Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/500

 412

NOTES AND QUERIES. cio* s. i. MAY 21, 1901.

Martello Towers are named after this family, but the similarity in the two words is certainly very marked. In May, 1901, 1 copied the following inscriptions from two mural tablets at the west end of the nave of St. Clement's Church, Hastings :

Near this spot

are deposited the remains of

Horatio Martelli Esq.

who died 29 th Dec r 1817

aged 48 years.

This monument was erected to

his beloved memory by his

afflicted widow and eight

children.

Also the remains of

Catherine widow of the above mentioned

Horatio Martelli She died the 10 th June 1818

aged 37 years This tablet was erected to her lamented memory

by her orphans.

" I will not leave you comfortless : I will come to you." John xiv. 18 ver.

On the upper tablet is a coat of arms which I read as follows : Per fess or and argent, in chief an eagle displayed and crowned proper ; in base, on a mount vert, a [? Martello] tower, supported by two lions rampant gules ; in the dexter and sinister base points a fleur-de-lis azure. On an escutcheon of pretence, Argent, a fess gules between three crescents sable, a canton ermines, impaling Sable, a chevron ; in chief two (?) tigers passant, and in base an annulet, all argent.

JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

' THE GRENADIER'S EXERCISE OF THE GRENADO ' (10 th S. i. 347). Immediately fol- lowing p. 306 in Sibbald Scott's 'British Army,' vol. ii., 1868, are two plates, one of which, "No. 45," represents a 'Grenadier of H.M. 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, A.D. 1745'; and at p. 307 it is stated that " the Grenadier on plate xlv. is copied, by kind permission, from the Journal of the Arch&ological Institution, No. 91. It is taken from an engraving by Bernard Lens, limner to George II, which is in a rare book in the RA. Library, Woolwich, entitled, ' The Grenadier's Exercise of the Grenado in H.M First Regiment of Foot Guards.' " W. S.

" KICK THE BUCKET " '(10 th S. i. 227, 314). It would, perhaps, be impossible to settle with absolute certainty the origin of this phrase. It becomes, therefore, more or less a question of weighing probabilities, and none of the explanations seems to equal in merit the one familiar to me from my youth up. When a butcher slings up a sheep or pig

after killing, he fastens to the hocks of the animal what is technically known in the trade as a gambol, a piece of wood curved somewhat like a horse's leg. This is also known in Norfolk as a bucket, a variation, according to Forby, of bucker. The 'N.E.D./ by the way, is silent on this point, and does not even mention gambal, which may be found in any London advertiser's catalogue ; but gamble as a variant of gambrel or gambril is given. Bucket, I may add, is not only well known in Norfolk in this sense, and commonly used, but with some of our folk is the only word known for the article in question. To "kick the bucket," then, is the sign of the animal's being dead, and the origin of the phrase may probably, if not indisputably, be referred to this source.

HOLCOMBE INGLEBY. Heacham, Norfolk.

CATHEDRAL HIGH STEWARDS (10 th S. i. 348). Norwich is not unique in possessing such an official, for the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury have such an officer, whose office appears to be a survival of the layman of power and importance in the county, who was steward of the Prior and monks of Canterbury. ARTHUR HUSSEY.

Tankerton-on-Sea, Kent.

' ATHENA CANTABRIGIENSES ' (10 th S. i. 348). In the 'D.N.B.,' under Charles Henry Cooper (1808-66), is the following :

"After the decease of the principal author, the University handsomely offered to defray the cost of printing, at the University Press, the remainder of the ' Athense,' but his two sons, after making some further progress with the preparation of the manu- script, were reluctantly obliged, by the pressure of their professional avocations, to finally abandon the undertaking. The extensive collection of notes for bringing the work down to 1866 remains in the possession of Cooper's widow."

LIONEL A. V. SCHANK.

RIGHT HON. JOHN SMITH, SPEAKER (10 th S. i. 348). MR. PINK will find plenty of material for this family which has never been properly dealt with. Mr. C. Reade (' Smith Family ') cannot even give the Chris- tian name of the Speaker's father. The fol- lowing rough notes may be of use. In the Subsidy Rolls, John Smith, Esq., has 3l. in land in North Ted worth (temp. Car. II). John Smith, of Aldermanbury, London, and afterwards of North Ted worth, had a daughter Jane, who was mother of Serjeant Webb (born about 1663) and of the well-known General John Richmond Webb (born about 1667). In 1683 John Smith, of South Ted- worth, widower, married Ann, eighteenth daughter of Sir Thomas Strickland, Bart. la