Ash Ann (Midgley ?), of Hackness, Yorkshire,
born some thirty years ago on Ash Wednesday,
and christened accordingly; Gibblum Atkinson,
landlord (or landlady) at this present time of a
small inn at Penrith in Cumberland; and--but I
am sorry to name her in such company-the late
Hon. John Berry Erskine, daughter of Henry, Lord
Cardross, and granddaughter of the seventh Earl of
Buchan.
A. J. M.

an

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms." We still say "there is sickness in the village," "there is a sick child in that house." We talk of As an instance of curious Christian names, a "sick people," "sick horses," "the sick bay (hoschild, to wit a girl, has recently in this neighbour-pital) on board ships," &c. We say, indeed, "poor hood received the name of Aasta Zahra. It will fellow, he looks ill," but we do not call him " be interesting to learn by what familiar name the ill-looking fellow" in the same sense, but "sickly child will be known, except it be by that of Hasty looking." We do not in England usually complain Sarah. In another instance a parent proposed "I am sick" in the wider sense, but in America giving his daughter thirteen names, a list of which and the colonies the expression is held admissible, was prepared, but at the eleventh hour it dwindled and the preservation of such old forms is adduced in support of the claim of the English, as of the Spanish colonies, that in them the mother tongue is spoken in greater purity than in the mother country. S. C.

to three.

Lower Heyford, Oxon.

G. J. DEW.

The Times column of births and deaths is constantly adding to the list of curious Christian names. Here are four such within a fortnight :-Mayda (Aug. 29); Charles Welcome (Sept. 2); Diamond, a widow (Sept. 2); Briseis (Sept. 10).

C. T. B.

THE PORTRAITS AT ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE (5th S. xii. 466.)-If the date and age on the anonymous portrait mentioned by MR. FREEMAN are correctly given, the following extract from Collins's Collections, relating to the marriage of Sir William Cavendish and "Bess of Hardwick " will, I think, effectually dispose of the hypothesis that it represents their second daughter, Elizabeth, afterwards Countess of Lennox :

"Memorandum: That I was married to Elizabeth

Hardwick, my third wiffe, in Leicestersheere, at Broad-
gatt, my Lord Marquesse's (of Dorset) house, the 20th of
August, in the first yeare of King Edward the Sixth, at
2 o'clock after midnight, the dom. letter B."
In fact, the date and age on the picture would be
too early for Frances, their elder daughter, even
supposing her to have been their first-born child,
so that the Johnian lady must be sought for else-
where. It may be as well to say that my authority
for the extract from Collins is a note at p. 428 of
the History of Chesterfield (London, Whittaker
& Co.; Chesterfield, Ford, 1839).

CLK.

The

CHAP-BOOK NOTES (5th S. xii. 461.)-I hope MR. EBSWORTH will not suspect me of discourtesy if, after the extremely complimentary terms in which he has been so good as to speak of my small literary efforts, I ask you to give me an opportunity of explaining that, if my memory serves me rightly, I only suggested to the FolkLore Society the preparation of a history of chapbooks, and did not propose to compile it. fact that I have not been well enough to edit the Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham, which in an incautious moment I had undertaken, warns me to remove this impression. Such a history would be a work of considerable interest, and I think I see my way to the production of one far more complete than I could hope to prepare. There exist some few difficulties in the way, which I hope are not insurmountable. When they are overcome I will, with your permission, return to the subject. WILLIAM J. THOMS.

40, St. George's Square, S.W.

A TOPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY FOR LONDON (5th S. xii. 424, 469.)—The proposed formation of a London Topographical Society ought to find many supporters. But such a society ought to be formed without delay, for "old London" is disappearing, literally, at railroad pace. There can be no better time than the present, when the acquisition of the Crace collection by the nation gives to such a society an excellent starting point. And here let me express a hope that the said collection may continue to be exhibited as at present, and not be consigned to portfolios in some print room, indexed, it may be, according to engravers' or artists' names. Not only ought it to be exhibited, but missing views ought to be added, that it may become a national portrait gallery of London

buildings. There is not, I believe, any view of the old King's Bench Prison, now being demolished; I cannot find one in the catalogue.

Mrs. Lyne's maiden name was Heigham; she bore the name of Lyne from her deceased husband. This lady's father was a Protestant, who, when he I will conclude with a query. Can MR. heard of his daughter becoming a Catholic, withWHEATLEY or any other reader of "N. & Q." tell held the dower he had promised her, and disinme where I can see a view of the old Navy Office, herited one of his sons from like cause. This son, in Seething Lane-Pepys's office, not the Navy Wm. Heigham, was in Spain, a lay brother of the Pay Office in Broad Street? Society of Jesus. He was a well-educated gentleG. F. BLANDford. man, finely dressed, like other high-born LonMight I venture to add one or two further doners.* Mrs. Lyne, his sister, married a good points to which the attention of such a society heir to a fine estate, but his father or uncle, for he husband and a staunch Catholic. He had been might be advantageously directed; namely, preserving records of all the reckless renumberings of was heir to both, sent a message from his deathold and historical streets which the local authorities bed to young Lyne, then a prisoner for the faith, have, even in my memory, perpetrated. A number asking him to conform, otherwise he would give is a house's name in London, if I may be allowed the up his inheritance to his younger brother. Mr. expression; and the worst of it is, that not merely Lyne afterwards went to Belgium, where he obare the associations of, say, No. 32 obliterated, but tained a pension from the King of Spain, part of they are transferred to an absolutely wrong house, which he sent to his wife, and thus they lived a lower down the street. The society should also poor and a holy life; but his death, which hapwatch and preserve all old-fashioned stone slabs bear-pened in Belgium, left his widow in straitened circumstances. of ing street names, generally let into the masonry the corner house. When a street is rechristened, these are torn out and broken up. The society should have an eye to old interesting inn signs, often either painted over or replaced by devices more genteel and inane. The originals should be copied or photographed, if the " improvement"

cannot be averted.

Λ.

ANN LYNE (5th S. xii. 25, 96), at the time of her arrest, was a widow. She was a gentlewoman of delicate constitution, but gifted with an ardent spirit and intelligent mind. At Tyburn, when she was ready to die, she declared to the standers by, with a loud voice, "I am sentenced to die for harbouring a Catholic priest, and so far am I from repenting for having done so, that I wish with all my soul that where I have entertained one I could have entertained a thousand." She suffered before two priests, and Mr. Barkworth, whose combat came next, embraced her dead body whilst it was yet hanging, saying, "O blessed Mistress Lyne, who hast now happily received thy reward, thou art gone before us, but we shall quickly follow thee to bliss, if it please the Almighty." She was executed on Feb. 27, 1601. She was arrested along with Mrs. Gage, daughter to Baron Copely, whom they found with her. The trial took place at the Old Bailey, before Chief Justice Popham, a bitter enemy of the Catholics, and one Marriott gave evidence against her, the evidence being of a very weak and slender character.

Mrs. Lyne told her confessor, some years before her death, that Mr. Thompson (of Blackburn), a former confessor of hers, who ended his days by martyrdom in 1586, had promised her that if God should make him worthy of that glorious end, he would pray for her that she might obtain the like happiness.

ROBT. EDWIN LYNE.

GREEN FAMILY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (5th S.

xii. 449.)-Baker's account may be of use to OBLIGE, although it does not come down later than the sixteenth century, when the direct line of Green of Boughton ended in two co-heiresses, the wives respectively of Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal. This pedigree is in vol. i., p. 32. The arms are also on p. 385, while the coat of Green of Drayton, a branch of Boughton, is given at pp. 32 and 730; the coat of Greene of Westminster with quarterings, vol. i. p. 77, and pedigree, ib., p. 73. Several monuments of Green of Boughton and Drayton are given in vol. ii. p. 64 seq., including Sir Thomas, ob. 1391; Thomas, his son and heir, ob. 1417; another Sir Thomas, ob. 1457; and yet another, ob. 1462. Drayton came from Sir Henry, second son of Sir Henry of Boughton, Chief Justice K.B., 38 Edw. III, who married the daughter of Sir John, and sister of Sir Simon, Drayton of Drayton. The arms of the senior and junior lines of Green appear to have been entirely different, viz., Boughton, "Az., three bucks trippant or,"+ and Drayton, "[Arg.,] a cross engrailed [gu.]." These last are given as figured on the monument of Thomas Lovett of Astwell, Esq., ob. 1586, in the church of Wappenham. Besides the pedigree, p. 32, other notices of Green of Boughton and Norton will be found in vol. i. pp. 31, 35, 37, 38, 62, 63, 88, 123, 739;

Green of Drayton, ib., p. 426; Green, epitaph,
p. 624.
C. H. E. CARMICHAEL.

OXFORD, 1810-20 (5th S. xii. 405.)-Accuracy
is so necessary in a publication which will be of great
authority in a far-off hereafter, that I must ask
to correct one point in MR. ELLACOMBE'S note.
Prof. Rigaud did wink at trousers being worn
by gownsmen going into the country; and their
adoption may be dated as about the year 1810,
when he was proctor; but his resignation of that
office had no connexion whatever with his execution
of it. Mr. Rigaud became Savilian Professor of
Geometry in the autumn of 1810, and an aged and
much loved father broke his thigh, which rendered
the attentions of his son more necessary than ever
they had been, and the office of proctor could not
be filled by one who wanted just then to be con-
stantly at Richmond. This was one great reason;
another was that he had decided on not going into
holy orders, so that, having been appointed pro-
fessor, and wishing for temporary freedom from
enforced business, he in December resigned his
office of proctor and his Fellowship at Exeter
College, and was succeeded by the Rev. J. Prust,
not Priust. Let me also call attention to the fact
that in "N. & Q." 5th S. x. 18, the ".
proctor" in
Ackermann's Ocford is stated to be Thomas Davies,
of Jesus College, Junior Proctor in 1812, on the
authority of the Rev. S. Creyke, C.C.C., who
himself was taken as the "scholar," and who made
a note at the time of the supposed originals of the
portraits.
GIBBES RIGaud.

18, Long Wall, Oxford.

YEW AVENUES (5th S. xii. 369.)-It is asked in reference to these what their origin is. Evelyn mentions the yew hedge in his Sylva (Lond., 1664, ch. xxv. p. 65), and it does not appear that he had any other idea than that of its suitableness for the purpose. He observes :

"The tree is easily produc'd of the seeds,...washed and cleansed from their mucilage; and buried in the ground, like haws. It will commonly be the second winter ere they peep, and then they rise with their caps on their heads: Being three years old you may transplant them, and form them into standards, knots, walks, hedges, &c., in all which works they succeed marvellous well, and are worth our patience for their perennial verdure, and durableness."

In the same way Sir Robert Southwell writes to Evelyn in 1684 (Diary and Correspondence, Lond., 1852, vol. iii. p. 274) :—

"My next desire is to abound in hedges of yew; would plant it against the walls of two large courts, and in other places, so as now and hereafter to extend it five or six hundred yards and more. My seat is somewhat bleak, and therefore I choose this green as that which no cold will hurt, and I am told that it will grow as much in three years as holly in five."

He then refers to the passage cited from the Sylva, and asks several questions about the method of planting, and concludes :

"HURTS"

HIC ET UBIQUE.

(5th S. xii. 369.)-Hurts is merely short for hart-berries, from A.-S. heorot, a hart. Many plants were named from animals, as, e.g., foxglove (not from folk's glove, as guessed contrary to evidence), hound's-tongue, &c. From the hart was named heorot-berige, hart-berry, explained in a gloss to mean berries of the buckthorn (see Cockayne's A.-S. Leechdoms, vol. iii.). But plantnames were used very vaguely and much corrupted, and hart-berry was also applied to the bilberry, and turned into whort, black whort, black whortle, hurt, whortle-berry, huckle-berry. The w in whortle-berry points to a provincial pronunciation like that of whole for hole, A.-S. hál, North of England hale. WALTER W. SKEAT.

Shortened form of hurtleberry, in use in Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire. Danish; heonorben3, Saxon; bilberry; Bacca vitis "Hurtleberry, hiot bar, idææ" (Todd's Johnson's Dict., 1818). Withering's British Botany, seventh ed., 1848, pp. 184–5, gives :—

"Whortleberry: 1. Vaccinium myrtillus, bilberry, blaeberry, or black whortleberry; 2. V. uliginosum, great bilberry, bog whortleberry-both these varieties are deciduous; 3. V. vitis idæa, red whortleberry, cow berry; I4. V. oxycoccos, marsh whortleberry, cranberry-both evergreen." JOHN PAKENHAM STILWELL.

Yateley, Hants.

Hurts, as bilberries are called in the South and West, or whorts and whortleberries as they are called in other parts, are corruptions of A.-S. heortberia, hart-berry. Our wild berries are mostly appropriated to different animals, as bear-berry