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is there any modern example that may compete with the best examples of the past? Unless this question can be answered in the affirmative, I say that descriptive poetry is exhausted. But as le mieux est toujours l'ennemi du bien, modern examples may be good, but the poetry of the future will require them to be better, or they will only be a reflex of the past.

I have already pointed out that Shakspere possessed that self-restraint of genius which enabled him to describe natural phenomena without attempting to explain them, or to make use of explanatory epithets, as has been done by inferior poets. Limiting himself to what he saw, he has produced a true result, which on one occasion struck with admiration the mind of so exalted a

man of science as Faraday. In his capacity of scientific adviser to the Trinity Board, he was at one time often out at sea for the purpose of testing the relative merits of oil and electricity for lighthouse illumination. One beautiful starlight night the engineer who sat by his side interrupted the stillness by reciting some passages from 'The Merchant of Venice,' Act V. :

Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. Faraday listened with breathless attention, and after some pause said, “Say it again."

The necessity for some knowledge of science on the part of the poet was, I venture to think, made out in my papers on the thunderstorm. Other natural phenomena might be advanced to show a similar need, of which the following is an example. In Blanco White's well-known sonnet 'Night and Death' the subject thought is so exquisite that the expression of it ought to be without a flaw. One line, however, runs thus :—

Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew.

Dew never forms a curtain, for this conveys the idea of something hanging down vertically, whereas dew is deposited in a horizontal layer or stratum. There are other objections which the severe critic might urge, but I forbear on account of the rare beauty of the performance.

C. TOMLINSON, F.R.S., &c.

Highgate, N. What MR. BAYNE says of Swinburne "and others" is perfectly true, and my note as first written contained a paragraph to the same effect, suppressed afterwards as being wide of the mark. The article which called forth the note also wound up with remarks upon our contemporary poets which are quite inconsistent with the statement that "descriptive poetry has had its day-is exhausted"; and I can only understand this opinion as referring to lengthy poems having the description of natural phenomena for their chief raison d'être. My note was intended to point out that this is too hasty a conclusion. Fashions

change, in poetry as in other things, and it is not likely that while our knowledge of earth's wonders continues to increase there will be any lack of material for such poems. It has been said that all science becomes poetry after it has been philosophy, and certainly a good deal of our science has not yet appeared in this guise. We see, as PROF. TOMLINSON says, that the preoccupation with nature which science supposes is already leading our poets in this direction, though they can hardly be said, as yet, to have gone so far as, like Dante, to "embody in their works literally all the intellectual knowledge of their time." But why should they not in the future? C. C. B.

STIRPE PLANTAGENETARUM must be mistaken in JOHN OF GAUNT (8th S. iii. 109).-I think Ex supposing John of Gaunt to have been descended from Henry II. and Rosamund Clifford.

William de Longespée and Geoffrey, Bishop of Henry II. had two children by Fair Rosamund, Lincoln.

William de Longespée married Ela, daughter and heir of William de Evreux, Earl of Salisbury, and on his marriage received the earldom of Salisbury as well as that of Rosmar from King Richard. He died in 1226, leaving a son,

William, who was deprived of his possessions by King Henry III. This William was killed at the assault of Massoura in 1250. He left a son,

William, who died in 1256, leaving a daughter, Margaret, commonly called Countess of Salisbury, who married Henry de Laci, Earl of Lincoln. Their daughter and heir,

Alice, commonly called Countess of Salisbury and Lincoln, married Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, grandson of Henry III. The earl was beheaded in 1322, and his widow, who was married twice after his death, died without issue in 1348.

Henry Plantagenet succeeded his brother Thomas as Earl of Lancaster. He died in 1345, leaving a son, Henry, who was created Earl of Lincoln in 1349, and Duke of Lancaster in 1351, and whose daughter and eventually sole heiress, Blanche, became the first wife of John of Gaunt.

John of Gaunt was created Duke of Lancaster in 1362; and possibly it may have been thought from his bearing the title of Lancaster, as well as from his being termed by some authorities Earl of Lincoln, that he was a descendant of the above-named Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and his wife Alice, Countess of Lincoln, with whom his wife Blanche, though not related to her by blood, had, as I have shown, a certain connexion. C. W. CASS.

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bonum. Namque cum mortui non mordent, iniquum est ut mordeantur" (p. 84, 1855). For the general statement about the dead compare 'The Funeral Oration of Pericles,' Thuc., ii. 44-6.

I can further carry it back to 1657. In Spencer's "Things New and Old,' 819, it is, "To speak well of the Dead......De mortuis nil nisi bonum, was the saying of old; to speak well of the dead, is a thing both commendable and Christian" (vol. i. p. 365, 1867). ED. MARSHALL,

"THE LAST PEPPERCORN BREAKS THE CAMEL'S BACK" (8th S. iii. 48, 118).—There is an earlier reference, previous to those in the replies, in Seneca, 'Ep.,' xxiv. 19:

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Quemadmodum clepsydram non extremum stilli. cidium exhaurit, sed quidquid ante defluxit; sic ultima hora qua esse desinimus, non sola mortem facit, sed sola

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105, Albany Road, Camberwell, S.E. PLATO ON REVOLUTIONS (8th S. iii. 147).-Ithink the passage to which your correspondent refers must be Plato, Politicus,' 269 c to 274 D; but the length of the cycle must be much greater than 500 years, though no time is specified. If the time for the soul to fulfil its number of births is taken to be the same as in the 'Phædrus' (248 E), it will not be less than 10,000 years. For references to other passages in Plato and other writers as to

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these cycles of change, see Stallbaum's note on Plato, Timæus,' 22 D. As to indexes to Plato, Ast's 'Lexicon Piatonicum' is a useful concordance. W. M. HARRIS.

extracts from records of the city of Norwich tend OBOE (8th S. iii. 108, 174).-The following to show the antiquity of the term oboe or hautboy:

"1589, xxv Jan.-This daye was redd in the court, a letter sent to Master Mair and his brethren from Sir Frances Drake, wherebye he desyreth that the waytes of this citie may be sent to hym, to go the new intended voyage; whereunto the waytes being here call'd, do all assent, whereupon it is agreed that they should have vi cloakes of stamell cloth made them redy before they go; and that a waggon shall be provided to carry them and their instruments, and that they shall have iiii lb. to buye them three newe howboyes and one treble recorder, and x lb. to bear theire chargys; and that the citie shall hyre the waggon and paye for it. Also that the Chamberlyn shall pay Peter Spratt xs. 3d. for a saquebut case; and the waytes to delyver to the chamberlyn before they go the cities cheanes."

Another entry is as follows:

"1622. On Nov. 27 the City of Norwich possessed the following instruments-Fower Sackbutts, fower howboyes, and an old howboye broken, two tenor cornetts, one and five flagges.' tenor recorder, two counter-tenor recorders, five chaynes, ROBIN H. LEGGE

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33, Oakley Street, Chelsea, S.W.

The best answer which I can give to WEYGHTE is to supply him with the following list of instruments (or minstrels) which I have noted on the rolls. With the words oboe and hautbois I have not met at all.

Cithar (Pipe Roll, 21 Hen. II.), identical with the harp (cf. Wardrobe Accounts, 26/9 and 26/10, Q.R., 1326).

Simphonist, vidulator (Wardr. Acct., 7/5, 1294).

Thizerator (ibid., 29/24, 1304).

Trumper (ibid., 25/7, 1325).

Harper, nakerer, taburer, corner, vielour (ibid., 33/10, 1328).

Lute (ibid., 25/15, 1325).

Buglehorn (ibid., 26/10, 1326).

Sautreour (Close Roll, 2 Edw. III.).

Citoler, gitarer (Wardr. Acct., 34/11, 1330).

Bagpiper, guytterer (ibid., 61/8, 1335).

Pipeblois (ibid., 62/2, 1340).

Loweder or lodder (ibid., 61/8, 1334). Piper, clarionere (ibid., 95/22, undated, temp. Ric. II.). HERMENTRUDE.

DR. BELL'S SANDBAGS (8th S. iii. 188).-To Dr. Andrew Bell we are indebted for the impetus towards popular education which has culminated in Board Schools and all their expensive apparatus. A biography of him is to be read in any good modern encyclopædia. His pamphlet, published quite towards the end of the last century, An Experiment made in the Male Asylum at Madras,

suggesting a System by which a School or Family may teach itself under the superintendence of the Master or Parent,' was but little noticed until Joseph Lancaster applied the system, in a modified form, to schools for the children of Nonconformists. The Church of England then took it up, and under the auspices of the National Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church the system rapidly spread throughout the country. Economy being a great feature in the plan, the sand-trays (to which J. E. B.'s query no doubt refers) were adopted. A full account of the system was published by the S.P.C.K. in 1840, in a small tract (Dr. Bell's System of Instruction Broken into Questions and Answers"). From this we learn that "smooth, level trays, or boards, about three feet long, ten inches wide, with ledges on every side, of an inch deep, placed on a convenient bench or form, each to serve for three children," were provided, and a little dry sand was put into them, so that "with a shake it would become level." The teacher then wrote in the sand, with his finger, the letters he wished his pupils to imitate, and after they had learned, under his guidance, to copy them, the tray was shaken, and a copy of the letters set up for the children to continue practising upon. About sixty years ago this method of teaching writing was often to be seen in small village schools. Dr. Bell was buried "with much pomp" at Westminster, in 1832. CHAS. WISE. Weekley.

Sand-trays or sand-desks are meant, concerning which seeN. & Q.,' 6th S. vi. 542; 7th S., s. v. 'Sand'; Yorkshire Weekly Post, March 15, 1884; 'Dict. Nat. Biog.,' xxxii. 39 b. W. C. B. TUMBLER (8th S. iii. 168).-Though not a reply to this inquiry as to the origin of the word, it may not be without interest to note that the idea of a drinking vessel which, owing to its rounded base, must be held in the hand all the time any liquid remained is very ancient, if one may judge from the form of the little medieval pots of earthenware which are occasionally found in London excavations. I. C. GOULD.

Considering that the explanation volunteered by MR. CLIFFORD DUNN of this word as a drinkingglass is that given in Skeat's 'Dictionary' and probably in all other etymological dictionaries of value, it is rather quaint to ask, Has the explanation ever been inquired into? Why will not inquirers consult ordinary books of reference before rushing into 'N. & Q.'? MR. DUNN may, however, consult a still weightier authority on this point than a dictionary. I allude to Cripps's Old English Plate. At p. 309 (fourth edition) he will find the subject dealt with from his great-uncle's point of view. H. C. HART.

I was brought up in the faith that tumblers were so called from original lack of the wherewithal to sit upright on the board, and Prof. Skeat assents thereunto when he notices, sub "Tumble," “tumbl-er, a kind of drinking-glass, orig. without a foot, so that it could not be set down except upon its side when empty" (Etymological Dictionary'). There would seem to be a survival of this in the rounded base of glasses provided for tooth-brushing purposes in old-fashioned establishments. A carafe and "top" is the shop-name for such a vessel and the bottle ministrant. ST. SWITHIN.

"SPERATE" (8th S. iii. 167).-"Debts Sperate and Desperate 1725, some particulars of which are given in occurs in an inventory dated Finland Notes and Queries, ii. 140. The document contains a list of the goods of the landlord of the "Talbot Inn," Peterborough.

Maxey, Market Deeping.

W. D. SWEETING.

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See the 'Monasticon,' under Beverley and Ripon, and 'Memorials of Ripon' (Surtees, i. 90). J. T. F. Bishop Hatfield's Hall, Durham.

FIVE ASTOUNDING EVENTS (8th S. iii. 85, 171). One of the most notable of the false prophet's predictions appeared in 'Forty Coming Wonders' (pp. lxvi 542) issued in 1887 from the Christian Herald office. The volume is crowded with portentous pictures, diagrams, maps, and tables, and is described as the fiftieth thousand. In 1866 the prophet Baxter had foretold that "Louis Napoleon would be the Destined Monarch of the World," but that "in the event of his death, some other Napoleon, standing in his place, will have to ful

fil these prophecies." In 1880 "it seems probable, although not as yet certain, that Prince Jerome will be the Last Great Napoleon." This 1887 volume very fully prophesies as far ahead as 1901, and gives April 11, "the Last Day of Passover Week," as the Last Day.

ESTE.

dently formed the floor of an apartment of superior dignity to those previously discovered, and measured 8 ft. broad by 18 ft. long. It is marked off by a guilloche border running from end to end, and divided into square panels, set in pairs side by side, surrounded by the same border, each panel containing an ornamental design. Two of these are elegantly formed amphoræ with double handles. The others are conventional forms arranged in a star shape. The ground of the whole is "white, the patterns being worked in tesseræ of red and blue pottery. It is noticeable how excellent an effect has been produced with such common materials and such small variety of colour. We have had pleasure in learning that the Mayor (T. Wallis, Esq.), with admirable promptitude, immediately on being informed of the discovery put himself in communication with Mr. Ramsden with the view of the preservation of this beautiful pavement as a memorial of the Roman occupation of our ancient city, which may safely be dated not less than sixteen centuries back, and is probably earlier. The further development of this discovery is awaited with much interest."

AN OLD ITALIAN PROVERB (7th S. ii. 308, 415). -In a collection of "some choice ffrench proverbes," forming part of Bacon's 'Promus,' there is a French form of Grose's English version of the proverb quoted by MR. BRIERLEY at the latter reference, namely, "Angleterre le Paradis de femmes, le pourgatoire de valetts, l'enfer de chevaux." A much earlier variant occurs in Bonaventure des Periers's Nouvelles Recreations,' nouv. xxxi., where it is said of a certain dame:

"Le plus du temps elle estoit à Paris: car elle s'y trouvoit bien, d'autant que c'est le paradis des femmes, l'enfer des mules, et le purgatoire des soliciteurs." F. ADAMS.

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105, Albany Road, Camberwell, S.E. 'CHAMBERS'S LONDON JOURNAL' (8th S. iii. 128).—In an interesting series of papers appearing in your contemporary Scottish Notes and Queries Mr. Jas. W. Scott, who is writing there a Bibliography of Edinburgh Periodical Literature,' has fully treated of the origin and history of all the periodicals issued by W. & R. Chambers. would recommend MR. PICKFORD to get the December number for 1892 of Scottish Notes and Queries, and there he will learn all that he asks about and a good deal more. Mr. Scott mentions that Chambers's London Journal appeared thirteen weeks after the publication of the Edinburgh edition, which was first issued on March 31, 1832. Twenty-two years after its first appearance the name of the journal was changed to Chambers's Journal, and no doubt at that time the special London edition would be dropped.

W. B. R. WILSON.

The first number is dated Saturday, June 5, 1841, the last (No. 127), Saturday, Oct. 28, 1843. The price of it was three-halfpence weekly or sevenpence monthly. H. H. Chambers, of 59, Fleet Street, was the original proprietor; but it seems to have changed hands shortly before it ceased to exist. G. F. R. B.

ROMANS IN BRITAIN (7th S. xii. 186).-The following cutting from the Stamford Mercury of February 17 has reference to that from the Stamford Guardian of Aug 14, 1891 :—

"Lincoln.-The prosecution of the ironstone works on the site of the Roman villa in Greetwell Fields during the last week laid bare a fresh piece of Roman tessellated pavement of much more ornamental design than those already discovered, which, it will be remembered, are described and figured by Mr. Ramsden, the resident manager, in the last volume of the Architectural Society's Transactions. The portion now brought to light evi

CELER ET AUDAX.

"TAKE THE CAKE" (8th S. i. 69, 176, 364; ii. 215). Concerning this expression, which has been much discussed of late, the following, from Bartlett and Coyne's Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland' (184), describing a dance in front of a shebeen, is an interesting illustration :—

"A churn-dish stuck into the earth supported on its flat end a cake. which was to become the prize of the best dancer. The contention was carried on for a long time with extraordinary spirit; at length the competitors yielded their claims to a young man, the son of a rich farmer in the neighbourhood, who, taking the cake, placed it gallantly in the lap of a pretty girl, to whom I understood he was about to be married."-Vol. ii. p. 64. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.

Hastings.

REGISTER, REGISTRAR (7th S. x. 66, 136, 295, second page of the first book of the Cambridge 414). The following, which I transcribed from the Matriculation Register, commencing 1544, apparently furnishes an earlier instance of the use of the term Register-Registrary = Registrar than any previously given by your correspondents, and at the same time curiously informs us as to the duties of the University Register at that early date:

Who due wilbe A Register

Shuld Hold hys penne in truth entyere
Enɛearch he ought recordys of olde
The dowt to trye the right to holde
The Lawes to knowe He must contende
Old customys eke he shuld expende
No paynes to wright he maye refuse
Hys offyce ellys he doth Abuse.

W. I. R. V.

CHARLES II., THE FISH, AND THE ROYAL SOCIETY (8th S. ii. 526).—To trace the paternity of this story would indeed be a difficult task. By some it is attributed to James I., who, on the solution of the difficulty, clapped the solver on the back, saying "that he was a braw feelosopher."

is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat.' To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added that since it was demanded of them to make bricks without the covering of straw was never used among the Jews,

But with greater probability it is assigned to his
grandson, Charles II., in whose reign the Royal
Society was founded. Archbishop Whately, in the
remarkable chapter "Of Fallacies" in his 'Ele-it."-The Tatler, No. 34.
ments of Logic' (book iii. § 14) records this as an
instance of "indirect assumption":-

"It succeeds better, therefore, to allude to the proposition as something curious and remarkable, just as the Royal Society were imposed on by being asked to account for the fact that a vessel of water received no addition to its weight by a live fish put into it; while they were seeking for the cause they forgot to ascertain the fact, and thus admitted without suspicion a mere fiction." JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

The "fish" anecdote sounds like a stock joke. It occurs to me that many incidents may be recorded contemporaneously, and not appear in public till the diarist's decease, yet be veritable. As to the mace question, it has been bandied about almost ad nauseam. Cromwell's bauble appears to have remained in the Speaker's hands, with suitable alterations, after the Restoration; but I am not satisfied that the mace used in the reign of Charles I. was destroyed. We do know that it was superseded by a fresh one made for the Commonwealth.

I think it very probable that it survived and is now used by the Royal Society, as presented on May 23, 1663. A mere warrant might be annulled. Where is the tradesman's bill of charges; what entry of payment is there in the accounts? Supposing the mace rejected by Parliament to have survived, motives of economy may well have prompted its use under the warrant referred to, with perhaps a little polishing up. A. HALL.

A COFFEE-HOUSE IN CHELSEA (8th S. iii. 128). -No doubt a hundred devotees of N. & Q.' will rush to tell MR. DRUMMOND-MILLIKEN that Don Saltero's coffee-house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where there was a museum of odds and ends and historical gimcracks, much ridiculed by Steele (in the Tatler) and others, and mentioned in scores of books, was intended in the text he quotes. I remember the place, which had become a sort of tavern, well known to boating men, and the débris of its once renowned museum. 0.

The allusion is to one of the curiosities in the well-known coffee-house of Don Saltero. Steele mentions it in his humorous description of the

once famed collection of rarities :

"Though I go thus far in favor of Don Saltero's great merit, I cannot allow a liberty he takes of imposing several names (without my licence) on the collections he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions. He shows you a straw hat, which I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford, and tells you It

The coffee-house was first opened in 1695 by one Salter, who had been a servant to Sir Hans Sloane. The collection of curiosities was principally the gift of his master, being duplicates of his various curious collections, and consisted of corals, ores, animals preserved in spirits, idols, birds, &c. Steele was only "poking fun." The straw hat was as much a myth as its history. The collection existed for more than a century, and was at length sold in 1799. H. G. GRIFFINHOOFE. 34, St. Petersburg Place, W.

The writer quoted probably had in his mind the collection of rarities and curiosities, many of doubtful genuineness, preserved through the greater part of the last century at Don Saltero's coffeehouse, Chelsea. For information on this place of resort, and a variety of references, see 'N. & Q.,' 7th S. vi. 328, 472. G. L. APPERSON.

The coffee-house referred to in the extract quoted by MR. DRUMMOND-MILLIKEN is the celebrated Don Saltero's (for its history see Faulkner's or Beaver's 'Chelsea'), and the reference is probably taken from Steele, in the Tatler (No. 34), where he says, "He [Don Saltero] shows you a straw hat, which I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford, and tells you it is In a 'Catalogue of the Rarities to be seen at Don edition, I have by me, item 108 is "Queen ElizaSaltero's Coffee-house in Chelsea,' thirty-ninth

Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat."

beth's Chambermaid's Hat." Steele's Pontius

Pilate" may have been an exaggeration of this,
or it may have been so rendered in an earlier
edition, and perhaps earlier still "Potiphar."
The catalogue contains the titles of many extra-
ordinary curiosities, from the "Flaming Sword of
William the Conqueror" to "A Petrified Ham"
and "A Pair of Nun's Stockings."
J. HENRY QUInn.

[See also 4th S. iii. 580; iv. 420.]

REV. J. A. WALLINGER (8th S. i. 148, 196, 237, 321; ii. 392, 472).-He was the only son and fourth child of John Wallinger Arnold Wallinger, Esq. (ob. 1805), of Hare Hall, in the parish of Romford, co. Essex, where he was born in the year 1794. I have no record of his ordination as deacon, but he was admitted to priest's orders by the Archbishop of York, in Bishop-Thorpe Church, on July 18, 1824. He was successively curate of Hatfield, co. York, Malling, co. Kent, Tudeleycum-Capel, co. Kent, and Kingswood (Bristol), co. Gloucester. After serving the curacies of Kensington and Queen Square Chapels, Bath, Mr. Wallinger purchased Corn Street Chapel, in the same

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