Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/111

 io S.LJAS. 8o,i9ot] NOTES AND QUERIES.

87

2331, post Christum natum 1581." This makes the first year of our era to correspond with the 750th of the Roman ; but according to what appears to be the received view, A.D. l=A.u.c. 754. How is the discrepancy accounted for 1 C. J. I.

[Discussed at great length 6 th S. ix., x., xi., xii., under birth of Jesus Christ.]

"FiDE, SED GUI VIDE." In the early part of the seventeenth century this was one of the favourite mottoes engraved upon swords and rapiers. It occurs, for instance, upon four specimens in the Wallace collection, Nos. 160, 344, 500, and 1,046 in the 'Cata- logue' by Mr. G. F. Laking, F.S.A., 1901. I have seen a deed, dated in 1655, bearing the heraldic seal of Thomas Beaumont, of Whitley Hall, co. York, who afterwards became Sir Thomas Beaumont. Under the shield appears this same motto, FIDE SED cvi VIDE. Did the Beaumont family adopt it ? and if so, when ?

W. C. B.

HOWAKD AND DRYDEN FAMILIES. Charles Dryden, son of the poet John Dr} r den by his wife Lady Elizabeth (Howard), daughter of Henry, Earl of Berkshire, was Chamber- lain of the Household in 1694 to Pope Inno- cent XII. He is said to have taken with him to Rome a history of the families of Howard and Dryden, written in Latin by his father, Glorious John, which was lodged at the Vatican. Is there any record of this document, and is it still in existence 1 In 1799 Lady Dryden, the great-great-niece of the poet, wrote, " If Rome were not now in the hands of French robbers, who, it is feared, have destroyed or carried away all the manuscripts in the Vatican, I should have endeavoured to procure thence a copy of this paper." P. D. M.

EPITAPH ON SIR JOHN SEYMOUR. There is a monument in Bitton Church to Sir John Seymour, 1663. The inscription, being only painted, is almost obliterated. It is printed by Rudder, not very correctly. After four- teen lines of Latin poetry it concludes thus : "Age peripatetite Dum intuearis cineres

defuncti mort en Sacel brevi fortassis

tuse." I should feel much obliged to any one who can suggest the missing words.

HENRY N. ELLACOMBE.

Bitton.

RAJA RASALU. A recent writer in the Standard, referring to the adventures of the Panjab hero Raja Rasalu, remarks that the " tale of Rasalu is believed to have been brought to England by pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, and [that] it was the subject of a popular chapbook well thumbed

by rustics in the reign of Queen Anne." Can any one say what mediaeval version of this legend and what chapbook this writer refers tol CHARLES SWYNNERTON.

WILLIAM HARTLEY. Can any of your readers inform me whether the William Hartley of Hartley, Greens & Co., known as the Leeds Pottery Company, is the same William Hartley who was High Sheriff of York in 1810, or whether they were related to one another 1 A. H. ARKLE.

"DowN, LITTLE FLUTTERER ! " Can any reader inform me in what work (I think of Dickens) any character, speaking of his heart, says, "Down, little flutterer !" or words to that effect ? or is the saying merely a music- hall catch phrase ? C. A. NEWMAN.

THOMPSON OF BOUGHTON, co. KENT. I shall feel greatly obliged for any information relating to the family of Thompson, resident at Boughton, in Kent, early in the eighteenth century. They bore for arms Per pale or and argent, an eagle displayed gules.

FLORENCE N. COCKBURN.

JOHN LEWIS, PORTRAIT PAINTER AND SCENIC ARTIST. No account of this man is to be found in any of the dictionaries of art or of general biography. About the middle of the eighteenth century he was for a time scenic artist at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, and, according to Alicia Lefanu, decorated the coved ceiling of the salon in Sheridan's country seat at Quilca, co. Cavan, with classical figures. This must have been done after Sheridan's marriage in 1747. Miller scraped two portraits in mezzotint after Lewis : one in 1754 of John Sowdon, the Smock Alley player, and another in 1756 of Henry Brooke, the dramatist. Are the original paintings extant ? When did Lewis first go to Ireland, and where was he pre- viously] W. J. LAWRENCE.

15, Kildare Street, Dublin.

HENRIETTA MARIA GORDON SMYTHIES. Where can I find an account of this lady, who produced over a score of novels between 1835 and 1880? Allibone says she was the daughter of Edward Lesmoin (Lesmoir 1 ?) Gordon, and wife of the Rev. William Yorick Smythies. J. M. B.

[She died 15 August, 1883.]

DUTCH FISHERMEN IN BRITISH WATERS. Lorenzo Sabine, in his 1853 classical mono- graph on 'The Principal Fisheries of the American Seas,' states that James I. com- pelled the Dutch to pay an annual tribute for permission or liberty to fish for herrings