388 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 S.X.MAY 20, 1922. Hines, my gold watch when 15. I give all my messuages, lands in Knottingley to John Marshall and Win. Greenwood, upon trust to sell and divide proceeds and pay same to my sons, James, Thos. Thompson, Jonathan, Joseph, and dau. Mary Ann Hines. To my nieces Ann Mather, Sarah Benson, and Isabella Benson 10 each. (Proved May 1, 1816.) In St. John's Church, Leeds (on tomb- stones) : Here lieth interred the Body of Benjamin Smith of this town, Timber Merchant, who departed this life June 11, 1810, aged 61 years. Also the Body of Ann, relict of the above Benjamin Smith, who departed this life Nov. 12, 1815, in the 68th year of her age. In Birkin churchyard appears the follow- ing inscription : Sacred to the Memory of Ann, wife of Jonathan Smith of Leeds, and daughter of the Rev. George Alderson, who died 17 Feb, 1808, aged 36 years. Also Wm. their son who died 11 Dec. 1807 aged nine months. Also Ann their daughter who died 11 May 1808, aged 3 years and 5 months. If thus debased the Body dies, The Living Soul to Heaven flies, Longing once more to re-unite, Its kindred dead in realms of light. Leeds Intelligencer, Jan. 6, 1810 : Deaths. On Wednesday, Mrs. Benson, wife of Mr. Joseph Benson, a preacher in Methodist Con- nexion, and sister to Mrs. Benj. Smith of this town. R. GORDON-SMITH. Eastbourne. HUBERT DE HIE AND FULBERT OF DOVER. Some time ago, when seeking the descend- ants of Hubert de Rie, it was suggested to me in a competent quarter that it might be worth while to examine the origin of Fulbert, or Foubert, of Dover, on the chance that this Domesday celebrity might be a " con- tracted " FitzHubert. I hesitated at the time under the impression that Fitz would have been pronounced at least as sibilant as the modern French fils, but turning over ' A Fifteenth Century Book of Arms,' re- produced in vol. iv. of The Ancestor, I find the arms of FitzHugh (pp. 230-1) subscribed as "Fehewe" and FitzWarenne as " Fe- warreyne." If " Fitz " in these cases became " Fe " there is no doubt Fehubert or Fehulbert would, even as early as " Domesday," become Foubert and Fulbert, which, taken with other indications, makes it not improbable that, as suggested, Fulbert of Dover, Lord of Chilham, was of the De Rie kin, and so opens out other possi bilities. I think this " vocal value" of " Fitz " worth noting, though others may not have been so ignorant on the point as I, because it affects other names (e.g., Few, Frewen, from FitzHewe and FitzWarenne ?), besides that of FitzHulbert or Hubert. PERCY HTJLBURD. Nonnington, near Petworth. MAD PLANS THAT HAVE BEEN REALIZED. The following passage from a letter, written by Prince Metternich to his wife on Dec. 22, 1797, is not without interest, seeing that ideas that he deemed crazy have at last- been realized : All they dream of in France at this moment is a descent on England. The wildest projects are formed, and it appears to me that those that are the least so are quite impossible. A certain man named Tillorier thinks of going over in a balloon ; another, named Gamier, proposes elastic skates ; a third pretends to have invented a species of boat to pass under the water without being seen ; and the fourth, the most foolish of all, would have guns made to carry fifty miles which shall destroy England from French batteries. You may think these are the plans of some mad- men not at all ; they are the project-makers of the day. They say that Bonaparte received in one day two thousand projects, plans and letters directly he. arrived in Paris. T. PERCY ARMSTRONG. The Authors' Club, Whitehall, S.W. THE HACKNEY MERMAID AND THE OLD FREEMASONS. There are passages in the quaint minutes of the proceedings of the earliest affiliated Lodges of " the Most Antient and most Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons" which throw light upon the status of the Hackney Mermaid in the Order and show the changes which time has wrought in the practice of the Brethren. The Mermaid occupying, w T ith its annexes, a considerable area, for deployment, sports, &c., in Hackney Church Street had risen to prominence, as is seen from local plans and maps, before 1780, and, from the first, was a festival rendezvous of Freemasons of Middlesex even from the days of Wilkes and Lord George Gordon, and it continued conspicuous and convenient for the demonstrations of ' ' advanced " politicians and others until well into the nineteenth century j when Hackney had become an im- portant Whig-Radical centre and a favourite place of residence of the leaders of dissent. It is necessary to recall that it was John, fourth Duke of Atholl, as the head of the " Antients " (with his colleagues of Grand Lodge), who, on May 6, 1799, deemed it essen- tial, in view of happenings, to " inhibit and
