and painted cloths in the hall and chamber; and the cattle" comprised a cow, 2 store pigs and a little horse.

5. William Bott of the Wold.

Villiam Bott, Batt or Bett (pronounced, with the vowel long, Boot, Bait or Beet) interests us as a Snitterfield man who was a younger contemporary of Richard Shakes. peare and an older contemporary of the latter's son John, and settled, like John Shakespeare, in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he resided in and acquired the house which John Shakespeare's son William afterwards purchased and made his home, New Place.

At Snitterfield William Bott lived at the Wold. He learned to write, and he became the agent of Squire Clopton. He had a wife, Joan, and children in 1552, when Thomasin Palmer left them all "a pied heifer of three year old and two launds of wheat lying in Woodway, the one betwixt Roger Smith on both sides and the other betwixt William Bracy and John Hancorn. He witnessed the will and 'praised the goods of Hugh Green in Mar., 1553. On Jan. 31, 1554, he witnessed the will, of which he was appointed overseer with Richard Maids, of his friend, Hugh Porter, after the death of the latter's daughter, wife of Robert Maids. Hugh Porter, who lived five or six years after making this will, bequeathed Bott 40s. On Sept. 8, 1557, Thomas Palmer made Bott overseer of his will and left his chilaren a little gift of 3d. apiece. A list of Hugh

Porter's debtors drawn up on Nov. 26, 1557, includes the following:

"Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield oweth unto the same 408. The executors of Robert Arden of Wilmecote and Thomas Stringer of Bearley oweth unto the same for Robert Arden £5. 2. 3. William Bott of Snitterfield £30, for the which sum of £30 William Bott hath to mortgage to the forenamed Hugh Porter all the land within the town of Hatton."

The executors of Robert Arden were his daughters, Alice and Mary, the second being in Nov., 1557, wife of John Shakespeare in Henley Street. William Bott was already engaged in those speculations which afterwards got him into trouble. Hugh Porter's will was proved in the Court of Canterbury on the 7th February, 1560, and to Bott and to Porter's natural and loved daughter, Eleanor, fell the task of distributing the residue of his estate "in charitable deeds and works, for the wealth of his soul and all Christian souls," Thus again Bott had the handling of money that was not his own. On Apr. 21, 1559, he made the inventory of the goods of Roger Lyncecombe with Richard Shakespeare and others. He witnessed the will of his master, William Clopton, on Jan. 4, 1560. And with Richard Shakespeare and others he made the inventory of the goods of Henry Cole of Snitterfield on June 1, 1560. On the promotion of young William Clopton from New Place to Clopton House, in succession to his father, Bott removed from the Wold to New Place. EDGAR I. FRIPP.

Appointed to the Colonelcy Rose.

Captain

THE GEOPHONE.-The geophone is one of the many devices which, developed under the strenuous demands of war, now constitute permanent additions to our industrial equipment in peace time. It is a listening instrument invented for detecting enemy activities in sapping and min ng and for locating artilery. It is now being used by the U.S. Bureau of Mines for locating miners who have been entombed. Although quite small it is essentially a seismograph, working on the same principle as the ponderous apparatus which records earth-quake tremours.

In connexion with this subject we are told in an American mining paper that Herodotus, describes the method by which opposing armies, in one case at least, detected the presence of the other's mines. The device employed may be considered

the forerunner of the modern geophone. He says:

"The Persians beleaguered Barca for nine months, in the course of which they dug several mines from their own lines to the walls. But their mines brass, who went with a brazen shield all round the were discovered by a man who was a worker in fortress and laid it on the ground inside the city. In other places the shield, when he laid it down, was quite dumb; but where the ground was undermined, there the brass of the shield rang. Such was the way in which the mines were discovered."

The translation is not faultless, but will

serve our present purpose. The original

text is given in Herodotus ('Hist. Libr.,' iv. 200 (2)) on page 238 of the Dindorfian edition. The siege of Barké (circa 512 B.C.) is mentioned also by Eneas, the Tactician (Poliorceticus,' chap. xxxvii.), who gives the name of the besieger as Amasis. L. L. K.

POOR RELIEF BADGE.-A curiosity of its kind, this may be worth reproducing though it may not be without parallel. A handbill, of which this is a verbation copy, reads as follows::

At a Vestry held in the Parish Church of Llanbeblig in the County of Carnarvon, on Monday the 4th day of May, 1818 It is ordered,

That all the Paupers who shall in future apply for and insist upon having Weekly Relief, shall be Badged with Red Letters Ll. P., to be fixed by the Overseers in the Front of the Hat of each Pauper to be worn daily, and if any of the Paupers shall be found at any time in the Town of Carnarvon or in any part of the Parish of Llanbeblig without a Badge upon his or her hat such Pauper shall forfeit one Week's allowance.

That it is the opinion of the Parishioners present at this Vestry, that it is improper to permit persons, that are not settled in this Parish to wander and beg therein, and in order to ascertain who are settled in the Parish, It is ordered that the Overseers do without delay, procure printed Tickets in which the paying Overseer of the Poor is to write the name, age, and description of each Pauper wishing to apply for Voluntary relief about the Parish. That these orders be translated into the Welsh language, and printed in English and Welsh and distributed throughout the Parish. (Signed)

Thomas Roberts, Vicar. William Griffith

Robert Williams

Wardens.

Overseers of the Poor.

L. E. Jones, Printer, Carnarvon.

ANEURIN WILLIAMS.

LORETTO. There is a curious note

on

p. 436 of a short edition of Quentin Durward' edited by H. W. Ord and published by A. and C. Black. It runs as follows:

"Loretto. There are three Lorettos, possessing images or relics of the Virgin Mary: the most celebrated is in Styria in Austria, where miraculous cures are reputed to be effected. Two pilgrimages are made annually to it."

There appear to be eleven Lorettos in the Old and in the New world, and far and away the most important of them is the Loretto, near Ancona, famed as it is for being the place, to which the house inhabited by the Holy Family was transported by angels from Palestine. This Loretto is a centre of pilgrimages. If there is a Loretto in Styria it is not mentioned in Meyer's German Encyclopædia,' and in Ritter's 'Geographisch - Statistisches Lexicon' no mention is made of any Loretto in Austria. T. PERCY ARMSTRONG. The Author's Club, Whitehall Court. S.W.

FEMALE PSEUDONYMS USED BY MEN.In 1811 Shelley with T. J. Hogg composed Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson.' Grant Allen (1848-1899) published two novels, The Typewriter Girl' and 'Rosalba' under the name of "Olive Pratt Rayner." The greater part of the test work of William Sharp (1856-1905), appeared under the name of "Fiona Macleod," and I believe that the name of "Agnes Farrell " as author of the novel 'Lady Loran,' concealed the identity of Francis William Lauderdale Adams (1862-1893). This list can probably be extended JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

ANN VANE.-Johnson in his 'Vanity o Human Wishes'

wrote:

Vane

The teeming mother, anxious for her race, Begs for each birth, the fortune of a face, Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring. the example was Lord Hailes pointed out to Boswell that unfortunate could lay no claim to the compliment. Croker charges Lord Hailes with being hypercritical, remarking that Vane was handsome, or, what was more to the purpose, appeared so to her royal lover. An entry under date Mar. 13, 1731/2 in the recently published Diary of Viscount Percival reviewed at length at 12 S. vii. 161 suggests that Lord Hailes's criticism was sober:

Col. Schutz told me that he had been with Mrs Vane, that he avoided it as long as he could till Prince [Frederick] took notice of his not going.

This fat and ill shaped dwarf has nothing good to recomend her, neither sense nor wit.

reached London, and is a different person Mrs. Vane died in 1736 before Johnson from Frances Lady Vane whose career, is deployed in Smollett's 'Peregrine Pickle.' J. P. DE C.

Queries.

WE must request correspondents desiring inormation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

COUNTESS MACNAMARA.-Miss Frances Williams Wynne, the writer of The Diaries of a Lady of Quality,' which were edited by Abraham Hayward in 1864, writing at Richmond in August 1832, says (op. cit. pp. 216-9):

"We have just had Countess Macnamara here she gave me a singular instance of devotion to her beloved Bourbons, which, being asserted on her personal knowledge, is, I suppose, in the main, true. A Miss W., who some fifty years ago was an admired singer on the English stage, made a conquest of a Mr. A. a man of large property, who married her. Whether the lady's character was not immaculate, or whether, the march of intellect not having begun, actresses of the best character were not yet reckoned fit society for ladies, does not appear; certain it is, that, finding she could not get any society in England, the A's went to establish themselves at Versailles, where they took a fine house, gave fêtes, de, &c. His wealth gave splendour: her beauty, her singing, her dancing, gave charm. The Polignacs came to her fêtes, and afterwards introduced her to the little society, to the intimate réunions, of which Marie Antoinette was a constant member. When adversity befell this object of admiration, of almost idolatry, Mrs. A. devoted herself, her talents, and (better than all) her purse to her service. It was chiefly during the Queen's melancholy abode in the Temple that Mrs. A. most exerted herself. In bribes, in various means employed for the relief of the poor Queen, she expended between £30,000 and £40.000 sterling. This of course was taken under the name of a loan, and soon after the restoration Mrs. A. made a demand upon Louis XVIII. Every item of her account was discussed and most allowed, till they came to a very large bribe given to the minister of police, one to the gaolor, and bribes to various persons, to manage the escape of the Dauphin and the substitution of a dying child in his place. Louis XVIII. would not agree to this article, and insisted upon its being erased from the

account as the condition upon which he would order the gradual liquidation of the rest of the debt. To this condition Mrs. A. would not accede: Louis XVIII. died: the accounts were again brought forward. Charles X. was just going to give the order for paying the debt by instalments when the revolution came, and Mrs. A. seems now further than ever from obtaining any part of her money. It is to me very sad that Mac. does not seem to feel that, admitting all her premises, her story tells very much against her beloved Bourbons......She concludes the history I have just written by saying, I had a message for Mrs. A. from Holyrood, which I was desired to deliver in person. I had great difficulty in tracing her: at last I found her a week ago,' (she told me where but I have forgotten). She represents her as preserving remains of beauty at about 70, coiffée en cheveux, with a mask of paint.

..It seems that they are all convinced, and this Mrs. A. is ready to make any oath, that the Dauphin did not die as was supposed in the Temple. The Duchesse d'Angoulême has always said, I have no evidence of his death, and know that it did not take place in the Temple, but I have no evidence of his being alive at any subsequent period.'"

The Miss W. is Miss Charlotte Walpole; the Mr. A. is Mr. Edward Atkyns. See 10 S. ix. 343, xi. 457 and the authorities there quoted.

Who was Countess Macnamara ?

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.-Can any reader kindly tell me whether the three Primers which preceded the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. can be obtained in a reprint, and if so, where; also, the same information as to the Scottish Prayer Book EVERARD HAMILTON.

of 1637.

ALCHEMICAL MSS.-I shall be extremely grateful if any of your readers can help me trace the whereabouts of two interesting alchemical manuscripts. One is a fourteenth century volume that belonged to the late Reginald Cholmondeley of Condover Hall and is described in the 'Historical MSS. Commission Report,' vol. v. p. 334. Among numerous other alchemical texts it is said to contain a copy of Roger Bacon's Tractatus trium verborum ad Johannem Parisiensem.'

The other manuscript was the property of the late J. Eliot Hodgkin of Richmond, Surrey. It is a fifteenth-century alchemical Historical work and is described in the MSS. Commission Report,' vol. xv., part 2, pp. 2-4.

I am at present engaged in completing a catalogue of the early alchemical MSS. in the British Isles, which is to be printed as the opening volume of an International