seven impediments, which have to be removed before one can begin to explain. 1. Botterwort is given as "an ancient spelling." Yes; but it is a Norman spelling, and has to be set aside. The Norman scribes wrote a French t for an English th. 2. We are told it was formerly Botwerth and Botesworth. The final -werth has e Hence Botwerth miswritten for o, as often. must be set aside. It is further obvious that the slight curl, so common for er, has been disregarded. Hence the form really meant is Boterworth, which is quite right. So also Botesworth is an error for Boteresworth, which is also quite right. 3. Next we have the statement that buthor is Norse for "bittern." But "bittern " is mere French, and the "Norse" form was borrowed from it, and is worse than valueless. Neither is Butterworth connected with bittern in any way. 4. Next comes the assertion that worth is the same word as garth! 5. Next we come to the Norse Christian name Buthar. But Butter is English; and I suspect that this Norse name is merely an English name done into Norse. 6. Next, "it was often spelt Bot- or Bedworth"; and "in Cheshire it was Bud"! And originally it was "Bodder, meaning a messenger." But the d is merely a voiced form of the older t; and one would like to know in what language this precious bodder occurs. The A.-S. for messenger " was boda (with no -er); and it is totally irrele vant. 66 7. Then we are referred to an obsolete book by Ferguson, the value of which can be seen by his quoting "Bod, Bud," as an ⚫ envoy ; but the A.-S. was boda, and never buda at all. And now let us get back to common sense, and drop all misleading guesses. We have Derbyshire Butterley; Wilts (as well as Cumb.) Buttermere; and Linc. Butterwick. The Wilts name is much more likely to be English than Norse. One of the Linc. Butterwicks (near Boston) is inland; so that the -wick is the English wick, not the Norse one. And worth is English. So there is no reason why all the names should not be English. After all, England is a likely place in which to find English names. In the Inquisitiones post Mortem, which often supply better spellings than the Anglo-French forms in Domesday Book, I find Boterley, Boterwike, Boterwyk, Buterwike; also Butterley, Buttermer, Butterwike, Butterworthe. The riddle is not difficult. Searle's 'Onomasticon' tells us that Buterus is a (Latinized) personal name in List B in Ellis's Introduction' to Domesday Book ; and that Boterus (Latinized form of Bōthere) occurs in List C in the same. 66 Bōt-here's Hence the sense is simply farm." I have already explained worth three times. See my Place-Names of Cambs, of Herts, and of Hunts. Bōt is mod. E. boot, profit. Here is the The former appears A.-S. here, an army. again in Bōt-wine, Bot-wulf, &c.; and the latter in Wulf-here, Here-weard, &c. Bot becomes But" in popular pronunciation. Botulph Lane, Cambridge (from Bōt-wulf), is called Buttle Lane. 66 The -es in the genitive is often preserved, but was sometimes dropped, as I have shown already. Cf. Boteresworth above. WALTER W. SKEAT. PIG GRASS: FIONING GRASS (10 S. xii. 49). See the 'N.E.D.,' vol. iv. p. 237, col. 3, under "fiorin," where the first quotation is from W. Richardson, 1809. For an account of him and his introduction of the grass see 'D.N.B.,' xlviii. 253. W. C. B. See Britten and Holland, 'Plant Names,' 1886, p. 183: - about 1 to mile. It is distant from Petersfield about 10 miles, and from the border of Hampshire proper about 8 miles. It is east of the road from Chichester to Midhurst and Haslemere. The only place which appears in it is South Ambersham, which in vol. i. is described thus : "A tything, in the parish of Steep, hundred of East Meon, Alton (South) division of the county of Southampton, though locally in the hundred of Easebourne, rape of Chichester, county of Sussex, 2 miles (E. by N.) from Midhurst, containing 183 inhabitants.' Lewis's map of Sussex also shows this detached piece of Hampshire. I presume that it is now nominally as well as actually a part of Sussex, as it appears to be according to the Ordnance Survey. I regret that in my reply (10 S. xi. 475) I misquoted the Times Atlas. After referring to the Ordnance Survey, I find that I mistook the dot of West Meon for that of Petersfield. The Sussex border is, as F. K. P. says, about 2 miles east of Petersfield. If the explanation which I suggest is the true one, then Whatley understated the distance of Beesely from Petersfield by about 5 ROBERT PIERPOINT. miles. THIMBLES (10 S. xi. 66, 116).-At the latter reference MR. APPERSON says that no proof has been given of the existence of John Lofting; but he is mistaken. Lofting took out a patent for making thimbles on 4 April, 1693 (No. 319), and he established a manufactory in Great Marlow, where he was buried 17 June, 1742, as shown by the parish register. There is a notice of him in the Dictionary of National BioR. B. P. graphy' by THE EEL-PIE SHOP (10 S. xii. 26).-I can just recollect a shop known as a pie shop still a confectioner's-in this town; but the "pieman" has not wholly disappeared. There is only one left now, but he is apparently doing a good trade, and his cry of "Pie-ot! Pie-ot!" is very much to be heard on market days. His portable oven is a smart affair of tin, kept very bright, with a copper handle and a bit of green baize over the top. It has a small charcoal brazier, and the gravy is carried in a special receptacle. The pies look and smell quite appetizing. Chichester. E. E. STREET. WELSH JUDGES (10 S. xii. 28).-There is, I believe, no printed biographical list of the manner of old Welsh judges after the Foss's Judges of England.' In The Book of Dignities' by Haydn, continued up to 1890, p. 386, there is a list of the Chief Justices and of the second or Puisne Justices. They are described as Judges of the Court of Session of the County Palatine of Chester, &c. From the accession of King James I. to the abolition of the Courts in 1830 under 66 Wm. IV., cap. 70." The &c. means "and the Judges of the Courts of Great Sessions in the Principality of Wales." See section 14 of that Act. I expect I am stating what SENEX already HARRY B. POLAND. knows. Inner Temple, GAINSBOROUGH, ARCHITECT, c. 1300 (10 S. xi. 449; xii. 18). The Lincoln Pocket Guide,' by Sir Charles Anderson, third edition, edited after his death by the Rev. A. R. Maddison, Priest-Vicar of Lincoln Cathedral (London, Stanford, 1892), has the following: "About 1290 Richard de Stow, Cementarius, was employed to build.....he is probably the same Richard de Gainsborough whose grave is in the cloisters."-P. 119. "The magnificent sculptures in the choir of angels appear to have been the work of Richard de Stow or de Gainsborough, and a band of sculptors, whose names have been rescued from oblivion by the late Mr. Joseph Hunter."-P. 120. "The floors [of the cloisters] abound in incised gravestones, but they have been terribly smashed by timber, &c., which used to be laid there. The incised figure and inscription to Richard de Gaynsborough, the sculptor, might be easily renewed from what still remains."-P. 151. W. B. H. “SEECATCHIE":"HOLLUSCHICKIE" (10 S. xii. 48).—In a glossary appended to Mr. Henry W. Elliott's monumental Report on the Seal Life and Industry of the Prybilov Islands, published by the United States Government in 1881, and perhaps one of the most interesting papers ever issued, these terms are applied to the male fur seal and sea lion full grown, and to the bachelor seals who are herded by themselves, respectively. They are of Russian origin. The last-named category are slaughtered for their skins. WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK. This is a variant of the version conserved in Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England,' pp. 201, 202. It begins : My true love lives far from me, He sent me a goose, without a bone; ST. SWITHIN. [Several versions have been forwarded to MR. CRESSWELL.] THE MYSTERY OF HANNAH LIGHTFOOT (10 S. viii. 321, 402, 483; ix. 24, 122, 264; xi. 472).—I am informed by LADY RUSSELL that under the will of Robert Pearne of Isleworth, 26 Jan., 1757, an annuity of 401. was given to Mrs. Hannah Axford, formerly Lightfoot, niece to the late Mr. John Jeffryes, watchmaker in Holborn." 66 I shall be obliged to any one who can give some particulars of Robert Pearne or John Jeffryes. HORACE BLEACKLEY. JOHN HUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE (10 S. xii. 28).-In the Council Chamber of the Staromestska Radnice (Old Town Hall) of Prague there is a famous picture by Wenceslaus Brozik representing this event, with a companion one of the election of King George of Podebrad. Brozik, a pupil of Piloty, studied at Prague, Dresden, and Paris. Among other works of this historical student are Embassy of King Ladislas to the Court of Charles VII.," 'Milton reading "Paradise Lost," 'Princess Polyxena of Lobkowitz tending the Wounded,'' Tu felix Austria nube,' &c. M. Henri Hantich ('Art Tchèque,' p. 10) writes: "Brozik ne se préoccupait guère que d'éblouir par la magnificence de décor, l'extraordinaire profusion de couleurs éclatantes, et les effets de lumière." FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. Streatham Common. The original famous painting which was engraved some forty years ago is most probably the work of Karl Friedrich Lessing, Hus vor dem Konzil,' finished in 1842, and preserved at the Städel Museum, Frankfurta.-M. I have myself a copy of this fine steel engraving. H. KREBS. [MR. WALTER JERROLD refers to Brozik's picture.] COL. PESTALL (10 S. xii. 29).-Col. Pestel —not Pestall-was not an Englishman, but a Russian, though of German extraction. His father was Governor-General of Siberia. He was educated at Dresden, entered the Russian army, and took part in wars against Napoleon, but afterwards imbibed revolutionary views, and was hanged in 1826 for attempted insurrection. I well remember the song alluded to by your correspondent; it was very popular Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, If I should die whilst in my sleep. It was upon our minds that Matthew and Mark did the watching and praying, Luke and John especially John-carrying the soul away. As I never saw the last line printed with the verse, I should say that it might be an addition by older heads than ours; it was certain to us that without death yet whilst in my sleep" Luke and John would not have a soul to carry away. just recording some child impressions. I am There is another reading with which I was equally familiar, and it is, I think, well known everywhere, varying but little in the wording:— Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, A picture in a child's book of that day impressed some of us, I remember, greatly. It represented four angels bearing a baby away, the uppermost figure carrying the Dr. Richard Morris, commenting on ll. 163-4 of Chaucer's Prologue,' says: "It was not usual for Prioresses to have female chaplains; chapeleyne, however, is the reading of all the MSS. Did Chaucer write chamberleyne?" Dr. H. Frank Heath in Social England' (1902), ii. 294, for the nun-chaplaincy refers the reader to Sussex Archæol. Soc., ix. 15, An Episcopal Injunction to the Prioress of Easeburn in 1478'; and Dugdale, Mon.,' iii. 415, in a report on Elstow Nunnery. A. R. BAYLEY. DE QUINCEY: QUOTATIONS AND ALLUSIONS (10 S. xi. 388, 438).-4. MR. T. BAYNE's allusion to the wooden door-bars prompts me to say that Scott refers to these fastenings in chaps. iii. and xvi. of 'Woodstock.' At the first reference it is stated that the Ranger's apartments at the Royal Lodge, Woodstock, "opened by a short passage from the hall, secured at time of need by two oaken doors, which could be fastened by large bars of the same, that were drawn out of the wall, and entered into square holes contrived for their reception on the other side of the portal." Such a bar as is here described was nightly drawn across the back door of my BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS: THEIR REGISTRATION (10 S. xi. 348).-Some kind of answer can be got from a consultation of A. Jal's great work the 'Dictionnaire critique de Biographie,' &c., 1872. He copies or quotes hundreds of French certificates, which are fuller than the very deficient English certificates. The form of the English ones must have been settled by a person who had no notion of a biographer's requirements. The official part is more than ample. However, they are better than the old certificates of baptism: officialism certainly did not run riot in them. Death certificates record the date and place of burial; and if a body is exhumed, a note to that effect should be added, just as is done if the amount of a probate is increased. The most extraordinary thing is the large number of deaths of Englishmen that never get recorded at all. There are numerous instances in Boase's Modern English Biography: thus in vol. iv. col. 817, under Frederick Cruickshank, we read that he first exhibited in 1822, and is not in the 'London Directory' after 1860, and never exhibited after 1860, but that his death is not registered at Somerset House 1858-62. No will of his had been proved in England up to last year. Sir G. E. Campbell, Bt. (Boase, 'M.E.B.,' iv. 591), after serving his country in the Crimea and other places, eventually died in 1899; but Mr. Boase tells us his death is not recorded at the General Register Office, Somerset House. Here are two more instances taken from 'M.E.B.,' vol. v. (not yet published) : : J. Watson Dalby (b. 1790), of whom there is a portrait in The Bibliograph in April, 1879. Death not registered at Somerset House 1879-83. Thomas Dalmaine, music publisher, b. 1783; d. 1866. Death not, &c., 1864-8. The Daily Telegraph had an article (29 April, 1907, p. 8, col. 6; see also 30 April, p. 9, col. 1) on unregistered births (a very much more inconvenient thing), with several curious instances of the trouble In the present caused by this omission. day few people enter these events in any family book, as was so frequently done in the last century. I know one case where the father not only took the precaution to have his son's birth duly registered, but also had him christened and vaccinated in case he might want to go into the Navy. The Some Royal Navy is certificate mad! R.N. ships were at a port in New Zealand, and wanted stokers. Plenty of hands applied; but when they were asked to produce a certificate of their birth, they went away laughing. As the commander insisted on this requirement, the ship had to depart without the stokers. RALPH THOMAS. MECHANICAL ROAD CARRIAGES: TIMOTHY BURSTALL (10 S. xi. 305, 374, 431, 498; xii. 31).-In The Sketch of 23 Oct., 1895, is an article headed ' Carriages without Horses.' Besides pictures of modern inventions it has the following prints : 'Squire and Maceroni's Steam-Carriage.' (It was apparently built at Squire's factory, Paddington Green, in 1833.) 'Gurney's Steam - Carriage.' (There are two similar carriages given, offering side and back views.) Portrait of Sir Gouldsworthy Gurney.' ("In July, 1829, Gurney made a notable journey with his steam-engine from London to Bath, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour on the highway.") 'Gurney's Steam-Carriage approaching Highgate Tunnel, 1828.' 'Gurney's Steam Carriage as it appeared at Hounslow, with a Barouche containing the Duke of Wellington.' At the end of the article mention is made of an exhibition " now [October, 1895] open in Chicago," and "an elaborate portfolio illustrating the origin and evolution of the methods of transportation of all countries," containing about fifteen hundred engravings, issued by Mr. Marshall Kirkman of Chicago. ROBERT PIERPOINT. In my reply on p. 31 for "Barstall" read Burstall. J. T. F. Winterton, Doncaster. SHOREDITCH FAMILY (10 S. x. 369, 455; xi. 35).-To the references already given add the following: History of Shoreditch,* by Ellis; Visitations of Norfolk 1563 and 1613, printed by the Harleian Society; and Visitation of Norfolk, printed by the Norfolk Arch. Soc., vol. i. Your correspondent should also see the many references to the Shoreditch family of Ickenham in part iii. vol. i. of List of Middlesex Deeds, &c., offered for sale by Mr. F. Marcham, successor to the late Jas. |