picture, because Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor had nothing to do with the Peace of Cambray, and were married fourteen years before it, viz., in 1515. The two pictures are very much alike as to the attitude of the parties, and in both of them there is a fool or jester in the background. In the Harleian Miscellany,' vol. viii. p. 136 (8vo. edition), is an article headed 'The Quack's Academy; or, Dunce's Direction,' in which (among others) this piece of instruction is given :

"Secondly, like Mercury, you must alway carry a Caduceus, or conjuring Japan in your hand, capped with a civet-box: with which you must walk with gravity as in deep contemplation upon the arbitrement between life and death."

Were Egyptian hierograms in fashion among the ladies in Henry VIII.'s reign as mere ornaments, or had they any serious meaning? J. E. J.

SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM AND THE 'ARCANA AULICA.'-In 'N. & Q.,' 1st S. x. 290, there is an interesting note on this little volume, ascribed to Walsingham, at least as the translator. Thirtyfour years have elapsed since that note was written, and in the interval the author of the original work, said to have been written in French, may have been discovered. Is it now known who wrote it? May it not have been Walsingham's own? With the exception of his numerous letters, printed in Digges's Compleat Ambassador' (1655-1691), the only accredited writings of Sir Francis Walsingham are his brief essays entitled 'Anatomizing of Honesty, Ambition, and Fortitude,' printed amongst Sir Robert Cotton's 'Posthumia' in 1651, and reprinted in the 'Somers Tracts,' vol. i. These essays were written in 1590.

It is quite possible that Walsingham wrote the 'Arcana Aulica,' and it is in keeping with his subtle and politic character that he should represent the work as a translation, or that he should lead others to think so. Was not his motto, video et taceo? There is a French translation of the 'Arcana Aulica,' rendered directly from the English copy, entitled 'Maximes Politiques de Walsingham,' and published at Amsterdam in 1717. This is in the fourth volume of a work entitled "Memoires et Instructions pour les Ambassadeurs, ou Lettres et Negotiations de Walsingham, Secretaire d'Etat, sous Elizabeth, &c. Traduit de l'Anglois. Seconde

Edition."

Sir Francis died at his town house in Seething Lane, London, April 6, 1590. Most biographers add, so poor that his friends were obliged to bury him in St. Paul's late at night in the most private manner. But night funerals were not unusual at this period, and were not necessarily an indication of poverty. To be interred by torch

light would be regarded as a mark of honour. Besides Sir Francis had a monument and an elabo rate epitaph in old St. Paul's, preserved in Dugdale, which he would hardly have had if his executors had no estate to administer. J. MASKELL.

EPIGRAM. The following has been, I believe, published by Wordsworth, but the date has not 1726, St. James's Evening Post. It was speedily been given for his appearance, viz., April 14–16, copied by the other newspapers :

On the Bursar of S. John's College, Oxford, culling
down a fine row of trees.

Indulgent Nature to each kind bestows
A secret instinct to discern its foes.
The goose, a silly bird, avoids the fox,
Lambs fly from wolves, and sailors steer from rocks;
A rogue the gallows as his fate foresees,
And bears a like antipathy to trees.

JAMES E. Thorold ROGERS. BLEISHO. (See 7th S. vi. 347.)—I hope your learned and valued correspondent MR. BRADLEY will not think me intrusive if I suggest that the local authorities have imposed a fictitious name on the place where he resides. We are familiar with the title of St. John of Bletsoe, or Bletshoe, but in Burke's Armory' another spelling occurs, namely, Bletsho. I have no doubt that this was the word originally intended to designate the road, and that by some mistake the t was changed into . Bletsho is a recognized name; Bleisho seems to be nonsense. J. DIXON.

PROGRAMME. We write anagram; diagram, phonogram, telegram, cryptogram, monogram, &c. Nay, in some recent scientific works gram is already found in lieu of gramme. Why not dis

card the two useless letters at the end of the word programme? L. L. K.

Sutton Court, Pensford, Bristol.

HERALDIC: QUARTERINGS OF SIR THOMAS MORE.-The Chancellor and his father, Sir John More, and their descendants bore Quarterly 1 and 4, More; 2 and 3, Arg., on a chev. between three unicorns' heads erased sa. as many bezants. То what family do these arms belong; and when were they acquired by the Mores? Sir John's grandmother was Johanna, daughter of John Leycester. The arms in question are not hers. Who did his father, John More, marry; or, rather, who was Sir John's mother? Any information as to these arms or the ancestors of Sir John and Sir Thomas More will be thankfully received by

KLAUS GROTH'S LECTURE IN LONDON.-Dr. G. Dannehl, in his essay on 'Low German Language and Literature' (Berlin, 1875), mentions by the way a lecture delivered in London by Klaus Groth, the celebrated Low German writer and poet. Has this lecture been published either in English or in German; and where? H. GAIDOZ.

22, Rue Servandoni, Paris.

THOMAS DRAY.-Information concerning the Thomas Dray who wrote 'Chronic Diseases, 8vo., 1772, will be gratefully received. D. VALE. St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.

MUSICAL TASTE IN BIRDS.-A correspondent of the Essex Naturalist in the current number of that journal says:—

#

"For two successive days last week, while playing the organ in the school chapel, a robin has come in through the open door, attracted, I can hardly doubt, by the music. The bird has come and sat on a choir seat behind me, at a distance of about three feet from my shoulder, and sang as if on a tree in the open air. The played, the more vigorously it sang, and apparently thoroughly enjoyed it; if ever I left off playing, it ceased singing also. Occasionally it would fly down to the west end and then come up again and sing by my

Cravensea, Torquay.

CRAVEN SMITH, M.D.

side."

Can any of your readers give similar instances of ONESIPHORUS. musical taste in birds?

WORKMEN'S ECLOGUES.-Recalling the times "when every trade was a mystery and had its own guardian saint," Coleridge adds ("The Friend,' 1818, iii. 82):

"There are not many things in our elder popular literature, more interesting to me than those contests, or Amoebean Eclogues between workmen for the superior to be sold at our village fairs, in stitched sheets, neither worth and dignity of their several callings, which used untitled nor undecorated, though without the superfluous cost of a separate title-page."

A reference to any collection of these, either originals or in reprint would oblige. J. D. C.

AMSTERDAM BOURSE OPEN TO CHILDREN.–

Some few years ago, in passing through the streets of Amsterdam near the Bourse, I saw a number of children and adults standing about the entrance to that building, and heard a terrible noise of shouting and the blatant playing upon toy musical instruments by boys and girls inside; and as I saw so many passing in and out, I ventured to enter myself, and endeavoured to ascertain what it was all about. Upon asking a looker-on like myself, he told me in Dutch, which I could most imperfectly understand, that it was to commemorate some noble deed performed by a lad many years ago, who, upon being asked how he should be recompensed, expressed a wish that the Bourse might be thrown open one day in every year for the children of Amsterdam to disport themselves as I have above described. Can any of your readers give me a more perfect narration of this

remains of a chapel, going by the name of Lady Wyddelin's Chapel; and very old residents assert they have tradition that preaching was done there. It is situate in the parish of Fairstead, near Witham. Who was Lady Wyddelin or Widelin, or her ancestry and descendants? Local histories furnish no clue, and I have searched peerages in vain. I shall be glad to learn of her or of the chapel. C. GOLDING.

BEANS IN LEAP-YEAR. Some time ago a Worcestershire girl informed me than an old woman at Hartlebury had told her that all the beans this year had grown upside down because it was leap-year. I have very recently received a letter from an old Northumberland borderer, an unsophisticated Cheviot "herd," and he happens to say, curiously enough, "The beans is all upside down in the pod in the feelds, the people thinks it very strange." So do I; and I shall be obliged by any one kindly helping me to an explanation.

JACK HACKMAN.-Was there a portrait of Hackman sketched by Rev. William Peters, R.A., and engraved; and under what circumstances? EBORACUM.

THE DEFINITION OF A PROVERB.—At 7th S. vi. 332 the REV. JOHN PICKFORD says, "Earl Russell, it is known, well defined a proverb as 'the wisdom of many expressed by the wit of one,' "" but I have seen this definition ascribed to Archbishop Whateley. Which of these is the author? Sandro Panza says, "Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long and wise experiences." Perhaps N. & Q.' can aid in fixing the parentage of the

first of these definitions. Stratford, E.

J. W. ALLISON.

JUDGE BEST GREAT MIND.-Analogous to the escapades chronicled in 'Curiosities of Cataloguing' (7th S. v. 505; vi. 54) is a mistake in a legal index. Under the title "Best (Judge)" we find the words "great mind" with reference to a certain page. Turning to that page we read that "Judge Best had a great mind to commit a certain man for contempt of court." Though confident that I have met with this blunder as above described, I am obliged to beg readers of N. & Q.,' to whom I seldom look in vain, to tell me where to look for what I lack. JAMES D. BUTLER.

Madison, Wis., U.S.

BIOGRAPHY.-Where is it possible to find any biographical information about Prince Adalbert of Prussia, who wrote a voyage, translated into English with this title: "Travels of the Prince Adal

bert of Prussia in the South of Europe and Brazil, with a Voyage to the Amazon and the Xiugu, translated by Sir R. H. Schomburgk and J. R. Taylor. London, Bogue, 1849, 2 vols. 8vo., with maps and plates"? The prince had as a fellow traveller a Count Bismark, lieutenant of dragoons. Was this latter a relative of the great Chancellor? Can I have any information about his family? E. P.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANted.— By the banks of a murmuring stream an elderly gentleman sat,

On the top of his head was his wig, on the top of his wig was his hat. W. HALL.

Replies.

STROUD AS A PLACE-NAME.

(7th S. vi. 187, 309, 357.)

CANON TAYLOR in rifling Förstemann's article on struot has converted what is merely a conjecture that Förstemann did not know the grounds for Vilinto a definite assertion, and he does not tell us mar's giving this word the meaning of "waste." The connexion of this word with the O.E. verb strudan, which has aroused the ire of A. L. M., is due to CANON TAYLOR, who has added to his recklessness by telling us that the Stort is connected with the strut of the Thüringian river Un-strut, and that this must be kept entirely distinct from the O.H.G. struot, although Förstemann connects the Thüringian river-name with struot. The old forms of the Un-strut show that it is from *strōd, the earlier form of O.H.G. struot. How an O.E. strōd could produce the modern Stort CANON TAYLOR does not condescend to inform us.

Schade gives to O.H.G. struot the meaning of "swamp, fen, or reedy ground," and suggests that Un-strut was originally a stretch of marshy ground drained by the One, and that as this marshy land became cultivated the name was gradually restricted to the river. I think that this must be something like the history of the Gloucestershire Stroud. I have searched in vain for an early mention of the town of Stroud, and I cannot help thinking that it derives its name either from the Stroud river or the Stroud Valley. There is a "manerium de Strodes" in a charter of 1199 in the Charter Rolls, p. 3, but this is clearly not the Gloucestershire Stroud. But I think that the "wood of the Strode " ("boscus de la Strode ") granted to Richard de Muscegros in 1200 (id., 51b) must, from the grantee's name, be the site of Stroud. There is a Robert of Stroode, a regarder of Dean Forest in 1338 ('Cartul. S. Petri Glouc., vol. iii. p. 235), who in all probability derived his name from the Stroud, whatever it was. this, I think, is the source of this name. This orthography points to an O.E. *strōd, and

O.E. charters, which show that strōd was a neuter I have several examples of this word from the either marshy ground or ground covered with noun of the o-declension.* It seems to mean brushwood.

1. A.D. 889,Cart. Sax.,' ii. 202, 13 (tenth century copy): "Hæc sunt prata quæ ad illam pertinent, id est] et [æt] Bioccan lea, and an suð healfe strodes an cyninges medum." This appears to be the Kentish Strood.

2. A.D. 938, Cart. Sax.,' ii. 442, 34: "andlang

* It may, as Schade suggests of the O.H.G. form, have been originally a u-stem like flod, "flood." His suggested connexion with the root sreu, "flow," is based upon the now abandoned idea that the ō of the Gothic flodus represents an original au (=ou).