Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/322

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314


NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. APWL 21, woo.


is Dr. Glinn, who, as the above Society gladly recognized, very readily assented to the pro- posal to attach the tablet to it. Without, how- ever, in any way wishing"to look agift-horsein the mouth," I could not suppress the reflection, during a recent inspection of it, that it is to be regretted that the Society had not selected marble or granite for the tablet, either of which would have been alike nobler in ap- pearance and more durable as material. As it is, it wears a gaudiness which is unpleasing, and imparts an impression of non-durability. But it is decidedly better than nothing at all. It may be added that Mr. Gladstone resided there until the year 1818, when his family re- moved to Seaforth House, Seaforth, and that the future Viscount Cardwell subsequently passed some years of his infancy in the same house. J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

MORECAMBE. From MR. HARRISON'S remark (ante, p. 92) that " some of the persons bearing this name [Morcom] may owe it primarily to Morecambe (Bay)," I conclude that it is not generally known that this is one of the bogus local names foisted into our maps by anti- quaries. On philological grounds, it is un- likely that a name that occurs in the second century as Mo/oiKa/x/fy (Ptolemy, ii. c. 3, 2) could have come down to us so unaffected by phonological wear and tear. It is more impro- bable still that it should have been preserved, not only as the name of the Lancashire bay, but, in Ptolemy's own spelling of "Mori- cambe," as the name of the bay at the outflow of the Warn pool and the Waver, near Bowness, in Cumberland. Mr. Henry Bradley was, I believe, the first to point out that both these modern names are figments of the antiquaries. This was in his admirable paper on 'Ptolemy's Britain' in the forty -eighth volume of the Archoeologia, where he remarks that the name of Morecambe " seems to have been adopted from Ptolemy in the last century." The Cumberland name arises from the fact that the older antiquaries identified Ptolemy's estuary with " the bay at Caerdronack "(that is Cardur- nock or Cardonnock, near Bowness), as Mori- cambe Bay is described by Thomas Gale in 1691 (' Quindecim Scriptores,' ii. 783). More- cambe nay occurs on Gough's map of Lanca- shire in his edition of Camderi's 'Britannia,' 1789, but in the text(iii. 142) Gough describes it not as " Morecambe Bay," but as " Cartmell Bay." W. H. STEVENSON.

" ABERR." This word is marked obsolete in the * H.E.D.,' the last quotation being dated 1658. It is revived by Mr. G. Bernard Shaw in vol. i. of 'Plays : Pleasant and Unpleasant'


(preface, p. vii) : "I should have put on a pair of abnormal spectacles and aberred my vision."

J. J. F.


WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them direct.

BURNET MANUSCRIPTS. Among the Har- leian MSS. in the British Museum (6584) is a fragmentary copy of Burnet's original memoirs, on which he subsequently founded the ' History of My Own Time.' It is possible that the missing portions or even a com- plete copy of the work may exist elsewhere. Information would be gladly received.

(Miss) H. C. FOXCROFT.

ARMORIAL. Can any correspondent state whose armorial bearing was the following] Vairy, on a canton arg. a buck's head cabossed ; impaling, Argent, two bendlets wavy gules. These arms are engraved on a piece of plate bearing the date-mark 1684 and the initials A. B. H.

SIR A. PITCHES. Information is requested as to the pedigree of Sir Abraham Pitches, Knt., of Streatham, Surrey, who died about 1790, and is buried at Wyrardisbury, Bucks (M.I.).

H.

UNICORNS. What classical authority de- scribes unicorns as captured by being held fast by their horn sticking fast in a tree which they have charged 1 SALTERTON.

RICHARD WHITCOMBE. Both Cunningham, in his 'Life of Nell Gwynne,' and also Hazlitt, mention this author as having written * Janua Divorum ' (published 1679). It is not in any of the principal libraries of the kingdom. Can any reader inform me if it has come under his notice, or tell me of one who possesses it ? D. L. B.

FRANCIS CHETTELL, M.P. for Corfe Castle, 1646-8. Any particulars of him will greatly oblige. He was probably the Francis Chettell, of Blandford, Dorset, whose son Thomas matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, 16 July, 1669, aged fifteen.

W. D. PINK.

Leigh, Lancashire.

GLADSTONE AND DE QUINCEY. I should be obliged to any contributor who could say whether these two celebrities ever met ; and whether there exists any known expression of opinion from the former on the latter's