468
NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. v. JUKE 15, 1912.
WE must request correspondents desiring in-
formation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that answers may be sent to them direct.
MS. OF BISHOP HENRY KING'S POEMS. It
is my desire to discover the whereabouts of
a MS. volume of the poems of Henry King,
(1592-1669), Bishop of Chichester during the
civil war. This MS. was in the possession of
the publisher Pickering until 1843, and pre-
sumably shortly after that date was sold
with the rest of his library consequent upon
his bankruptcy. Can any of your readers
supply information which may enable me
to consult or purchase this MS. ?
LAWRENCE MASON.
Yale University, New Haven, Conn., U.S.
IRELAND'S STOLEN SHIRE. In Samuel Butler's almost forgotten satire 'The Ele- phant in the Moon,' occurs the following :
To make an accurate survey Of all her lands, and how they lay, As true as that of Ireland, where The sly surveyors stole a shire.
To what does this allude ?
HENRY FISHWICK.
HAMILTON HILL, LINCS. I should be very much obliged if any Lincolnshire reader could tell me whether there is still a place called Hamilton Hill between Louth and Market Rasen. The name was used in the sixteenth century. If the place is marked on any of the ordnance survey maps, I should be glad to know the number of the sheet and scale of the map.
M. H. DODDS.
THE ORIGINAL (?) ST. PETER'S, BENGE- WORTH. Could any one tell me what was the date of erection of that structure, in course of demolition circa 1869-70 ? Only the stump of the tower now remains. It was said to have been a very ancient build- ing (I fancy, fourteenth-century work). I have never noticed another building of the sort with so many small slabs of lias or polite in its composition. I well remember it required " some getting down."
WILLIAM GODDEN. Willesden.
" SPOILING THE SHIP FOR A HA'PORTH OF TAR." Correspondents of The Mariner's Mirror assert that this saying had its origin, not in the nautical world, but in connexion with sheep-stealing, and that " ship " is
only a dialect way of pronouncing the word
" sheep."
Commodore St. Lo, writing in 1696 to the Navy Board, when he was Commissioner of Plymouth Dock, said :
" We must do the best we can and not loose a
sheep for a halfpennyworth of tar, as the proverb saith."
Confirmation as to this would be of interest- J. LANDFEAR LUCAS.
AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. Can any reader inform me who uses the expression " transient and embarrassed phantoms " ? I am told as a guess Burke. If so, where does he use it ?
J. S. O. ROBERTSON-LUXFORD.
Who said " Ncu^e, KO! /.ic/jtvao-' aTrio-rei v,' * (" Be sober, and learn to distrust ") ? The author must have been a Dorian. In my edition of King's ' Classical and Foreign Quotations ' (1904) it is not given.
G. KRUEGER, Berlin.
[Epicharmus. ]
Matthew Henry, in his ' Commentary on John,' vi. 26, writes :
" Many follow Christ for loaves, and not for love. Thus they do, who aim at secular advantage in their profession of religion, and follow it, because by this craft they got their preferments. ' Quanti profuit nobis hajc fabula de Christo.' This fable respecting Christ, what a gainful con- cern we have made of it ! ' said one of the popes."
Is this statement itself a fable, or is it genuine history ? And, if the latter, who was the Pope ? J. B. McGovERN.
St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.
MISSING LINE WANTED. I shall feel obliged if any of your readers can supply me with the last of the following :
Les yeux bleus vont aux cieux, Les yeux gris vont aux Paradis, Les yeux verts vont aux enfere, Les yeux noirs vont au Purgatoire, Les yeux brim vont... ?
C. J. DURAND, Col. The Villa, Guernsey.
QUICKSILVER AS A CHARM. I am, of course, aware that quicksilver was an important factor in the alchemist's labora- tory, for its union with the sulphur-stone was said to produce gold (?) ; but I cannot learn what part it played in magic.
In a case of necromancy performed by the " wise man " living at Ickleford, Herts, in the latter part of the tenth century, which had reference to a " changeling " child, a nutshell filled with quicksilver, placed under
