Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/137

 10 s. x. AUG. s, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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BALZAC AND HEINE : A COINCIDENCE. Reading once more, in the " Everyman Library," a translation of Balzac's novel of ' The Chouans,' I came across a saying : " Men are like medlars, you know they ripen best in straw." This evidently struck Balzac, as he repeats it later. The references are on p. 140 and p. 172, and both in the enormously long section (the book has no chapters) entitled * A Notion of Fouche's.'

Heine in the first volume of his ' Reise- bilder,' ' Ideen,' chap, xiv., has a passage comparing the luxuries Horace got from Maecenas in his day, whereas " our Mae- cenases have quite different ideas : they think authors and medlars do best, when they have lain in straw for some time."

Balzac's book ' Les Chouans,' in its original form * Le dernier Chouan,' first appeared, says Prof. Saintsbury, in 1829, but " its subsequent form, with the actual title, threw the composition back to August, 1827." Heine's book bears the date 1826 ; so the two are pretty near together in date. Did one author copy from the other, and did both use a phrase due to some anonymous wit in Parisian circles ? I lay no stress on the coincidence, for I have known cases in which two living writers evolved an elaborate saying or curious piece of phrasing at the same time, and independently of each other. But in this case there may be an earlier proverbial French source which some reader of the French ' N. & Q.,' IS Intermtdiaire, might be able to supply.

NEL MEZZO.

SAMUEL FOOTE, COMEDIAN. Can your readers clear up a genealogical point for me ? I want to know precisely how Samuel Foote, who was born, 1720, at Truro, and was (I believe third) son of Samuel Foote, M.P. for Tiverton (floruit 1679-1754), was related to the Rev. Francis Hender Foote, who purchased Charlton Place, near Canterbury, in 1765. Francis Hender Foote was first a barrister, and was son of Francis Foote, Esq., of Veryan, Cornwall.

Charlton Place (or Park, as it has long been called) was my home in boyhood, and a large, incongruous wing was then traditionally said to have been built by Foote the comedian for his theatricals. We used the large room for a drawing-room.

Foote's father married Eleanor Dineley of Charlton House near here, who brought him a considerable fortune. My own pro- perty adjoins the old Dineley estate, and there is a tradition that Foote which one ? was born in the Manor House of Sheriff's

Lench, which now belongs to me. It seems to me that the two Foote families the Veryan one and the Truro one, both Cornish must be one and the* same. I want to know the certainties. My father gave up Charlton Park in Kent in 1854 or 1855, and died in 1873 ; and the Manor House at Sheriff's Lench was not added to my family estate here till later in that year, and I find it difficult to ascertain the verity of the tradi- tions and the genealogical points. Answers direct would be esteemed.

(Rev. Dr.) W. K. W. CHAFY. Rons Lench Court, Rou8 Leiioh, Evesham.

" MINISTEB " IN EARLY CHARTERS. What is the exact meaning of " Minister " when appended to the names of witnesses in royal Anglo-Saxon charters ? Does it mean that those using it were officials of State or Court, or that they held rank as thanes ? and were not necessarily in the retinue of the royal grantor ? J. H. R.

JOSEPH BONAPARTE IN ENGLAND : BRET TENHAM PARK. Where did Joseph Bona- parte reside during the time that he lived in England ? He was here from 1832 to 1837, and again from 1839 to 1841. The, Examiner of 15 Oct., 1837, mentions his residence at that date as " Brettenham Park." Where was this ? F. H. C.

[Brettenham Park is in the parish of Brettenham, West Suffolk.]

DEATH AFTER LYING. In the recently published volume of essays called ' Anglican Liberalism ' (Williams & Norgate) occurs this passage on p. 37 :

" In one of our county towns the Market Cross records an event which took place in the middle of the eighteenth century the death of a market woman immediately after she had told a lie in the course of her trading, and had called upon God to strike her dead if she had not told the truth."

Can any one supply the name of the town, and date ? LAWRENCE PHILLIPS.

Sibson Rectory, Atherstone.

[The town is Devizes.]

PICTURE WITH GAME AND ELEPHANT. Has a picture representing a man seated, surrounded by game, with an elephant in the background, been engraved ? It is believed to be the portrait of the Regent's friend Sir Alexander Grant of Dalvey.

M. F. H.

DOG NAMES. In Mr. Stallybrass's trans- lation of Grimm's ' Deutsche Mythologie ' (1880, vol. i. p. 7) there is a note in which it is suggested that the names of heathen deities were given to dogs, after the North