A delightful instance is quoted in a review of W. C. Loosmore's Nerves and the Man' in this week's Literary Supplement of The Times: "Oh, Lord, fill him with fresh veal and new zigor.' A. R. WALLER.. 1 Cavendish Avenue, Cambridge.. A DESCENDANT OF PONTIUS PILATE (12 S. vi. 335).There is, or was, an ancient tower of probably some old palace of the thirteenth century in Rome, not far from the lower end of the Via Nazionale, called "Torre di Pilato." I have always supposed this to have been so named on account of its being the residence of some forgotten but obnoxious magistrate. Similar cases of placebrious epithets given to former inhabitants names derived from humorous or oppro The idea that any Dr. W. A. Spooner, now Warden, and previously for many years Fellow and tutor of New College, Oxford, has been a very leading figure in the University for the last half century. Among other instances of absent-mindedness, he is will occur to everyone. credited with various lapsus lingua, two of which have one should claim descent and coat-armour become historic. Once, while officiating in from Pontius Pilate is very improbable, but chapel, he invited the undergraduates to that Pontius Pilate returned to Rome after at the same time there was an ancient legend sing the hymn, Kinkering Kongs,' pre-his term of office in Jerusalem-and there is sumably meaning 'Conquering Kings.' On another occasion he announced during a University sermon that we often found in our hearts the relics of a half-warmed fish, the context suggesting that he probably meant to say "the relics of a half-formed wish." I believe that both these slips are genuine, and are admitted by their maker. On the other hand, the great bulk of current "Spoonerisms " is undoubtedly of spurious manufacture. About 1890 these witticisms became the rage in Oxford. A column of spoonerisms was a matter of course in the lighter undergraduate journals, and a good many found their way into the London press. MR. MENMUIR might consult with advantage the columns of The Pall Mall Gazette in and about the year 1890. ISATIS. Probably a study of the undergraduate lighter literature and journalism of the period 1885-95 would more than satisfy your correspondent on this subject. Many spoonerisms " were obviously manufactured to order by the ingenious or the audacious: some were clever and some were no reason why he should not have had In Otto Brentari's 'Guida del Trentino,' i. 79 (Bassano, 1891), there is a description of the Palazzo Pretorio of Rovereto in the Piazza del Podestà, rebuilt 1476-8, by the reigning Podestà at his own expense. On it is carved a cross which recalls the murder of Pietro Marotta, of Capua in 1703—that is just before De Blainville's visit. He may have seen this cross, and so have imagined the existence of a 'Hieronimus Pilatus." W. A. B. C. "OX" IN PLACE-NAMES (12 S. vi. 333; vii. 16).-This query was raised in N. & Q.' over twenty years ago by MR. PENNY of Frome. I regret I cannot give the exact reference I believe that the explanation suggested as my set of N. & Q.' is packed for removal. was that OX Frome being in the ancient forest of Selwood. was a corruption of “oaks," We have it as a prefix in Oxshott, Surrey, and in a slightly different form in Woking and Wokingham. FREDERIC TURNER. Frome, Somerset. ROBES OF S. ELEPHANT AND CASTLE (12 S. vi. 11, 49, private coat-of-arms to be used in some way. 132). The origin for this tavern - sign pro-I think that all those schools of the Royal posed by MR. J. W. BROWN seems a little foundation of King Edward VI. can use that far-fetched. Is it not the Beaumont badge? monarch's arms; I believe many do so. The custom of using the "Arms” of the HERBERT SOUTHAM. nobility as tavern-signs is perhaps peculiar to England. I do not remember anything of the kind in France, Spain, or Italy-I am not quite sure about Germany, that land of heraldic display. In America the English custom seems common, e.g., the "Everett Hotel" (in Boston, I think) with the Everett arms: Gu., a chevron between three mullets arg., for signboard. When was this peculiar English custom introduced? I note that MR. PAUL DE CASTRO'S interesting list of London taverns omits the Elephant and Castle, and that besides the Royal Arms there are only three noble cognizances honoured as public-house signs in London: Bedford, Northumberland, and Oxford. This last may be intended for the University. What was the origin of this custom, so common in rural England? G. J., F.S.A. ROYAL ARMS FOR VILLAGE WAR MEMORIAL SERGEANTS-AT-LAW (12 vi. 334).-Some information on this subject is contained in a paper read by me on May 5, 1877, to the London and Middlesex Archæological Society, published in their Transactions, v. 234-254. I have been told that Sergeant Kinglake endeavoured to revive the wearing of parti-coloured robes without E. BRABROOK. success. Wallington, Surrey. FUNERAL PARLOUR (12 S. vi. 272, 316).— This term is very commonly used in the United States in the connexion mentioned by MAJOR BALDOCK. 66 In this city an undertaker, who recently purchased a large residence for his business, has placed upon it a sign reading "Mortuary Home and Funeral Chapel," and described himself as "Mortician and Embaimer." The term mortuary home" is, (12 S. vi. 250).—I am not quite sure whether I believe, new to this part of the United G. R. H. wishes to put the original coat-of-States, and I have never heard of its use arms of Charles I.-which he states he possessess—above the panels with the names. If the original stone has been removed from the hall-door-and the hall-door still exists -why not replace it there? If not, then the proper place for the original carving to rest seems to be a museum. If the arms were intended to be placed only over the hall-door, they would be out of place on another part of the building. Also, I think, that to mix up anything of the seventeenth century with what belongs to the twentieth is a mistake. I do not suppose there would be any illegality in G. R. H. doing what he likes with what he possesses, as the arms are not the same as those used by the House of Windsor. HERBERT SOUTHAM. THE USE OF THE ROYAL ARMS ON WAR MEMORIAL BOARDS (12 S. vi. 312; vii. 19).I think it would be distinctly illegal to place the Royal Arms of King George V. over the Roll of Honour in the hall of a school; or in any other place. The arms are those belonging to the King (like the Royal Standard), and can only be used on certain occasions, and by Royal Warrant holders. I presume that if the King endowed a school, then he might permit his elsewhere. Canton, Ohio. WENDELL HERBRUCH. DAVIDIANS: DAVID GEORGE'S SECT (12 S. vi. 227, 257).-De Blainville ('Travels,' vol. i. p. 385) writes that on Jan. 10, 1707, in the council-chamber of the town-house at Basle he was shown "the Portrait of the famous Arch-Heretic, David George, drawn from the Life, who came from Delft in Holland to reside at Basil with all his Family, in the year 1544." Is this painting still to be seen at Basle, and if so, where ? JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT FOLK-LORE OF THE ELDER (12 S. i. 94; vi. 259, 301). There is still a great deal of the folk-lore of the elder-tree unrecorded. It is supposed to be the tree on which the arch-traitor Judas hanged himself. Its scent is evil, and if, while green, branches are burnt on a bonfire, the Evil One himself, it is said, goes about in torment while the burning lasts. If branches are put on a house-fire the devil rages round the house lashing his tail. Branches of elder brought into a house cause illness and smell of death. On the other hand its virtues are many. A brew of its flowers makes the best country-side remedy for a cold, by inducing a sweat, and flowers and buds make a good emetic HORSE-BLOCKS (12 S. vii. 7).—I have an affectionate remembrance of one of these erections, which stood, more than a hundred years after 1740, on the Great North Road between Grantham and Great Gonerby, about a quarter of a mile from the foot of the hill which the host at Newark would not have objected to Jennie Deans carrying away in her lap (Heart of Midlothian,' chap. xxviii.). ST. SWITHIN. WOODHOUSE'S RIDDLE (12 S. vi. 277).By an inadvertence next was written by me instead of near in the fourth line. The full reference is p. 182 in vol. ii. of The New Foundling Hospital for Wit' (1784). EDWARD BENSLY. 'ITINERARY' OF WILLIAM OF WORCESTER (12 S. vii. 8).—The Itinerarium sive liber rerum memorabilium' of William Botoner of Worcester is among the MSS. in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It is one of those not bequeathed by Archbishop Parker. An account of its contents is given by Dr. M. R. James in his 'Descriptive Catalogue' of the C.C.C. MSS., vol. i. pp. 500-507, the items which were omitted in Nasmith's edition being marked by an asterisk. EDWARD BENSLY. Greenwood (1747), and Benjamin Greenwood (1773), exist at St. Mary Cray, Kent. These are by no means unique, but they are interesting as a link between the earlier brasses and those of to-day. 66 23 When J. W. F. observes that 1710 is an unusually late date for a brass," he appears to forget that Westminster Abbey (amongst other places) contains some important nineteenth-century specimens. The craft is still practised. I should imagine, however, that 1710 would be late for a shrouded figure. F. GORDON ROE. Arts Club, 40 Dover Street, W.1. At the Victoria and Albert Museum are rubbings of brasses-both at St. Mary Cray to P. Greenwood, 1747, and B. Greenwood, 1773. Writing from memory I believe one of these is engraved with an effigy of a man in frock coat, fancy waistcoat and knee breeches. The work is very poor both in design and execution. In Westminster Abbey, General Sir R. T. Wilson (died 1849) is engraved as a knight in armour of c. 1405, with wife and seven sons and six daughters, c. 1420. WALTER E. GAWTHORP. 16 Long Acre, W.C.2. Notes on Books. Ancient Glass in Winchester. By J. D. Le Couteur. (Winchester, Warren, 8s. 6d. net.) We believe that several of our correspondents have been looking forward with interest to the appearance of this volume. They will not be disappointed. Mr. Le Couteur is twice to be congratulated: on having a subject to treat which was still in want of exhaustive or as it is called, "definitive " treatment; and on having dealt with it in a most satisfactory way. Few antiquarian studies present greater attractions than the study of ancient glass. The limits within which the medieval glazier worked may count as good fortune. Compare the conditions of his task with those to which the fresco-painter adjusted his designs. The leading; the restricted range of colours; the exigencies of light; above all, the unyielding frame within which the glass must be accurately fitted composed a problem neither too simple nor too intricate to excite the wits of a good craftsman to their best and happiest play. And when the task was complete-what magical effect! For not merely did the glazier like the sculptor, the painter and the jeweller make things beautiful in themselves; he also determined the very light by which all else that was beautiful in his church or hall was to be seen. At once subordinate and independent, the medieval glazier is craftsman rather than artist: he states, but does not interpret to speak of him in the grammar of language, he uses the plain indicative mood of the people and that positively subjunctives and optatives, the typical moods of the artist, which subtly transmute statements of fact and fill them with a person's own reasons, questions and feelings remain a foreign idiom to him. And in this particular, no less than in his sense for colour and significant form " (if it be permitted to borrow an expression from the art jargon of yesterday), he may be held a luckier man than the designers and glaziers of later centuries. : To understand him, and to understand the full harmony of the edifice to which he contributed, it is essential to know the stories with which his mind connected the figures he made, and we think Mr. Le Couteur's readers should highly esteem his consideration and patience in setting down the legends of the saints who appear in the Winchester glass. Pretty well all that a student needs in this way is thus here under his hand. We a little demurred to St. George's being, however tentatively, connected with Cappadocia, since that tends to continue Gibbon's unfounded identification of him with a certain sorry Bishop-unnecessarily, too, the birthplace of St. George being, we believe, quite unknown. The historical illustration leaves nothing to be desired. Mr. Le Couteur has gone through all which could throw any sources,' the original " light on his subject, with most minute care, and enriches his account of the glass with an abundance of documentary detail. As we might expect of him, he gives plenty of biographical information-setting out, e.g., all that is known of those four interesting figures at the base of the great Jesse window in the College Chapel: Simon Membury, Wykeham's clerk of the works; Thomas Winford, the master mason; the Carpentarius and the master glazier, Thomas, operator istius vitri-to say nothing of John Prudde, the King's glazier in the middle fifteenth century. and many another whom time has more than half-obliterated to the eyes of all but the antiquary. Our author is able to settle one or two ancient disputes. Thus the date of the glass in the College Chapel-hitherto uncertain, and by some experts placed as late as within the fifteenth century-is now fixed at 1393, by the discovery of an entry relating to it in the Roll of Wykeham's household expenses for the latter half of the 26th year of his consecration (which took placein 1367). This Roll is given in full as an appendix to the chapter on the College glass. A minor set of puzzles straightened out are those connected with Thurbern's Chantry-where among other things, a (rather surprising) misreading of an entry in the College Accounts for 1482-3, had led to statements that the College had put in secondhand glass. Mr. Le Couteur has no trouble in showing this to be without foundation. Every page would furnish examples of the skill and success with which the necessary material for this valuable work has been collected and elaborated. We confess, however, to finding something to complain of in the general arrangement, in that it is difficult to find any particular place in the book, there being no table of sectionheadings, and, in the text, no distinction made between the headings of sections and those of subsections. This does not affect the value of the fact that it may now be said that there is not in Winchester Cathedral, in the Close, in the College, at St. Cross or in the City a fragment of ancient glass which has not been carefully examined and described, and that, too, with the particular insight and happy effect characteristic of a labour of love. Mr. Le Couteur modestly disclaims any "literary pretensions" but the vividness with which a careful reader will find himself able to visualize the treasures of these windows show-if it needed showing-how much true literary quality may be secured by mere concentration on one's subject matter, and an enthusiastic determination to get it well and fully set out. To a lover of this art, a study of the Winchesterglass does not, unfortunately, bring unmixed enjoyment. All too large a proportion of the description is an account of beautiful débris; and a recent correspondence in our columns has re-called attention to the still more grievous-one might be forgiven for saying the infuriating-loss to the College of the beautiful ancient glass,. which, a century ago, was entrusted to a Shrewsbury firm for cleaning and repairing, and by them retained, a copy being made and sent to Winchester in its place. The photographs, which are well-chosen, numerous and on the whole, for their purpose, satisfactory, include the St. Barbara and St. George in Ludlow Parish Church which have been erroneously supposed to belong to Winchester Cathedral. The book concludes with some useful hints on the preservation of ancient glass; and a melancholy better. list of pieces which have disappeared from Win-introduces the not uncommon expression entre chester, neither through fraudulent dealing, nor chien et loup; "between lights "would have been through the fury of iconoclasts but through mere In fact, the inversion of this book failure on the part of the authorities to guard the suggests itself distinctly all through. glass effectively against the ravages of time and Inevitably there are things one has looked for weather. Considerable portions of this lost and not found, and things one has found which glass are noted by Winston and other as in situ one could have spared; inevitably, too, there are in the mid-nineteenth century, and a little even instances where the equivalence of the locutions as late as 1884 might afford ground for friendly dispute. But on the whole, the selection seems to us excellent being both practical and entertaining. There are interspersed a few judicious notes on pronunciation and grammar, and here and there illustrations from French literature, in which, naturally, Molière and La Fontaine figure most frequently. We do not see why a mystery is made of the meaning of soulèvement de cœur, which is the subject of a careful note of warning. It is a grateful thought that many of the acts of vandalism recorded in this and the like studies are now hardly possible; and yet more grateful must it be to our author and his fellow-workers to reflect that the knowledge they have so laboriously collected, and disseminated with such care and fulness, is one of the principal agencies in bringing about this improvement. English into French. Five thousand English MR. SAMSON originally, and we think happily, tion. For this book is very good indeed, and should be of the greatest use to those numerous English men and women who speak and write French well enough to make no grammatical mistakes, and to convey their general meaning, but fail to get home" to their correspondents for want of knowing the living French of the national idiom. A full, well planned French-English and EnglishFrench dictionary of locutions or phrases would, for practical purposes, be worth incalculably more than the ordinary dictionary, and we are glad that Mr. Humphrey Milford is seeing to it that the valuable accumulations, of which this is a first instalment, should not be any longer unused. Exact and sensitive reading of a foreign language is the best preliminary to speaking and writing it well, and this consideration leads us to wish for the counterpart of this volume, the "French into English as soon as may be. These five thousand phrases are all of three (or more) English words; and repetition has been preferred to cross-reference, so that each entry is complete in itself. The English phrase seems, in some cases, to have been dragged in in order to introduce the French. Thus A guilty conscience needs no accuser" hardly strikes one as an English phrase in the same sense as qui s'excuse s'accuse is a French one; and we have never heard "between hawk and buzzard," which here Notices to Correspondents. EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to "The Editor of Notes and Queries'"-Advertisements and Business Letters to 'The Publishers"-at the Office, Printing House Square, London, E.C.4.; corrected proofs to the Athenæum Press, 11 and 13 Bream's B'uildings, E.C.4. ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should hear the name and address of the sender-not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. 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