354
NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. v. MAY 5, im
deriveth, as from the Princes, his Lyne [and] is
upon the Hill that standithe betwine the 2 Ven-
draiths."
In the margin there is a note : " Lie Careig in Lattin Palatinus cragus." As the varia- tions "Castle," "Castell," "Castele," occur in this paragraph, it is possible that what Leland wrote or read was " Castelle of Careig." The modern name is Castell y Garreg. Ze=place does not mean palatinus ; only the W. plds, borrowed from Eng. place in the special use under discussion, could yield that sense. The site in question is about a mile or so to the north-west of the village of Llandybie. In that village there is a farm-house, bearing evident traces of decayed gentility, still called Y Plus or Plds Llandybie. Tradition says that Oliver Crom- well lodged there one night before visiting the neighbouring Golden Grove. Down to about the middle of last century the com- monest term for a country mansion was plds, and that is the word I myself use, but news- paper and periodical writers employ the (to me) incongruous term palas almost in variably. In Lewis's ' Diet.' (1805) the only meaning of palas is " a palace or royal house."
J. P. OWEN.
Comeragh Road, Kensington.
There is evidently a subdivision of mean- ing necessary. Thus in London the earliest application I can trace is Dukes's Place (explanation of Ogilby and Morgan's Map of London, 1677, reprinted 1895; 'The London Directory,' 1677, reprinted 1878), and this is in its proper sense of a square or place d'armes (vide 'Glossographia Angli- cana Nova,' 1707). By 1783 ('The New Complete Guide,' 1783) it had been applied to Savoy Place, St. James's Place, and Park Place ; but by 1790 (' The LTniversal British Directory ') there are twenty examples, nearly all terraces in the suburbs (Kingsland Place) or blocks of property built round culs-de-sac in the City (Ely Place, Frederick's Place, Old Jewry). This, therefore, indi- cates that the word had altogether lost its original significance, and become little more than an indication of a property uniform in size and architecture, and having a single ownership. ALECK ABRAHAMS.
39, Hillmarton Road, N.
In some extracts from The Gentleman's Magazine (1794) I find references toVauxhall Place, South Lambeth. It was apparently a street or terrace of houses.
HAMMOND HALL.
Calendar of State Papers (Domestic), 1547-80, records a good many letters written
from Ely Place, the earliest being dated
8 January, 1548.
JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.
THE BABINGTON CONSPIRACY (10 th S. v. 190). From memory only I venture to iden- tify 'The House of the Wolf,' by Mr. Stanley J. Weyman, as the novel dealing with the Babington conspiracy. It first appeared as a serial in The Graphic. ALECK ABRAHAMS.
39, Hillmarton Road, N.
HOLBORN (10 th S. ii. 308, 392, 457, 493 ; iii. 56.234; v. 295,338). Stow and Camden and Anthony Munday lived three hundred years ago, and are doubtless entitled to the epithet of ** venerable." But Domesday Book was compiled more than eight hundred years ago, and its claim to veneration must therefore be considered to be far superior to that of those comparatively modern writers. In Domesday Hoi born is written " Holeburne," and that spelling will be found in subsequent legal documents. MR. JAGGARD might con- sult, for example, the facsimile of the grant of the manor of "Holburne" in the Trans- actions of the London and Middlesex Archaeo- logical Society, i. 124. One would have thought that this matter was outside the scope of argument. W. F. PRIDEAUX.
"THE SOPHY" (10 th S. v. 308). I think your correspondent is in the right. But there are difficulties as to the explanation of Sophy. May I refer to the article on 'Sophy' in my 'Notes on English Etymology,' at p. 273 ? It is too long to quote.
WALTER W. SKEAT.
MR. THOMPSON OF THE 6TH DRAGOONS (10 th S. v. 269, 316). I am much obliged to your correspondents for their kind hints. Cornet Alfred Thompson was probably the author of the water-colour sketch I have seen. I doubt whether James Thomson, the author of 'The City of Dreadful Night ' who was born in 1834, and was a poor man, I believe could have been the Mr. Thompson who with David Urquhart and Algernon Massingberd visited Kossuth at Kutahia in October, 1850. Massingberd and Thompson had bought some land near Smyrna, we are told, and were going to establish a colony there for the benefit of the Hungarian refugees in Turkey ; but Austria and Russia got wind of the project, and protested against it successfully.
In March, 1851, " Thompson the English- man (now under the name of Hamilton)" again visited the refugees in Kutahia, this time in company with a Danish prince, Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein. My source
