Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/38

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XL JAN. 10, 1903.


Queen Anne and George I. Anne was god- mother to one of his children. A Miss Fenton also was a Maid of Honour to her, and is mentioned in Pope's letters. Richard was also related to the Countess (afterwards Duchess) of Kingston of the period, and the Shelburnes, by marriages of his relatives. Can you find me particulars about these also ? I have all the links for thirty-four generations, from 1067 to our day, 1902, verified from Rolls of Parliament and other public records, except the gap from 1647 to 1700, which comes from the destruction of the registers in Pembrokeshire. Surely this shows the need of a national transcript of our parish and cathedral registers. F. A. S.

" COCK -CERTAINTIES." The Athenaeum of 8 November, 1902, in a review of ' La Vraie Jeanne d'Arc,' by J. B. J. Ay roles, S. J., has the following sentence on p. 613 : *' The learned Father himself avers that the day of certain scepticisms, of certain cock-cer- tainties, is passing." In the playful resur- gence of " certain cock-certainties " there is an element of ingenious juxtaposition, just as, in another part of the same article, the use of " Mr. Knox " as a designation for the Scottish Reformer smacks of self-assured pedantry; but neither of the expressions seems to have literary credentials. Can "cock-certainties," in particular, be defended ?

THOMAS BAYNE.

[Cocksure has abundant authority. Consult what is said on that subject in ' H.E.D.' Cock-certainties is, of course, modern.]

BANQUO. Can any Celtic scholar explain etymologically the name Banquo (the well- known character in Shakespeare's 'Mac- beth ') ? Webster's ' Dictionary,' in the list of names of fiction, gives Bang^wo as the correct pronunciation. On the other hand, I have heard the statement that among educated people, and on the stage, the pronunciation is Ban&o, so that the sound would be identical with that of the Italian word banco. I should like to know whether this statement is borne out by facts. Is the name still extant 1

DR. H. FERNOW.

166, Sierichst., Hamburg.

R. T. CLARIDGE, ESQ. Is anything known about him? The 'D.N.B.' knows him not. He published books on hydropathy and cholera, and a useful and practical guide for travellers on the Danube and to Constanti- nople (first edition, London, 1837; new edition, 1839), evidently from personal observations, as we find him on the Danube steamer Zrinyi on 3 May, 1836. L. L . K.


LEVIATHAN. This great water monster, mentioned in the Book of Job, may have meant something definite to the poet who wrote that book. On the other hand, I sup- pose it is only fair to surmise that it may have been but a creature of the imagination. Granted that it was a real creature, and that the species is still extant, what was it 1 for the whale, the crocodile, the shark, and even the sea-serpent have all been pronounced leviathan. The majority of poets have taken the whale as leviathan, but from this many dissent, and the crocodile has been found to agree closely with the description.

THOMAS AULD.

FIREBACK DATED 1610. I should be grate- ful for help in identifying arms on a fireback in Gloucestershire dated 1610. As well as I can make out the arms, they are as follows : Quarterly, 1 and 4, a chevron between three fleurs-de-lys ; 2, a fesse between three hedgehogs ; 3, on a fesse dancette between three annulets three lions rampant. No tinctures are indicated. Crest, a hedgehog. D. TOWNSHEND.


COLERIDGE'S 'CHRISTABEL.' (9 th S. x. 326, 388, 429, 489.)

I CAN assure MR. HUTCHINSON that it never entered my head to suspect him of any per- sonal motives in regard to the "strictures" passed by him on the Hollings bibliography of Coleridge. Had he confined his remarks to pointing out the faulty punctuation of some of the title-pages in the bibliography I should have said nothing, being fully aware of its shortcomings in that direction, and having already confessed to carelessness in revision of proofs, owing to circumstances over which I had personally no control. The " vexation" to which MR. HuTCHiNSON'refers arose from the language used in the last paragraph of his letter, which seemed to me to lead up to a somewhat unfair inference. MR. HUTCHINSON remarked that MR. SHEP- HERD'S notes constituted a respectable attempt which, had SHEPHERD lived, he would no doubt have enlarged and converted into a trust- worthy work. He then went on to say that the "revised" edition teemed with minute errors, and that the reader who relied on it would soon find himself involved in a tangle of uncertainties and obscurities. Now any one reading those remarks would, if in ignorance of the facts, naturally suppose that MR. SHEPHERD'S notes were fairly cor-