is the vulgar use of off for of=from about which I am desirous to be informed.

HENRY ATTWELL.

SIR THOMAS ARMSTRONG. Can any of your correspondents kindly inform me of the names of the regiments to which the wellknown Sir Thomas Armstrong, temp. Charles II., belonged? I believe he was made a lieutenant in the Earl of Oxford's Horse, now the Royal Horse Guards, when that regiment was first raised; and some ten or twelve years subsequently, when Charles II. raised the regiment of horse now known as the 3rd Dragoon Guards, he became its first lieutenant-colonel. Am I correct; and how long was he associated with these regiments? D. M.

GENERAL JOHN ARMSTRONG, 1674-1742.—І should like to learn the particulars of this officer's military career, and especially what regiments he commanded. He is said to have served at the battle of Blenheim, and at one time to have commanded the forces in Ireland. D. M.

SCABIOUS OR DEVIL'S-BIT. (See 'Demon's

Aversion, 9th S. iii. 375.) --Jeremy Taylor

asks:

And the 'Babees Book' says: “Scabiose...... is good for ache." But what particular ache or ill had the old divine in mind for which "the scabious by the shore of the sea," rather than the same plant growingoninland pastures, was the cure found just where it was needed? I suppose that the scaly eruptions for which scabious was once supposed to be efficacious are not peculiar to the seaboard. M. C. L.

THE MEANING OF "LURID." - By some strange method this word has come to be used in in the very opposite sense to its correct meaning. An example in point is to be found in a recent issue of the Daily Chronicle, which had "England in search of a fast bowler is a pathetic situation. The performance of Arthur Mold at Bristol will probably be regarded in a very lurid light." Now lurid, L. luridus, means gloomy. One dictionary adds ghastly pale, dismal. The writer, therefore, said very gloo gloomy light." He meant "very brilliant." Can the change of meaning be traced? It will be interesting to see how the 'H.E.D.' will treat the word.

66

SÈVRES CHINA.--I have in my possession five plates of old Sèvres china, which the previous owner described as follows :

"Set of five very fine Sèvres plates, being specimens of those ordered by the five Great Powers at the Treaty of Paris, England, Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia."

Can any of your readers tell me if such services were ordered; and, if so, on the occasion of which treaty, and who now possesses the set ordered for England? S. S.

"MRS. Q."--There is a well-known engraving of this celebrated beauty. Can any authentic details of her life be given?

Norwich.

JAMES HOOPER.

THEOBALDS OF KENT. - Any information

will be gratefully received regarding the Theobalds of Kent, prior to William Theobald, of St. Dunstans, near Canterbury, will proved 1636. (Mrs.) P. A. F. STEPHENSON. Warley Barracks, Brentwood.

LATIN COUPLET WANTED.-There is said to

exist (or to have existed) at Paris a fountain inscribed with a Latin elegiac couplet, which many years ago was rendered by a young Etonian, somewhat as follows:

The nymph who bids these waters flow
Lies hid beneath this stone:
Do thou like her thy gifts bestow,
Nor let the source be known.

Can any correspondent kindly supply the original Latin? Possibly the lines may occur

elsewhere. Hutton Rectory.

W. F. R.

L'ORDRE DU DEVOIR (FRANCE).-Any information respecting the above will be thankfully received. A friend of mine, who has lately had the distinction of a Chevalier of the order conferred upon him, is informed that no such order exists.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Hanover Gardens, Bradford.

LA CIEGA DE MANZANARES.-Sir John Bowring contributed to the first volume of Once a Week (p. 525) an interesting notice of La Ciega de Manzanares. She was a blind old woman who was an inmate-why it is not stated of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum of Madrid, and had a remarkable gift of poetic improvisation. On one occasion she was asked by a lady of distinguished grace and beauty to write a stanza without the letter e in it. As this vowel is the most frequent in Spanish, as in English, the task was not easy; but she improvised these complimentary lines to the fair woman who had made the request:

Divina flor purpurina!
En tus ojos cristalinos
Y tus labios los mas finos,
Tu boca la mas divina,
Asaz la virtud camina
Y mira con gran cuidado;
Todos alaban tu agrado,
Con la mayor importancia
Tu amor y fina fragrancia
Y corazon apiadado.

Bowring omits to call attention to the vowel
with which the second line begins. He
does not give the
of this clever
improvisatrice. Is there any more extended
notice of her life and writings?

name

WILLIAM E. Α. ΑΧΟΝ.

Moss Side, Manchester.

SHEEP IN THE GREEN PARK.- Can any one tell me to whom belongs the right of turning out his sheep for free pasture upon this spot, and how far back the privilege may date? The flock to-day is considerable, the animals being branded with an "E." What does this letter denote? CECIL CLARKE.

Authors' Club, S. W.

BEN JONSON'S WORKS. It is known why Dr. Jeremy Taylor chose such a title as 'Golden Grove' for one of his works. Was there any similar reason which led Jonson to choose such titles as 'Timber; or, Discoveries made upon Men and Matter,' 'The Forest,' and 'Underwoods,' which last was adopted adopted by Stevenson? THOMAS AULD.

'THE WAVERLEY ALBUM.'-This is the title of a book in my little collection, gilt-edged, bound in crimson silk, lettered Waverley Album,' but having no date on the title-page or publisher's name, though on the frontispiece the name Edward Lacey, 76, St. Paul's, London, appears. The price is stated to be one guinea. The book contains fifty-one line engravings of scenes and places mentioned in the Waverley novels, from 'Waverley' to 'Quentin Durward, with which the series ends. The illustrations are very unequal, some of them, as those after C. R. Leslie and P. De Wint, being very good, whilst others are indifferent. This is the only copy I ever saw of the book, and I should like to know whether it is scarce or valuable. To the best

of my remembrance I have never noticed the mention of it in catalogues.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A..

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

[The work was published in 1833. It is not often heard of in booksellers' catalogues. We know nothing of its value.]

PECULIAR USE OF THE TERM "BRITISH."The following use of the term "British" for "English," in the narrow, provincial sense, is so strange as to invite inquiry. Mr. Leslie Stephen in his life of Dr. Johnson in "English Men of Letters" writes on pp. 110-111 :—

"The antipathy to Scotland and the Scotch already noticed was one of Johnson's most notorious crotchets...... He declared that the Scotch were always ready to lie on each other's behalf......He felt some tenderness for Catholics, especially when oppressed, and a hearty antipathy towards prosperous Presbyterians. The Lowland Scotch were typified by John Knox, in regard to whom he expressed a hope, after viewing the ruins of St. Andrews', that he was buried in the highway.' This sturdy British and High Church prejudice did not prevent the worthy doctor from having many warm friendships with Scotchmen."

Has such a sense of the word "British" ever been recognized? Perhaps it would hardly deserve notice if it had been employed by a writer of less eminence than Mr. Leslie Stephen, who, it must be said, can seldom be detected in an incorrect or careless use of words. ALEX. LEEPER.

Trinity College, Melbourne University.

ARREST FOR DEBT IN IRELAND. An episode in one of Lever's Irish novels presents a gentleman threatened by bailiffs and catchpolls, who contrives for a time to evade levy and caption by barricading his residence against the former and strictly secluding himself therein from the latter. The judgment debtor is a famous duellist and an authority on all details connected with "affairs of honour." He is outraged one day by beholding from the French windows of his drawing-room the parties to a duel, apparently, who have invaded his grounds and are arranging preliminaries on his lawn, but still more exasperated at the obvious unfamiliarity of the seconds with the duties of "pacing the daisies" and placing their men. After much excited expostulation and many impatient suggestions, he is invited to step forth and give the trespassers the benefit of his notoriously vast experience. The ruse succeeds, and he finds himself instantly the victim of a ca. sa. Will some one of your innumerable readers kindly communicate through your columns the name of the work in which this incident is narrated, and thus confer a favour upon GNOMON?

Beplies.

LOYAL ADDRESSES TO RICHARD

CROMWELL.

(9th S. iii. 367.)

THERE appeared in the Penny Magazine (30 Nov., 7, 14, and 21 Dec., 1839) a series of articles on 'Richard Cromwell and his Wife.' They are eminently readable and contain much useful information concerning the erstwhile Protector. The removal of the loyal addresses by Richard from Whitehall to Hampton Court in two old trunks is duly noted, and it is said that " of these two trunksful of broken faith he continued to take great care all the rest of his life." Having returned to England from his exile about the year 1680, he lived in retirement at Cheshunt in the house of Baron Pengelly until his death in 1712. The anecdote concerning the exhibition of the loyal addresses to a new acquaintance is thus given in the Penny Magazine :

"Dr. Lort, an industrious collector of recondite matters, related, on the authority of the Rev. George North, vicar of Codicote, near Welwyn, in Hertfordshire (who had been acquainted with two persons that had frequented Richard in the last years of his life at Cheshunt), the following par

ticulars-None were admitted to visit him but such as had strong recommendations from some of his intimate acquaintance as being men of an agreeable and cheerful conversation and of strict honour. One of the two persons just mentioned, who lived at Ware, was recommended under this character, and introduced to him with an admonition to conform to the old gentleman's peculiarities without

asking any questions or seeming to make observations. After an hour or two had been spent in conversation and in drinking Richard started up, took the candle, and was followed by the rest of the company (who all, excepting the last admitted man, knew what was going forward), carrying the bottles and the glassesinto a dirty garret, where was nothing but a round hair trunk. This Mr. Cromwell pulled out to the middle of the room, and, calling for a bumper of wine, drank "Prosperity to Old England!" The company did the same, when the new guest was called to do so, sitting aside [? astride] on the trunk, as all of them had done. Richard desired him to sit light, as he had no less under him than the lives and fortunes of all the good people of England! The trunk was then opened, and the original addresses showed him, with great mirth and laughter.. Such was Richard's method of initiating a new acquaintance."

Some years ago the Rev. Arthur Brown, curate of the parish, delivered a lecture on Cheshunt before the members and friends of the Cheshunt Working Men's Association. This was printed with notes in 1865. In a note on p. 38 Mr. Brown expresses his disbelief in this and other stories concerning Richard Cromwell, because they do not

A somewhat similar anecdote of Richard Cromwell will be found in a volume with the following title :-

"The History of Addresses. By one very near A Kin to the Author of the Tale of a Tub. Diu multumque desideratum. London Printed in the Year 1709."

The Dedicatory Address of fourteen pages is inscribed to W— B--- Esqr," and is dated 2 May, 1709. The pages in "Whit. Mem." where the addresses are to be found are given. The volume comprises 244 pages, with an index of the places from which letters were received. JOHN TAYLOR. Northampton.

The story quoted 9th S. iii. 367 may be found, with some slight ght variations, in 'Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell,' by the Rev. Mark Noble, 2 vols., London, 1787, a book which contains much interesting and useful information, though Thomas Carlyle speaks in a most disparaging manner of the book and its author. Carlyle sums up his

caustic criticism as follows :

"Such as it is, this same Dictionary [i.e., the above book] without judgment and without arrangement, 'bad Dictionary gone to pie' as we may call it, is the storehouse from which subsequent Biographies have all furnished themselves. The reader with continual vigilance of suspicion, once knowing what man he has to do with, digs through it, and again through it, covers the margins of it with notes and contradictions, with references, deductions, rectifications, execrations--in a sorrowful but not entirely unprofitable manner." -'Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,' chap. ii., Introduction.

According to the 'Memoirs of Cromwell,' Richard Cromwell died in the house of Serjeant Pengelly at Cheshunt, Herts, 12 July, 1712, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, and was buried in the chancel of Hursley Church, Hants. The book is dedicated to John Mon

de Deu, proaviæ suæ." She was, he says, seized temp. Henry III., and left England, giving up Hastings to the king until peace with France. Thereafter, 36 Henry III., protection was given to all lands of said countess, Rot. Parl. 18 Edward I. The Binghams were doubtless a branch of the Buslis. Hugh de Bingham, who lived at Bingham in 1199, was great - grandson of Richard de Builli, founder of the Cistercian house of Roche in 1147. So 'The Norman People.' T. W. Aston Clinton.

co

"BAILEY" (9th S. iii. 269, 293, 433). - An old building near the parish church of Rumney, Monmouthshire, is known as "Beili Bach," i.e., the Little Bailey. It was probably the residence of the bailiff of the manor of Rempny. A portion of the precincts of Cardiff Castle was termed the Castle Bailey down to the seventeenth century. The Bailey is still the name of a street in the old part of Swansea, near the Castle. I wonder if I shall be scolded for hazarding a conjecture that the Irish baile (Bally-) is a cognate

word.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

"MEAD AND OBARNI" (9th S. iii. 306, 413, 471).-MR. STRONG, if I understand him rightly, denies the existence of Russian obarni. I regret I did not give my authority for it in my first letter; it is Pawlowsky's 'Russisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch, Riga, 1879, p. 580. There are, in fact, three alternative forms of the word, obarni, obvarni, and ob

varnoi. While writing I may as well add that my attention has just been drawn to the fact that although the "Stanford Dictionary' does not give cherunk in the body of the

that in the supplement. The latter gives additional evidence of the use of the word in Elizabethan literature, but no attempt at etymology; so that MR. PLATT may justly claim to be the first who has fully explained it. WM. C. RICHARDSON.

PRIOR'S PARENTAGE (9th S. iii. 449). -Horace Walpole's suggestion does not exist outside his own letter to Mann. It would be difficult to know on what ground it rested. According to Johnson, Prior left his birth for future biographers to speculate upon, hoping that they might give him a more notable descent than he could claim. This is certainly unfortunate, but it does not add a grain of

possibility to Walpole's suggestion. The main facts have not been seriously questioned. There is little doubt that Prior was born at Wimborne, in East Dorset; and it is probable that his parents were Nonconformists, a fact which accounts for the absence of any register of his baptism at Wimborne. The 'Dictionary of National Biography' quotes two lines of his which favour this view. His father was George Prior, a joiner by trade, who died when Matthew was very young. The boy was then taken in hand by his uncle, a vintner in London, and it was here that the Earl of Dorset first came across him. Other facts tend to prove the absurdity of Walpole's suggestion. Take Prior's dedication of his poems to Lionel, seventh Earl and first Duke of Dorset. It is nothing but a highflown eulogy of his patron, the late earl. But there is not a word in it that could be twisted by the most malignant Whig into a belief that Charles, sixth Earl of Dorset, was Prior's father. If such had been the case the whole thing would have been most improper, and would not have lacked an earlier Walpole to expose it. In 1664, the date of Prior's birth, Charles Sackville, then Lord Buckhurst, was sowing the wildest oats with Sir C. Sedley and others in London. The next

year he was at the war, and writing "To all you Ladies." He was twenty-six and unmarried. His only son, Lionel Cranfield Sackville, was born of his second marriage,

in 1688.

there said to be Russian, and a very interesting quotation is given (from Hakluyt) in which the word is spelt cherevnikyna, and interpreted as mead made of the wild black

cherry.

JAMES PLATT, Jun.

It may perhaps be worth noting that there are two articles about this word in the Stanford Dictionary.' MR. PLATT appears

many allusions to Prior. After the latter had arranged "Matt's Peace," and become thereupon a plenipotentiary for the Utrecht negotiations, Swift hints pretty broadly his wonder that Lord Strafford, another plenipotentiary "as proud as hell," could consent to serve with one of Prior's low birth. As a matter of fact Strafford refused, and Prior