SILVI ILVER SALVERS (cliv. 425).-Jackson's "History of English Plate' says that no English silver salvers were in domestic use of earlier date than the seventeenth century. Two round salvers in the British Museum are hall-marked London, and date respectively 1683 and 1688.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

There are many variants of the rhyme on the rule of the road, and it is impossible to trace Cassell's the date of the earliest. Classified Quotations ' (1921) quotes the following as an Old Rhyme":

AUTHORS WANTED (cliv. 425).-2.

The rule of the road is a paradox quite,
Both in riding and driving along;

If you keep to the left, you are sure to be right,

If you keep to the right you are wrong;
But in walking the streets 'tis a different

case,

To the right it is right you should bear, Whereas to the left should be left enough space

For those whom you chance to meet there.

In N. & Q.' for July 28, 1866, it is stated that Henry Erskine (1746-1817) was the author of the original version, which was:

The rule of the road is a paradox quite;
For in driving your carriage along,

If you turn to the left you are sure to go right,

If you turn to the right you go wrong. Many of the variants will be found in 6 S. iv., though the numerous examples there A further given are by no means exhaustive. variant will be found in Whitaker's Almanac for 1903, whilst another oft quoted one is ascribed to Punch. The following, from an old newspaper cutting which I have by me, I have not met with elsewhere:

The rule of the road is a paradox quite,
In riding or driving along;

If you keep to your left, you are sure to be right;

If you keep to your, right, you'll be wrong. But in walking, a different custom applies, And just the reverse is the rule.

If you keep to the right, you'll be right, safe, and wise,

If you keep to your left-you're a fool.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

[Replies have also been received from M. HEYLI M. LEON and MR. H. ASKEw.]

The Library.

Officers of the Bengal Army, 1758-1834. Part II. D-K. Alphabetically arranged and annotated with biographical and genealogical (Connotices by Major V. C. P. Hodson. stable. £1 1s.).

WE

JE noticed the first part of this useful work at clii. 287. It must be a gratification to the compiler that the widespread and active interest aroused by it among families connected with India has, on the one hand, brought to on the other light but few corrigenda and, hand, discovered a fair crop of addenda, most of them inconsiderable, but a few of them interesting.

This new volume-no less than the former one, and doubtless as the succeeding volumes will do-impresses one strongly with the immense sacrifice of young life by which the Bengal service was maintained. By a rough count we find that at least 280 of these officers perished before completing their thirtieth year, and many of them as mere boys. Something under two score of the names have place, as subjects of articles, in the 'D. N. B.' among the most notable being Alexander Dow, sailor and playwright as well as soldier, who did good service at Chandernagore under Warren Hastings in 1778. Warren Hastings appears in the distance of one or two entries; thus, William Gardiner, Hastings's kinsman, who had married a native wife, at his death (he met it leading a forlorn hope at Lahar) left his two children to Hastings's care. Here is also Isaac Eaton, the old friend who played his part in Warren Hastings's trial, and left him a legacy of £1,000. At the time of the outbreak in 1781 Hastings had with him at Benares a young Switzer, George François Grand, whose brother also served in the Bengal Army; there are several more men of foreign extraction whose names fall within these pages, the most notable being, perhaps, the Armenian, of an ancient family, Joseph Emin, who was born in 1726 at Hamadan, and posted to a troop of Moghal Horse at Dinapore in 1770. He seems to have served about two years; received a pension; published his Life and Adventures' in 1792, and died at Calcutta in 1809. A second edition of his autobiography was brought out in Calcutta ten years ago.

or

Where possible Major Hodson has enlivened the terse record with touches curious humane. There are several notes recording gallantry, and some recording eccentricities, thus: Major John Home left his house and grounds at Hoogly and Rs. 15,000 for the keep of his favourite mare, with instructions for the preparation of her food, which was to be served to her on a wooden table; Lieut.-Col. Denby died unmarried 1841, "of sheer inanition," though worth from a lac and a half to two lacs of rupees; and Major Archibald Hooke," being entitled to an annuity whilst his wife was above ground. embalmed her body and placed it in a glass case in a chamber in his Of house, where it remained for 30 years. Charles Ellison, who was restored after a few

months, it is related that he was suspended in 1807 (then a boy of 20) for having" addressed to the O.C. Cadet Coy. a letter intimating his determination not to study the native languages.' A few grim facts turn up, the grimmest being the story of Captain John Donellan, and the poisoning of his brother-inlaw Sir Theodosius Boughton. Donellan suffered for this, though some accounts have it that he was innocent, the crime having been his mother-in-law's, who confessed it on her death-bed.

One is well accustomed to discrepancies in the spelling of names in earlier centuries, but a little surprised to find more than one instance of it in the nineteenth century. Thus Alexander Humphrays (1806-1846) (to take the spelling of the official records) appears severally in four different forms in registers of some importance.

Glimpses of the History of Painswick_with a Bibliography of its Literature. By F. A. Hyett. (Gloucester: John Bellows).

IR Francis Hyett explains in his Preface the

two or three discrepancies when compared with the letterpress referring to it. We would lay stress once more on the value of the Bibliography, which, conveniently distributed under ten headings, runs to some sixty pages.

BOOKSELLER'S CATALOGUE.

MR. WILLIAM H. ROBINSON, of Newcastle-onTyne, devotes his Catalogue No. 20 to Americana, to which is added a selection of other travels. He describes a collection of 549 items. While this includes a large number of excellent things from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the most remarkable part of it, we think, is what comes from the sixteenth century, and especially from Spain. Thus here, offered for a hundred guineas, is the Breue compendio de la sphera,' by Martin Cortes, in the rare first edition and containing the full-page world-map. This work, as the compiler of the Catalogue points out, made real contribution to the science of navigation, and Iwas the first in which the deflection of the noticed. The Spanish original is

of the existence of Mr. St. Clair Baddeley's A Cotteswold Manor,' to publish this useful and attractive history of Painswick. He includes, in Appendix and Bibliography, particulars not to be found in Mr. Baddeley's work, and, besides that, addresses himself to readers whose interests would naturally turn rather to the village than the manor, and who would be by way of preferring the popular, so it be also accurate, to the purely scholarly and the exhaustive. Painswick, as students of village annals know, is remarkable for the number of points in its history which are very rare. Thus, in 1623/4 the Customs of the manor, settled some forty years before by arbitrators, were expressly confirmed by an Act of Parliament. Parliament was concerned with Painswick again in 1838, in the passing of the Act for the sale of the advowson of the vicarage--a measure occasioned by unseemly disputes in the election of the vicar, which are curious and instructive reading. For two hundred years the parishioners of Painswick had enjoyed the right of choosing their vicar. The church is one of the thirtyone churches in England possessing a peal of twelve bells, and, accordingly, a fine record of bell-ringing. In the history of the manor, we have the establishment, in the fifteenth century, of the unusual custom that widows of copyholders should continue in possession of their husbands' holdings, not even forfeiting them on re-marriage. This was done by the Earl of Shrewsbury in recognition of the sacrifice made by Painswick when out of sixteen men of the village who followed him to the French wars, eleven lost their lives.

In preparing this valuable little book for a second edition one or two misprints might be corrected. On p. 10, par. 2, the sentence beginning She had not alienated" has evidently been altered, but not completely adjusted; and the pedigree on p. 13 presents

translation. Of Fernando Cortes, Mr. Robinson has the first edition of the Italian version of his second letter concerning New Spain (1524 £25) and a German translation of the second and third letters (1550: £38). Of Claudius Ptolemy there are seven items, and among them the edition of the Geographicae Enarrationis Libri Octo,' brought out in 1525 (£75), and that of 1541 (£40). An outstanding book is Fracanzo's collection of voyages, in the Latin translation from the original Italian, published at Milan in 1508 (£105); and still more so may be counted a small quarto bound by Riviere containing Waldeseemüller's Cosmographiae Introductio,' in which occurs the first suggestion of the name America for the new world (£250). Still more interesting is a complete set, all in first editions, of the American tracts of Las Casas (£145). Other works that may be mentioned are the Jesuit Lettres dv Iappon, Perv et Brasil '-periodical reports sent to the General of the Society and published (this the first edition) in 1578 (£36); a copy of the edition of Bergomensis published in 1506 with the up-to-date account of the discovery of the new world by Columbus (£45), and Vargas Machucha's 'Milicia y Descripcion dé las Indias' in the first edition (1599: £65).

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

WE cannot undertake to answer queries privately.

WHEN answering a query, or referring to an article to which has already appeared, correspondents are requested to give within parentheses immediately after the exact headingthe numbers of the series, volume, and page at which the contribution in question is to be found.

NOTES: A Jersey Merchantman's Encounter with a French Privateer, 39-Berkeley Hunting Papers, 40-St. Paul's Churchyard, Barbados, 42 --The Fox and the Ice-Changing London, 43Shakespeare at sea Tennyson Thackeray's Roundabout Papers ' An oversight of the Crown, 44.

QUERIES: Sir Nicholas Malby, 44 Richard White, Marquess d'Abbeville, 45-" Wye Forest -Slaying of John Talbot by John Dewhurst, 1568-Will Kemp-Bust of Charles Dickens-Capt. Fawcett at Woodstock-Roman Lieut.-Governors of Britain-Ventura, artist, 46-Pike, i.e. Haycock-St. Just in Roseland, Cornwall-French numerals-Urchin-fish as shop-sign-Johnson's Dictionary-John Raban-Dacre of Skelton, 47Du Rocher-Pargat-Simson of Stirling-Incense: Kuphi-XVII Century Tankard: hollow rollReferences wanted, 48.

REPLIES:-The King's Ships: 7 built at Portsmouth-" As plain as a pikestaff "-Arius: pronunciation, 49 The Regicides 'Mercurius Domesticus-A linguistic prodigy, 50-Beaty: Dade Children of Col. the Hon. William Herbert-Baron d'Aguilar of Starvation Farm, 51Puzzle Inscriptions-Bull and Gate British Monumental Inscriptions': Roffe-R. P. Bonington-Narratives of the Great Plague-Quotation from Disraeli-Authors wanted, 52.

THE LIBRARY:- Sheffield, Hallamshire '-' The Romance of the Apothecaries' Garden Chelsea.'

at

NOTES & QUERIES.

VOLUME CLIV.

TITLE PAGE and SUBJECT INDEX

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THIRD SERIES.-General Index
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SIXTH SERIES.-Vol. vii (Jan.-June, 1883).
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Vol. vi (July-Dec., 1888.
EIGHTH SERIES.-Vol. i (Jan.-June, 1892).

NOTES AND QUERIES is published every Friday, at 20, High Street, High Wycombe, Bucks (Telephone: Wycombe 306). Subscriptions (£2 28. a year, U.S.A. $10.50, including postage, two half-yearly indexes and two cloth binding cases, or £1 15s. 4d. a year, U.S.A. $9, without binding cases) should be sent to the Manager. The London Office is at 14, Burleigh Street, W.C.2 (Telephone: Chancery 8766), where the current issue is on sale. Orders for back numbers, indexes and bound volumes should be sent either to London or to Wycombe; letters

for the Editor to the London Office.

Memorabilia.

THE Fortnightly Review for July contains an article on Alexandre Dumas by Mme. de Lagarenne, daughter of one of Dumas' closest friends, and able to speak of him from knowledge of an intimate sort. She begins by recalling Dumas' determination and audacity, when his play Les Mohicains de Paris' was forbidden by the Censor as too advanced in the views it put forth for 1864. Dumas, in a sensational letter, appealed from the Censor to the Emperor. It is from the detective Jackal in Les Mohicains' that we get the well-known phrase, Cherchez la femme." Dumas' beautiful hand-writing is recalled; it had won royal attention; and then his lightning rapidity in writing; his power of working fifteen hours a day for a month at a time; his eleven hundred volumes and his blue paper. His astonishing vitality showed itself not merely in the force and volume of his work, and in his strong gaiety, but even in physical immunity from cold: Je me chauffe à moi-même," he said when someone expressed astonishment at his light clothing on a bitterly cold day. He was the discoverer of Trouville, and we may call him an assistant discoverer of Sarah Bernhardt.

E noticed in the Quarterly Journal of the WE New York State Historical Association several examples of those minor commemorations which seem to be multiplying on all sides, and should have no little effect in increasing the general sense for history in the mass of the population everywhere. One of these was the dedication of a tree in the garden of Gracie Mansion, New York City, to the memory of Deborah Morris Freeman. She was a Quaker-banished by Clinton for

IN The Times of July 16, the date when swan-upping began on the Thames, will be found a most interesting and informative article about swans and their history which our readers may be glad to have The "upping

abbreviated for reference.

are

is the taking up of the young birds for the purpose of marking their bills. In the sixteenth century about 900 private persons or corporations possessed the high privilege of a distinct swan-mark, granted by the King or his officers, or theirs by long prescription. Nowadays, on the Thames, the swans owned by King and by the Vintners' and Dyers' Companies. The King's mark is no longer used; the Dyers' birds have one nick made with a pen-knife in the bill, and the Vintners' birds have two nicks, which fact gives the true interpretation of the Swan with two Necks as inn sign seen along the Thames. The conjugal fidelity of the swan is a peculiarity fortunate for the swan-markers, since thereby they are better enabled to establish the parentage of the cygnets and divide them aright. If cob and pen-which among other birds are called cock and hen— belong to different owners, their brood is equally divided between these, an odd bird going to the owner of the cob. A little is still left of the old pomp and circumstance connected with the swan: the swan markers wear bright, distinctive uniforms; the six rowing-boats in which they go up the river to their business fly "swan-banners,' " and every December the Vintners hold a swan dinner," when two cygnets specially fattened for the occasion are brought into the hall of the swan officers of the Vintners goes back in procession led by the swan warden. Record

to 1609.

The largest swannery in England is not on the Thames but on the Fleet in Dorset, near Abbotsbury, the property of Lord Ilchester. This game (the writer of the article recalls the old technical term), though it would not have been considered a great one in old days, yet contains some hundreds of swans.