176 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.ix.Aua.27.i92i. bring about discoveries greater than those of Poggio, is for the Italian Government ... to dig up Herculaneum, where countless papyri may still be preserved by the friendly mud which enveloped the town before it was overwhelmed by the torrents of lava on which the squalid suburb of Resina now rests. Would PROFESSOR BENSLY kindly ex- plain, for the benefit of one of the ill-informed, what actually did overwhelm Pompeii and Herculaneum ? J. R. H. VICARS OF THIRSK (12 S. ix. 130). From The History of Thirsk,' by J. B. Jefferson, 1821, I make this extract : The following are the names of the Ministers of Thirsk, so far as can be ascertained from the Register : About the beginning of the year 1600 Revd. Thomas? Todd. 1632 T. Gilleys. Matthew Hill. 1704 Joseph Midgley, died. 1746 Mr. Williamson, died. 1746 A. Routh, made Curate (re- signed about the year 1762). 1762 D. Addison. 1783 T. Barker. 1798 J. Holmes, the present Minister. A footnote, giving some particulars of Matthew Hill, M.A., says that he was ejected from the church by the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and that he was of Magdalen College, Cambridge, and a man of consider- able talents and learning. JOHN LIVESEY. AMERICAN EDITION OF GRAY'S ' ELEGY ' (12 S. viii. 509). I regard the copy as noted herewith as the first American edition : The | Grave | a | Poem | By Robert Blair | To which is added | An | Elegy | written in a Country | Church-yard. | By Mr. Gray. | Phila- delphia : | Printed and Sold by R. Aitkin Book- Seller | and Stationer, Opposite the London Coffee House | in Front Street. MDCCLXXIII. It is a small book of thirty -one pages in paper cover. STEVENSON H. WALSH. CAMPBELL SHIELD OF ARMS (12 S. ix. 111). Reference to the second quartering. Accord- ing to ' Burke's Peerage,' the Duke of Mont- rose bears as second and third quarterings : Arg. ; three roses, gu., barbed and seeded proper. The arms of the Wedderburn family of Co. Perth are : Arg. ; a chevron, between three roses, gu., barbed, vert. Several Lancashire families also bore for arms three heraldic roses, as, for instance, three roses on a bend were borne by two branches of the Crook family of Lan- cashire, viz., by the Crooks of Crook Hall, Whittle - le - Woods, and by those of Abram Hall, near Wigan. Somewhat similar arms were also borne by one or more families of the Claytons of this county (see ' Fifteenth Century Arms,' ' The Ancestor,' vol. iv., p. 244). I do not think that there was any con- nexion between these latter families and those named by your correspondent. One of the two families first named above would appear to be more probable. FREDERIC CROOKS. The motto " I beare in minde " is that of the Campbells of Suffolk, and "Ex se ipso renascens " is the motto of Fraser of Inch- culter. The second son of Hugh Fraser of Dunballoch bore arms " azure, 3 cinquefoils within a bordure, or," with the latter motto and a phoenix in flames ppr. for crest. May not this be the correct form of the second quarter described by D. K. T. ? WALTER E. GAWTHORP. SIGNS USED IN PLACE OF SIGNATURES. (12 S. ix. 51, 95). W. C. J. writes respecting merchants' marks that he has not seen them, except at Burford, " on shields of a pattern usually employed to display arms." The Rev. Herbert Macklin wrote in his book on ' Brasses ' that the " merchant was hardly less proud of his mark than the knight of his armorial bearings," and also that merchants' marks " like heraldic arms were hereditary." For examples see the following brasses all bearing merchants' marks on shields : W. Grevel, 1401, Chipping Campden. I. Pergett, 1484, Chipping Norton. T. Pownder, 1525, Ipswich. Compare also the brass in St. Olave's, Hart Street, London, having shields en- graved with the arms of the Staple of Calais and of the Mercers' Company, used as trade marks. WALTER E. GAWTHORP. 16, Long Acre, W.C.2. Perhaps the classic instance of merchants' marks, used as quasi-armorial bearings, is in the dice -work on the plinth of the magnificent tower of Lavenham Church in Suffolk, where a series of shields bear alter- nately the arms of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, and the merchant's mark of Thomas Spring (d. 1486). He was a rich wool- stapler and ancestor of the family of Spring Rice (whose head is Lord Mont- eagle). His son Thomas continued the
