the acquisition of new territory for the extension of African slavery, and he met the fate of other disturbers of the peace. Had he lived he would have been one of the foremost men in the great slave-holders' rebellion. JOHN E. NORCROSS. Brooklyn, U.S. In a foot-note to the article "Nicaragua" in Haydn's 'Dictionary of Dates' there is a short account of Walker's life and his Nicaraguan expedition, which, in the absence of a more detailed account, may prove of interest to your correspondent. W. GILMORE. 112, Gower Street, W.C. me; but I take the following, which reads like an extract from it, from a little notice of the work that appeared in the Grantham Journal of May 26, 1888: "At St. Nicholas, Thistleton, the two glass cruets now in use were presented by the present Rector to supply the place of two black bottles formerly used. These latter are now missing; they were not of the ordinary shape, but were quite flat, and were placed on the altar at the Eucharist; one contained port and the other sherry; these wines were mixed at the oblation. Many of the parishioners remember seeing them used about thirty or forty years ago." ST. SWITHIN. MASSON (7th S. v. 328, 434).-In my inquiry after this family I should have said that a Masson married a granddaughter, not daughter, of John Knox. I have since discovered that a Masson was a commissary in Cromwell's army, also that a Peggy Livingston, daughter of John Livingston, minister of the Earl of Linlithgow), went to St. Andrews (who was a son of Lord Livingston and cousin LOWESTOFT: ST. ROOK'S LIGHT (7th S. v. 346, 411). Some years ago I was the temporary owner of a very small meadow-not more than an acre in size that, in the legal documents relating to it, was called a "pingle." Perhaps this is the equivalent of "pightle"; though Mr. Edward Peacock, quoting from Miss Baker's Northamptonshire Words and Phrases,' defines "pingle" as "a clump of trees or underwood"; while Todd and the glossarists define it "a small croft or enclosure' "three persons who went over to Holland to make (N. & Q.,' 5th S. i. 311). Dr. Johnson also thus terms with Charles II. He was banished in 1662. A. M. defines it. CUTHBERT BEDE. 'MEMOIRS OF GRAMMONT' (7th S. v. 469). "He who ballad never made, nor rhymed without a flask of wine," was Marc-Antoine Gérard, sieur de Saint-Amant, best known under the latter name, and a contemporary of all the poets mentioned in the lines quoted. He was a well-known boon-companion, often sang the praises of good wine and living, and died in 1661. HENRI VAN LAUN. and married a Masson. Her father was minster of St. Andrews from 1648 to 1662. He was one of ST. PETER UPON THE WALL (7th S. v. 367,416).— This old parish is in Dengey Hundred, in the county of Essex. By 'Norden's Description of Essex,' written in 1594, it is described "to haue bene a town now greatly deuowred with the sea, and buyldings yet appeare in the sea." Called St. Peter's on the Wall "for that it standed on the wall wch was made to defende the land from the sea." By some supposed to have been the ancient Ithancester. The ancient chapel has long fallen into decay, which WEST CHESTER (7th S. v. 469).-I, like A. H., stood on a spot at the north-east point of the south am anxious to identify this place. It was a inlet to the Blackwater estuary. It is now concathedral city, for on the monument of Edmund solidated, and forms part of the parish of BradKedermister, in Langley Church, Bucks, the follow-well-juxta-Mare-or, as it is called, Bradwelling occurs, "Anne, wife of Edmunde Kedermister, next-Sea-fifteen miles east from Maldon, Essex. lyeth buried in the Quire of ye Cathedrall Church C. GOLDING. of West-Chester, 1618." Her burial is not recorded in the cathedral register of Chester. G. L. G. Colchester. ANNA HOUSON (OR HOUSTON) (7th S. v. 387).— Anna Houson was the eldest daughter of the Rev. Henry Houson, rector of Brant Broughton, co. Lincoln. She married, May, 1845, Richard, second son of Sir Richard Sutton, Bart. She died without children in 1848, and he married again in 1851, succeeding to the baronetcy in 1873, on the death of his elder brother John. I knew both the parties well, and the lady and her family especially, they being intimate with mine. G. H. R. The late Sir Richard Sutton, Bart., of Norwood Park, Notts, father of the present baronet, married for his first wife, May 18, 1845, Anna, the daughter of the Rev. H. Houson, rector of Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, who died without issue in 1848. Í may remark that Mr. Houson was also rector of Great Coates, near Grimsby, and that on his decease in 1875 the refusal of the late Bishop Wordsworth to institute a gentleman who had purchased the next presentation, on the ground of simony, gave rise to the celebrated Great Coates case, in which, on legal, though_not_on_moral grounds, the bishop was defeated. Mr. Houson was one of the last of the race of hunting parsons for whom Lincolnshire was once famous, but who are now almost extinct, not altogether to the advantage of the Church. E. V. Sir Richard Sutton, fourth baronet, born October 21, 1821, died October 2, 1878, having married first, May 18, 1845, Anne, daughter of Rev. Henry Houson, rector of Brant Broughton, co. Lincoln. She died s.p., July 8, 1848. G. T. H. [Burke gives the date of death of the first wife of Sir R. Sutton as 1846.] SHAKING HANDS (7th S. iv. 408, 492; v. 176). -Leaving aside the question of ancient examples of shaking hands, any one who has at all mixed with French people can confirm PROF. BUTLER'S allusions to their treating the modern custom as especially British. Further confirmation might be found in almost any French novel-e. g., the first that comes under my hand is Clarétie's 'Maison Vide,' ed. 1878, where, at p. 146 occurs" il lui serra la main à l'anglaise." Further, they have adopted (invented?) a special English word to express the action. See Geo. Ohnet, 'Les Dames de Croix Mort,' 1886, p. 205, "les shakehands s'échangèrent"; Charles Joliet, 'Le Capitaine Harold,' 1886, p. 573,"après le shake-hands," &c. R. H. BUSK. 16, Montagu Street, Portman Square. 'REMINISCENCES OF A SCOTTISH GENTLEMAN' (7th S. v. 347, 474).—In answer to MR. GARDINER'S query, I can inform him that no continuation of the above book or "subsequent narration" by Mr. Ainslie ("Philo Scotus"), the author, was ever published. R. A. G. Edinburgh. The author was Philip Ainslie, son of Ainslie of Pilton, and a relative to the Earl of Moray, whose factor he became of the estate of Dombrestle, in Fife. He only published the one volume. I knew him; he was an intelligent and a gentlemanly man. I think he went abroad, and died there. J. A. STILLIE. SKULLS ON TOMBS (7th S. v. 449).-Sir Thomas Browne (Hydriotaphia,' chap. iii. § 9) has the following upon this subject : "Old considerations made few mementoes by skulls and bones upon their monuments. In the Egyptian obelisks and hieroglyphical figures it is not easy to meet with bones...... In the Jewish hypogeum and subterranean ORDER OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS (6th S. ix. 169, 237; 7th S. v. 433).-The above is the name of one of the orders established by Achilles I., King of the South American kingdom of AraucaniaPatagonia, the insignia and ribbon of which are fully described in the statutes of that decoration. Achilles I. is of Irish extraction, deriving his descent from the sept of O'Leary, and is animated by the philanthropic desire to transplant all discontented Irishmen to his fertile kingdom. Can any of your readers give me a reference to a detailed pedigree of the O'Leary family? DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE. "MUFFLED MOONLIGHT" (7th S. v. 208, 276).— May we not assume that this phrase owes its origin to the well-known lines of Milton ?— Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou fair Moon, F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY. and as a diminutive Colman, Colmoc, Columban.” They all belong to Ireland. No fewer than fortyone Colmans are enumerated in the same work. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M. A. Hastings. SPANISH WRECKS OFF ABERDEENSHIRE (7th S. v. 129, 257, 377).—With reference to the tradition regarding the loss of the St. Catherine, Mr. Dalgarno, in Scottish Notes and Queries, vol. i. p. 121, states, in addition to what has been already quoted from Pratt's 'Buchan,' that in 1876 a diving party succeeded in raising two guns and an anchor, which were sent by the Countess of Errol to Her Majesty at Balmoral. Mr. Dalgarno also mentions a farmer in the neighbourhood having in his possession untarnished Spanish dollars, of date 1555, found in the locality. At p. 158 of the same volume doubts are thrown on the story of the wreck of the St. Catherine, and the St. Michael, another Spanish vessel said to have been cast away on the Aberdeenshire coast. To these doubts Mr. Dalgarno replies (vol. ii. p. 12), and after stating that since 1840 six guns have been recovered from St. Catherine's Dub, the last of iron, in August, 1880, he goes on to say : "An admiral, who was then in the locality, doubted whether the guns in question belonged to the Armada, as he said the guns of that period were generally made of brass. A letter, however, was sent to the Spanish Ambassador at London, who wrote to the Armoury in Spain to get the matter solved. Information was received stating that the ill-fated St. Catherine was partly armed with brass and partly with iron guns, and that one of the ships of the Armada was driven ashore on the east coast of Scotland." Dr. R. Chambers, in the 'Domestic Annals of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 186, makes no reference to the St. Catherine, but quotes from the Diary of the Rev. James Melville, of Anstruther, published by the Bannatyne Club, regarding the loss of El Gran Grifon, commanded by Juan Gomez de Medina on the Fair Isle. Dr. Chambers also mentions the loss of one of the Armada on the Mull of Kintyre, and of another in the Firth of Clyde, near Portincross Castle, in Ayrshire, and records the recovery of some guns from the latter in 1740 and the death of a descendant of one of the survivors of the crew in 1855. Mr. Tudor, in his work on 'The Orkneys and Shetland,' in describing the Fair Isle, mentions (p. 431, &c.) the wreck of El Gran Grifon as the great historical incident of the Isle, and quotes Melville's Diary' and the annotated copy of the official list of the Armada in the British Museum, comparing and analyzing the two at some length. Mr. Tudor also mentions a tradition that another vessel of the Armada was wrecked near Reawick Head, on the south side of the Shetland mainland, and, from what he states, this seems to have a better foundation than many traditions. Lord Archibald Campbell, in the 'Records of Argyll,' p. 29, devotes a paragraph to the description of a cannon at Inverary Castle recovered from the wreck of the Florida, one of the ships of the Armada, sunk in Tobermory Bay, Mull. There is another gun got from the same wreck at Dunstaffnage Castle. J. A. C. When Lord Burghley wrote, "This man's ship was drowned 17 Sept. in the Isle of Faire, near Scotland," he referred to the wreck of El Gran Grifon on Fair Isle, which lies half way between Orkney and Shetland. This ship, belonging to Rostock and of 650 tons burden, was one of the chartered ships of the Armada. She was commanded by Don Juan Gomez de Medina, had on board 43"gente de mar," or mariners, and 243 "gente de guerra," or soldiers, under command of Capitana Patricio Antolinez and Esterian de Legoretto-as appears from a copy of the Official Spanish List in the British Museum. The narrative of the shipwreck on Fair Isle and of the hardships endured, both by the Spaniards and the islanders, before they were assisted from Shetland is well known and can be read in all local histories. See, in particular, Tudor's Orkney and Shetland.' A. L. ADJECTIVES ENDING IN -IC, -ICAL (7th S. v. 448). In reply to the question of PROF. FELS respecting the difference in the use of adjectives terminating in -ic and similar words terminating in -ical-for instance, comic, comical, dramatic, dramatical—I think it must be admitted that no theory or rule can be given save the norma loquendi. But the difference of meaning in the cases cited is easily given. A circumstance, phrase, situation characterized as comic is credited with very superior qualities to such as are attributed to circumstances, phrases, situations described as comical. The situation when Lady Teazle is discovered behind the screen is comic; the blunders of Mrs. Malaprop are comical. In the other case, dramatic may be predicated of the quality of an event or description thereof; dramatical of the form of that description. The dullest and most utterly flat piece ever put upon the stage is dramatical, but by no means dramatic. T. A. T. There would appear to be no fixed rule regulating the difference of meaning between adjectives with suffix -ic and those corresponding and with suffix -ical. The best method of showing that there is a difference seems to be to take several ordinary words of the class in question, and to point out how each pair differs. For instance, take the words comic, tragic, politic, and cubic, with their corresponding forms in ical. The Greek sense is retained in comic and tragic, but is merged in comical and tragical in a broader signification. Comic and tragic are art terms; the words comical and tragical have a more extensive range of use. A comic poet may write a comic play, of which the subject is a comical event or series of events. So also with the word tragic. Politic is the reverse of comic and tragic, and has lost the Greek sense, yielding it to the longer form. Cubic denotes measure; cubical, space. In many other words of this class the same rule holds, that there is a difference in meaning between each pair, but that there is no precise rule as to the exact influence of the suffixes -ic and -ical. JULIUS STEGGall. BELGIAN ARMS (7th S. v. 408).-Am I correct in imagining that J. E. alludes to 66 moutons à piloter," not moulins? "De gueules à trois moutons à piloter d'argent, cerclés d'or"; these are the arms of Morrhe, Flanders. These arms occur as quartiers in the genealogy of Gaspar Robert de Beer, Baron de Meulebeke, &c. I believe these charges would be called in English "pile-drivers" or " 'rams" ("moutons "). Randle Holme gives them under the latter name. LEO CULLETON. BALK (7th S. v. 128, 194, 291, 373).-Pronounced as Burns pronounced it when he sang of A rosebud by my early walk, Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, and used with the same reference, this word is common in Scotland to-day. Between two gardens specially familiar to me there is a footpath, which from time immemorial has been called "the bawk," and it is so called at this hour by all who know it. Bawk is also used in the sense of beam, and it is quite accurate to describe a hen going to roost as flying on to its bawk. A recent joke, at the expense of a bachelor of solitary habits, turned upon the query whether it was not the case that he rested during the night on a bawk beside his pigeons. "Auld Bawks" was a descriptive nickname given to a quaint harvester in the days preceding the introduction of mowers; and the third generation of mortals with whom, Nestor like, he In the Isle of Axholme, where much of the land is still unenclosed, this word retains the meaning it has in 'The Steele Glas': Nor that they set, debate betwene their lords, We commonly call the more important boundaries the neighbourhood, whom I recently asked to tell meres, the lesser ones balks. A large farmer in the townsmen or field-reeves of the various parishes me the difference between the two, replied that have the power to let the meres for grazing, but not the balks. The bar or beam in the kitchen chimney from which the pot-hooks hang we call galley balks. C. C. B. Here in the parish of Byfield is a strip of land which is known by no other name than" Watr'y Balk." It divides a field which is let in allotments to the labouring population. The balk is wide enough to answer as a cart road, and a never-failing spring at the upper end makes the balk rather watery in wet seasons. This balk is mown yearly. W. M. GARdner. Byfield, R.S.O. MATTHEW'S BIBLE, 1537 (7th S. v. 481).—R. R. complains that in a tractate published by the late B. M. Pickering in the year 1876 the collation of Matthew's folio of 1537 is condensed, and that no mention is made of a blank leaf in his copy, &c. To write a history of the early versions of the English Bible in one hundred small pages condensation is necessary. R. R. implies that I never possessed a copy of the Bible of 1537; but as my copy was bound for me by Mr. Pratt, and exhibited with some other rare Bibles at the Carlisle meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute, plenty of evidence is procurable that R. R. is mistaken. It is a pity that R. R. was in such a hurry to criticize my tractate, which has been years out of print, for if he had only waited a few weeks longer he would have found that in the second edition (of about 400 pp.) a full collation of the 1537 Bible is given. Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode have had it in hand some time, and I hope when it is published it will meet with R. R.'s entire approval; as to please R. R. is the chief aim of my existence. The passage anent the prologues was intended for the edition of 1549, but somehow the slips got misplaced, and while the tractate was passing through the press I was too ill to see the proofs. Perhaps from a similar cause a dozen paragraph marks are inserted in R. R.'s collation not one of which exists in the book from which he quotes. J. R. DORE. Huddersfield. CECILS (7th S. v. 467). The following is from "A New System of Domestic Cookery, by a Lady," John Murray, 1819, p. 39: "To dress the same [cold beef that has not been done enough] called Cecils. Mince any kind of meat, crumbs of bread, a good deal of onion, some anchovies, lemon peel, salt, nutmeg, chopped parsley, pepper, and a bit of butter, warm and mix these over a fire for a few minutes; when cool enough, make them up into balls of the size and shape of a turkey's egg, with an egg; sprinkle them with fine crumbs, and then fry them of a yellow brown, and serve with gravy as before directed for Beef-olives." The hypercritical may object that it is not "the same," but a preparation of the same that is called "Cecils"; also that beef is not "any kind of meat." But it is not grammar that is wanted, but cookery, and a change from "beef-olives" and "Sanders." KILLIGREW. A receipt how "to dress Cecils" is given in Walsh's Manual of Domestic Economy (Routledge, new edition, 1879). Hastings. : EDWARD H. MArshall, M.A. CENTURY CENTENARY (7th S. v. 467).-The examples given below may perhaps be of some service to DR. MURRAY. Samuel Clark's 'Epistle to the Christian Reader,' dated December 10, 1649, prefixed to his 'Marrow of Ecclesiastical History,' contains, "Here [the learned, &c.] shall see in what Centuries, Ages and Places the famousest Lights of the Church......have flourished." See also the title-page. As regards centenary, under the heading "Chronicle of Occurrences" in the Companions to the British Almanac' for 1855, 1860, and 1863, there are the following records: sung by the Methodist congregations in connexion with this celebration, of which the chorus ran thus: The God of our fathers, the God we revere, Has bless'd us to see the centenary year. C. C. B. N. & Q.' I have found that exactly a century ago May I say that since putting my question in the "Centenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688" was publicly celebrated throughout the country, a fact of which, by the way, I have seen no mention in the discussion of projects for bicenSee the Annual tenary celebrations this year. Register and other periodicals of that date. Perhaps some one with more time than I have would reprint in N. & Q.,' for the sake of the men of 1888, some account of how the events of 1688 were commemorated in 1788. Oxford, J. A. H. Murray. "OF A CERTAIN AGE" (7th S. v. 447).-I have always understood that the expression "of a certain age," applied as it generally is to ladies, meant those who, though somewhat past their prime, would be offended if told that they were "middle-aged." Dickens used the phrase in 'Barnaby Rudge,' chap. i.: "The Maypole was really an old house, a very old house, perhaps as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will sometimes happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies of a certain age." J. F. MANSERGH. "His feet are set rather wide apart, in the fashion of gentlemen approaching a certain weight."-"Out of the Question,' by W. D. Howells, pp. 133-4, Edinburgh, 1882. "What is the exact meaning of this expression so far as it can be defined?" is asked. May it not be answered almost, but not quite, accurately that it means an uncertain age," i. e., the age of a person (always, I think, in English of a woman) who has certainly left youth behind her, but who is not willing that the distance it lies behind her should be exactly stated. The phrase may be described as a satirico - euphemistical one, and, I should say, is rarely, if ever, used without a more or less overtly pronounced satirical intention. |