Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/519

 i. MAY 28, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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vain. Buchanan is described as "of Craig- ieven," and perhaps this may enable some Scottish genealogist to trace him, and find the record of his marriage. The Rev. H. B. Hyde, to whom the discovery of Mary Hastings's identity is due, suggests that she may have been the daughter or niece of Col. Scott, the chief engineer of Fort William, but there is nothing in his will to support the idea. SYDNEY C. GRIER.

DOCUMENTS IN SECRET DRAWERS. In Lord Lytton's ' Night and Morning ' there is a description of the accidental finding of a long- lost document in a secret drawer of a bureau. I am told that such things have actually occurred that documents or valuables have really been discovered in secret drawers. I refer to receptacles hidden inside pieces of furniture, not to hiding-places in the fabric of a house. Can any reader kindly tell me of any such true stories or of any book which would help me in my search for accounts of similar occurrences ?

(Mrs.) ELIZABETH SEYMOUR NORTON.

Buckhurst Hill.

[Chambers's Journal for May aud June contains some letters of Nelson which were stuffed into two low armchairs with deep pockets.]

MADAME DU TENC.IN. Can any one tell me whether her portrait was painted by Nattier or Allan Ramsay ? CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield.

WYRLEY'S DERBYSHIRE CHURCH NOTES. Where are these to be found 1 In Cox's 'Churches of Derbyshire,' vol. ii. p. 579, a reference is given to the Harleian MS. 4799, fo. 99 ; but this reference would seem to be incorrect, for the MS. in question is a Char- tulary of Lichfield. JAS. M. J. FLETCHER.

Tideswell Vicarage, Derbyshire.

CONSUMPTION NOT HEREDITARY. In 1843 Tom Hood, in his 'Comic Annual,' while describing a physician going his round through a hospital, narrates that one patient complained of a phthisical neighbour, on the ground that "consumption is hereditary if you live in the same room." Are there any other early records of a disbelief in the fatalistic views concerning this disease, which Bunyan called "the captain of the men of Death "? STANLEY B. ATKINSON.

Inner Temple.

MURRAY BARONETCY. A baronetcy of Murray was claimed about 1802, the claimant stating the title came into his family in 1680, by the second brother of Murray, the then baronet, marrying Miss Lathropp, and

assuming her name. Can any reader tell me what baronetcy this was, and if the state- ment as to the marriage is correct 1 P. V.

A PHRASE : WHAT is IT ? Lexicographers and grammarians define a phrase as "a brief expression or part of a sentence " ; and one work held in good repute says that it consists of " two or more words forming an expression by themselves, or being part of a sentence." Mr. Edmund Gosse seems to use the term with a larger reference than this ex- planation implies, if, at least, we are to judge from frequent instances in the monograph on Jeremy Taylor which he has written for the " English Men of Letters " series. On p. 50, for example, he quotes as follows from Sir Philip Warwick's reference to Charles I. at Caversham :

" I could perceive he was very apprehensive in what hands he was, but was not to let it be dis- cerned. Nor had he given his countenance unto Dr. Taylor's ' Liberty of Prophesying,' which some believed he had ; but that really and truly it was refreshment to his spirit to be used with some civility, and to serve God as he was wont, and to see some old faces about him."

Commenting on this, Mr. Gosse says : " The wording of this phrase seems to convey that Charles had been reproached by his Puritan jailors with his supposed approval of his former chaplain's revolutionary sentiments,'' &c.

Is the quotation properly called a phrase ? THOMAS BAYNE.

BAXTER'S OIL PAINTING. I have a small painting of Bethlehem, 5 in. by 3 or 4 in. In the left corner are the words "Baxter's Patent Oil Painting." The donor told me that with Baxter's death his secret died. Is this Charles Baxter, 1809-79, portrait and subject painter ; or Thomas Baxter, 1782-1821, of Dillwvn's Factory repute, Swansea ; or John Baxter, 1781-1858 ? M. A.OxoN.

MASONIC PORTRAIT or THE "GREAT" LORD CHATHAM. I possess an interesting por- trait in oils, described on the back as of the eminent statesman William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham (1708-1778). It is on canvas, size 36| in. by 282in., and painted by Gainsborough, probably about the middle of the eighteenth century. Chatham is represented as seated on a high (stuffed) back chair, the massive mahogany carved frame of which is surmounted by a curious figure- head : he wears a brown coat and dress wig ; from his neck is suspended by a red ribbon a white (silver?) triangular Masonic jewel the base upwards containing two small blue stones, and with the additional upper part in the form of a baluster, there being at the back