248
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIIL SKPT. 28, 1007.
tected by railings are wholly overgrown with
elder trees, and are almost hidden.
On one tomb, of which the pieces are lying heaped together, are names of a some- what unusual character ; and it is in the hope of this catching the eye of some de- scendant, or other person interested, that I write this note. The names are Alavoine, Delahaize, and Buckworth, and the period of their deaths is c. 1750-80. A coat of arms sculptured in marble lies at one end of the heap, bearing apparently (tinctures undecipherable) (?) a saltire, and in chief (?) three cockle shells (?).
I do not find the two (presumably) Huguenot names in the ' London Directory ' or in Rietstap's ' Armorial.' W. C. J.
" EBN OSN." The British Museum Cata- logue suggests that this pseudonym is an anagram of Benson, but the following review from The Monthly Mirror suggests a different explanation :
Attempts at Poetry, or Trifles in Verse. By Ebn
Osii. 3s. M. Greenland. 1807. Ebn Osn is, we are told, the name of this gentle- man, that is, the anagram of it. Ben jamin Stephen nan ! and he lives at Pentonville. If he should ever take a walk towards the city, he will find that after passing the brow of the hill, the first turning on the right hand, opposite to Old Street Road, leads directly to St. Luke's ! a dwelling far more healthy for him than any at Pentonville.
Halkett and Laing are silent as to this book. WILLIAM E. A. AXON.
FLEET STREET, No. 7. Messrs. Clowes having vacated these premises, there ceases, for the first time in 90 years, to be carried on at this site the business of bookselling. It is almost possible to say that, with un- important intervals, the shop standing here has been so utilized for 200 years. But at least before Henry Butterworth commenced business here (1819?) it was occupied by a boot and shoe maker, and the earlier years are uncertain. ALECK ABRAHAMS.
" NOM DE GUERRE " AND " NOM DE PLUME." In The Athenceum of 10 August, on p. 146, it is written : " Rossaeus, for example, was not the nom de guerre of Reynolds, but the nom de plume." This, I fancy, will be news to Mr. Figgis, the author of the book criticized, as it is to myself ; for since I read an article by the late M. Francisque Sarcey some years ago, I have always regarded the latter expression as not being French, though formed of French words. It has probably been used in the vulgar fashion like nom de chien or nom de
pipe, but that would not warrant the re-
viewer in drawing his fine distinction between
the two phrases. JOHN T. CTJRRY.
SOMERSETSHIRE DIALECT. The following phrases were found among some old family papers belonging formerly to a Somerset- shire lady. Some of them are, I think, curious enough to note ; but one cannot say whether they are all strictly in the Somersetshire dialect :
"Nibbles and scrups"= cinders.
" Scraption " (the least).
" Giving it to her hot and holy " (a good scolding).
" She is a most illiterate body : she never gives one an answer."
"As straight as a candle" (e.g., the dog jumps up on the sofa as straight, &c.).
" There, she 's such an illiterate woman, you never can depend on her coming when she 's sent for."
" She 's as wild as a hermit."
"They did go on with their grim-grams [antics] until I thought I must a' bursted."
" Scrabble to knit a bit."
" Good'na."
" Ammer a concertina."
"As cross as he can hang together."
" Only half -saved "=an idiot.
" They was as thick as butter, as the sayin' is r but now they don't speak."
" She been a' tore it to lipputs."
"Don't she look a great piece?" (Of a stout person.)
J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.
NANA SAHIB AND THE INDIAN MUTINY. In 1902 a query by myself as to the fate of the notorious Nana Sahib appeared at 9 S. x. 170, but elicited no replies. I may now refer to an article in The Cornhill Magazine for August last, ' Amongst the Mutiny Cities of India,' which contains a letter from Major-General Harris, who took an active part in the great struggle, and had personally known the Nana. He there gives his strong reasons for believing that the latter died and was burnt in the neighbourhood of Chilari Ghat, a ford on the Upper Grogra river, in November, 1858. So far as I am aware, this comes nearer to a precise state- ment on the subject than anything that had previously appeared in print. W. B. H.
WET SUMMER : CURIOUS RELIC. It ist worth recording for the benefit of future archaeologists that an upright stone pillar in a field immediately above the Brows Farm in Grindleton (W. R. Yorkshire) was erected some twenty-five years ago, so I am informed, by a man named Harrison, as a memorial of a wet summer, when it rained every day for thirteen weeks.
FRED. G. ACKERLEY.
Grindleton Vicarage, Clitheroe.
