Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/64

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

56


NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. JAN. 15, 1910.


MR. MATTHEWS has laid before the readers of ' X. <fc Q. ? certain extracts from Ken- nedy's book; how comes it that he over- looked the passages I have cited which tell against him ? The matter is of some importance, for MB. MATTHEWS is the authority upon whom the editor of the ' N. E. D.' relies for his remarks upon the origin of the expression lynch law." M.

LAND OFFICE : " LAND OFFICE BUSI- NESS " (10 S. xii. 150, 415). I am now able to furnish MB. THOBNTON with an example of the latter term. The following extract is taken from Life (New York), of 9 Dec., 1909, liv. 846 :

" Meanwhile Dr. Cook has had several profitable months in the lecture and news field, and has done a land'omce business."

ALBERT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

RIVER LEGENDS : SEVERN, WYE, AND RHEIDIOL (10 S. xii. 488). When the Saperton Tunnel formed the junction of the Severn and the Isis in 1789, the event was celebrated, among other ways, by " Traveller " in the following allegorical letter :

Friday, Nov. 20, 1789.

SIB, Yesterday a marriage took place between Madame Sabrina, a Lady of Cambrian extraction, and mistress of very extensive property in Mont- gomeryshire (where she was born,) and the counties of Salop, Stafford, Worcester, and Glou- cester, and Mr. Thames, commonly called "Father Thames," a native of Gloucestershire, now a merchant trading from London to all known parts of the world. The ceremony took place at Lech- lade, by special licence, in the presence of hundreds of admiring spectators, with myself, who signed as witnesses : whence the happy pair went to breakfast at Oxford, to dine at London, and to consummate at Gravesend ; where the venerable Neptune, his whole train of inferior deities and nymphs, with his wife Amphitrite and her train, are to fling the stocking. An union which presages many happy consequences, and a numer- ous offspring. I mention the Lady's name, as the tendre [sic] came from her, after many struggles with her modesty, and Cambrian aversion to a Saxon spouse.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

[We have forwarded to MB. DA VIES a long bibliography from MB. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.]

MARIE ANTOINETTE'S DEATH MASK (10 S. ,xi. 327, 417). In my reply concerning the French queen's appearance at the time of her execution, I mentioned that Herve states that her hair had turned grey, imply- ing that this took place in the Temple prison. I have, however, just met with an account stating that this took place before her imprisonment ; and as the book seems


rather rare, and the writer had peculiar opportunity of knowing, it seems to be worth extracting. The title-page reads : ' ' Memoirs of Maria 'Antoinetta. By Joseph Weber,. Foster Brother of the Queen. Translated by R. May. 1823 " ; but this date is covered by a slip bearing the printed date of 1825.

On p. 22 of vol. ii. First Part, Weber says- that the Dauphin, in his eighth year, died on the 4th of June, 1789, in the arms, an bathed with the tears, of this excellent mother [Queen Maria Antoinetta at Versailles], whom he frequently told that he suffered only when he saw her weep. This premature death greatly affected the Queen. The grief she felt on tins- occasion, uniting with the anxiety caused by the King's situation, produced a complication of horrors that entirely turned her hair grey, though she was but four-and-thirty years old. She had her picture taken about this time, and sent it to- ner friend the Princess de Lamballe with these affecting words written by herself under it : Her sorrows have made her grey ! "

Weber on p. 52 says :

" I lived, during the three years that followed this period, with persons who were every day with the King."

He was in the Finance Department.

In 1792 he was imprisoned in the H6tel de la Force, but was saved from death, and later, becoming a pensioner of Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, employed himself in writing^ these ' Memoirs.' D. J.

FEET OF FINES : IDENTIFICATIONS (10 S. xii. 450, 518). Possibly " Bonegeton " may mean Bungay town, as opposed to Bungay Boyscote. S. H. A. H.

It may be useful to note that De Alta Ripa, which is given as the equivalent of Hawtrey, is also the mediaeval form of Dealtry, the name of a Yorkshire family.

W. C. B.

In confirmation of DR. COPINGER'S reply about " Burnedhis," I would mention that Brundish in Hoxne Hundred, Suffolk, was with Tannington vested in commissioners 11 June, 1858, before which they belonged to the Bishop of Rochester. The patronage was transferred to the Bishop of Norwich 4 June, 1852. It would be interesting to learn how they came to belong to the Rochester diocese in the first instance.

H. J. GODBOLD.

ROTHERHITHE (11 S. i. 9). 'Memorials to serve for a History of the Parish of St. Mary, Rotherhithe,' or, as it is more briefly lettered on the back, ' History of Rother- hithe,' by the Rev. E. J. Beck, was pub- lished by the Cambridge University Press in 1907, and a very good book it is. There is