adequate history of the remarkable building. The valuable contents included specimens of special interest to compilers of works on china, glass, furniture, MSS. and the like-thus James Marryatt, an authoritative writer on porcelain, seeks information In the Library edition of Ruskin's Works respecting Etruscan cups, &c. But of most is printed (vol. xxxiv., p. 493) a letter dated interest in some correspondence of the Geneva, Feb. 16, 1863, of which the first early nineteenth century is a letter from publication had not been traced. I find Stowe House dated Sept. 9, 1817, written the letter first appeared in an obscure New York magazine, The New Path for May, 1863 (vol. i., No. 1., p. 10), a file of which is owned by the New York Historical Society.

Graduate School, Columbia University. APPRENTICES TO AND FROM OVERSEAS pleasure of passing some very cheerful hours (see ante, p. 29). Since my former article the following overseas apprentices have

Received of Edward Swannell for one yeares rent ending at Michas. 1661 Received of John King of Padbury for the like for Sammons house

..

1s

od

4d

The usual works of reference, law lexicons

and dialect dictionaries have been searched

in vain, and a complete set of N. & Q. failed to assist. At the P.R.O. it was suggested that the right to make charcoal was alluded to, but it is not a wooded district and there is no evidence to support this. Since the fifteenth century the lordship of the manor of Padbury has been vested in the Warden and Fellows of All Souls' College, Oxford, but neither the Estates Bursar not the Steward of the manors has ever heard of cole-rents. The oldest inhabitants know nothing of them, and numerous inquiries in many directions have elicited nothing but guesses.

BATTERSEA ENAMEL WORKS.-Where is it possible to see the two catalogues of the auction sales of S. T. Janssen's Battersea enamels, (a) that of March 4, 1756, at St. Paul's Churchyard, and (b) that of 1762 at York House, Battersea? Advertisements of these sales have been found.

As S. T. Janssen was made bankrupt in 1756, would it be possible to discover any of the trade books or wages sheets used at his enamel works at York House, Battersea? The Record Office possesses particulars of the stock of Battersea enamels sold in 1756. some part of his estate, but no mention of

E. M.

VALE OF AYLESBURY. V. DE VELDTE THE ELDER: IDENTIFICATHORNBOROUGH.-Edward Thornbrough, TION OF FLAG SOUGHT. In a picture Commander, R.N., died at South Stoke, near which appears to depict H.M.S. Swiftsure, Arundel, in May, 1784, leaving, with several lost in action against the Dutch in 1666, the daughters, a son, Edward, born at Plymouth undermentioned flag flies at the stern: Dock in 1754, who, following his father's a St. George's cross on a white ground profession,was distinguished by much active in first canton (top corner against flag-pole) service and attained high honours. He died fimbriated red and white; the remainder a G.C.B., an Admiral of the Red and Vice- of the flag is striped red and white and Admiral of the United Kingdom, the chief checkered red and white round all four post in the Navy, and is buried in Exeter Cathedral. His only surviving son, Admiral Edward Le Cras Thornbrough, died s.p. in 1857. Among other relics of Sir Edward Thornbrough is a grant of arms made in 1817, assigning to himself and also to his only sister then surviving (Elizabeth, widow of Henry Blaxton, Lieut., R.N.), the fret of Thornborough, with an honourable aug. mentation for his services, viz., On a chief

edges.

Can any reader identify this flag? J. M.

QUAINT CHARMS TO BE IDENTIFIED.— Amongst scores of other manuscriptsmainly seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Yorkshire diaries-left to me by my late father (who spent his life collecting Yorkshire lore) is a most interesting book of strange occurrences in the Bedale and

2. The Speaking Figure and the Automaton Chess-Player Exposed and Detected,' &c. This is anti the "piece of mechanism and pro the hidden director of the game.

It may be inferred that many other pamphlets were issued in support of or opposed to the delusion, and a mechanical chess-player was, I believe, exhibited in Piccadilly about a century later. References to other pamphlets or adequate descriptions of the exhibition will be appreciated.

ALECK ABRAHAMS. WILL-O'-THE-WISP.-The Encyclopædia Britannica' says there is much difference! of opinion as to the exact cause of willo'-the-wisps (also known 66 as Jack-o'lanterns,' corpse candles," ignis fatuus).

66

Is the cause now known?

ALFRED S. E. ACKERMANN. MULBERRY-TREES.-At what age do mulberry-trees begin to bear?

ALFRED S. E. ACKERMANN.

BEARS. Are bears in reality very ferocious compared with other wild animals? ALFRED S. E. ACKERMANN.

3. Whose is the saying: Christ."

"N. O. SELLAM." "All suffering flesh is E. R.

Replies.

THE ARMS OF LEEDS.

(12 S. ix. 507; x. 56).

WITH reference to MRS. COPE'S query under the above heading, I venture to think that there is more inaccuracy in The Morning | Post's remarks than in the maligned arms. In The Book of Public Arms,' by A. C. described :Fox-Davies, the arms of Leeds are thus

:

RAIN AND FISHING.-Does a shower of rain, or a wet day, improve fishing? If Azure a fleece or, on a chief sable three mullets so, why? ALFRED S. E. ACKERMANN. argent. Recorded at the Visitation of the KYNASTON.-Thomas Southhouse Kynas- owl argent, and supporters, on either side an County of Yorkshire, 1662 [sic]. A crest, an ton was admitted to Westminster School owl argent ducally crowned or, are regularly used, Sept. 10, 1782, and Edward Kynaston but are of no authority. Motto, "Pro Rege et Jan. 12, 1829, aged 13. I should be glad tinctures, azure a fleece or, on a chief of the Lege." Burke in his General Armory gives to obtain any information about them. last three mullets of the field, but the arms as G. F. R. B. given above are regularly used (p. 432). JOHN CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK KEPPEL It is not the fact that 66 admitted soon after to Westminster School Charles I. ascended the throne Leeds added Jan. 19, 1775. I should be glad to obtain certain unauthorized embellishments to its any information about his parentage and shield," for prior to Charles the First's time G. F. R. B. Leeds was not a corporate borough; and having no arms therefore could not "add embellishments" to what it did not possess. The real fact is that Leeds first assumed armorial bearings when Charles I. was [The first of these was discussed at 4 S. ii. 437, king. Leeds was incorporated by that 587; iii. 84; viii. 36, under the form "Nine sovereign in 1626, and the first corporate ailors make a man."] | seal, with the legend SIGILLVM BVRGI DE

was

career.

PROVERBS AND PHRASES.-What is the origin

of the following:

1. "A tailor is only the ninth part of a man.'
2. "You must tell that to the marines."
J. J. WARREN.

66

LEEDES 1626, shows a shield azure with a official purveyors. Let one example suffice fleece of gold, supported by two silver owls -another Yorkshire city. From 1843 to crowned. The same arms also appear on 1875 Sheffield used, without authority an old Wait's Badge of the seventeenth a simple but effective coat: Azure, a century figured in Wardell's Municipal bundle of arrows saltirewise, tied in the History of Leeds.' The fleece, of course, middle between two pheons-a punning was an allusion to the town's staple trade, allusion to its name and trade couched in and the owls were adopted from the Savile sufficiently heraldic form. In the latter arms (silver with a bend sable and three year the Kings-of-Arms granted a new-made owls silver on the bend) as a delicate compli- coat (the blazon is from the grant, or ment to Sir John Savile of Howley Hall, rather a copy): Per fess azure and vert, first Alderman of the town under the in chief eight arrows interlaced saltirewise charter of 1626, and subsequently created banded argent, and in base three garbs Baron Savile of Pontefract. The first seal fessewise or; and for a crest, on a wreath was used until 1662, when a new one was of the colours a lion rampant argent, gorged prepared, the town having received a fresh with a collar and holding between the paws charter from Charles II. in 1661. The an antique shield azure, charged with eight new seal showed a shield of arms as now arrows as in the arms. The garos borne, but without crest or supporters, i.e., sheaves are doubtless an annexation from with a chief sable and three silver mullets the well-known arms of the Sheffields, on the chief-an adaptation from the arms baronets of Lincolnshire, and their proof Thomas Danby, the first Mayor under the genitors, the Lords Mulgrave, and

or

with the town of their name. Surely it was heavy wit on the part of the three Kings-ofArms who signed this grant to laboriously perpetrate such armorial puns, with sheaves of corn and arrows, so many times in one shield and crest.

new charter, who bore, Silver, three chevrons Dukes of Buckingham and Normanby--braced sable with a chief able and three a quite unnecessary addition as the Sheffields mullets silver on the chief. The borough do not appear to have had any connexion seems to have recorded these arms at Sir William Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, in 1665 (not 1662, pace Mr. FoxDavies), as appears from a MS. note by Ralph Thoresby, the eminent Leeds his torian (see Thoresby Society's publications, vol. xv. 'Miscellanea,' pp. 83-4). All the old corporation seals are figured in Wardell's work, and it is possible that from the dots shown on the chiefs of the arms in that book has arisen the misconception that the -chief in the Leeds arms was gold. It is certainly not used by the Leeds Corporation.

In The Yorkshire Weekly Post of January 14, 1922, I have discussed the question of the Leeds arms and have argued that the city already possessed a good title to its armorial bearings by prescription and long usage, and that the Corporation had no need to apply to the College of Arms for a new grant. My article contains sketches of the old and new coats.

W. B. BARWELL TURNER.

The addition of a helmet to a civic achievement of arms may be nonsense, and yet such a decoration is borne "by MRS. JOANNA STEPHENS (12 S. x. 8).— authority" of the Heralds' College (so The facts of Mrs. Stephens's case are curious, much invoked by Mr. Fox-Davies in his and somewhat different to any other in various publications) by most of the London and many provincial boroughs of informed the public that she had discovered eighteenth-century quackery. Mrs. Stephens recent creation as testified by 'The Book a remedial medicine for stone in the bladder, of Public Arms.' I cordially agree with and expressed her willingness to part with Mrs. Cope's remarks on the ineptitude of Drummuch of our official heraldry. The late her recipes for public use for £5,000. Sir W. H. St. John Hope, no mean Judge, voluntary subscriptions, but £1,356 3s. only mond, the banker, opened an account for stated in The Archaeological Journal, liii. being received, Mrs. Stephens used her 194, that "it must be allowed that the influence with such of the legislators as townsfolk [of Leeds] devised for themselves she could approach, and in particular with a pretty and most appropriate shield of Carteret, the Postmaster General, who arms," and the champions of the heralds had been her patient in 1735. Eventually, and their privileges can hardly maintain in 1739, an Act (12 Geo. II., c. 23) was that better heraldry is produced by its passed For providing a reward to Joanna