Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/115

 10 s. x. AUG. i, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

91

I feel sure it could be easily accomplished. Every time I take down the book from my shelves, where it has long occupied an honoured place, I feel the want of this time- saver. A few shillings from every possessor of the volumes would be all that is required. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

DEVILLE (10 S. ix. 450). I think Deville was not only a delineator of character from handwriting, but also a phrenologist. I recollect a verse in an old recitation, ' A Woman of Mind,' which referred to him as under :

My wife is a woman of mind,

And Deville, who examined her bumps, Vowed that never were found in a woman

Such large intellectual lumps. Ideality big as an egg

With casuality great was combined ; He charged me ten shillings, and said,

" Sir, your wife is a woman of mind."

JAS. CURTIS, F.S.A.

" WHIFF," A BOAT (10 S. x. 29). This is described in ' The Century Dictionary ' as follows :

" At Oxford and other places on the Thames, a light kind of outrigger boat. It is timber-built throughout, thus differing from a skiff, which is a racing boat, usually of cedar, and covered with canvas for some distance at the bow and stern."
 * Encyc. Diet."

" ' The whiff is a vessel which recommends itself

to few save the ambitious fisherman It combines

the disadvantages of a dingey and a skiff, with the excellences of neither.' 'Dickens's Diet. Oxford,' p. 19."

F. HOWARD COLLINS.

Torquay.

At Oxford thirty years ago a clinker-built single-sculling boat, with outriggers and un- covered ends, was known as a " whiff." The name was introduced to distinguish these boats from " skiffs," or racing shells, and was supposed to be a portmanteau com- bination of " wherry " and " skiff."

CLASSICUS.

[HARMATOPEGOS, H. P. L., and URLLAD also thanked for replies.]

ST. ANDREW'S CROSS (10 S. viii. 507; ix. 32, 114). MARY OVERY inquires as to the difference between the St. Andrew's cross in the arms of the See of Rochester, which is " red on white," as the querist terms it, and the St. Andrew's cross of Scotland, which is " white on blue," and asks, Which is the older ?

The proper heraldic answer to the first part of the question would, of course, be that the St. Andrew's cross, or saltire, in

the arms of the See of Rochester, is of a different colour or " tincture " as is also the " field " so as to distinguish it from its parent, the St. Andrew's cross proper, or banner of Scotland, Azure, a saltire argent, the Cathedral being dedicated to the patron saint of Scotland. The arms of Rochester do but represent the St. Andrew's cross in shape, i.e., a saltire ; but your correspondent does not mention that there is another difference in the arms of the See of Rochester which would make the necessary distinction, apart from the alteration of the tinctures, namely, that on the centre of the saltire is an escallop shell or. From this your correspondent will, I think, easily gather which is the older. But let me give some heraldic authorities (such as I have at my command here) on the subject that may help your correspondent.

Boutell (' Heraldry, Historical and Popu- lar,' 1864 : see pp. 27, 126) merely describes what this " cross " is, but gives no account of its origin, and contents himself with stating in his chapter (xxi.) on ' Official and Corporate Heraldry ' (p. 359) that the arms of the See of Rochester are Argent, on a saltire gules an escallop shell or.

The late Dr. Woodward gives fuller infor- mation in his * Heraldry, British and Foreign' (ed. 1896), and in vol. i. p. 153 he states, in speaking of the saltire as a charge or ordinary :

"The tradition that, the apostle St. Andrew suffered martyrdom upon a cross of that shape led to the prevalence of the saltire as a heraldic charge in countries where St. Andrew is a popular saint, and more particularly in Scotland, where the adoption of St. Andrew as the national patron goes back to a date before the introduction of armorial bearings."

And in vol. ii. p. 308 Dr. Woodward speaks of it as " the banner of St. Andrew of Scotland."

In the same learned writer's ' Ecclesias- tical Heraldry' (1894), at p. 227, appears the following account of the foundation of the See of St. Andrews :

" The see of St. Andrews is said to have originated with the introduction of Christianity into this country, and the legend relates that some relics of the saint were brought from his grave at Patrae by a Greek monk. The ship which bore them being driven ashore near the site of the present city, the Pictish chief of the district founded a church under the invocation of the Apostle, and St. Andrew thus became the patron saint of the Picts, while the saltire cross, which was the instrument of his mar- tyrdom, became the badge of the realm."

In the same volume (p. 186) Dr. Wood- ward gives the arms of the See of Rochester,