Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/167

 10 s. x. AUG. is, 1908. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the poem ( ' A Better Answer ' ) for forty years, and have never thought of it as bear- ing the interpretation which MB. YABDLEY gives it. On the contrary, I have always thought that the graceful and charming compliments it contains might have been addressed to any lady in the land.

Does MB. YABDLEY remember the style of dress of ladies indeed, of women of all ranks in Prior's day ? ' A Lover's Anger ' may be considered a harmless jeu d* esprit when this is borne in mind.

However, my query was meant to be Ts there any evidence that Miss Taylor was Prior's real Chloe ? the Chloe of so many of his poems being more or less an imaginary person. T. M. W.

" ANGEL " OF AN INN (10 S. ix. 488 ; x. 14, 55, 95). The host of "The Garter" {' Merry Wives of Windsor,' IV. v.) says of Palstaff : " There 's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed and truckle- "bed ; 'tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new." So painted it would naturally be known as the Prodigal Room or the Prodigal, more especially if other rooms had a similar decoration of their own. Doubtless the hostel-name of the rooms called the Angel, the Lion, the Lamb, and so forth is thus explained. It was before the days of wall-paper ! Alike in churches, as we know, and in domestic dwellings, this form of mural decoration was 'destined to disappear under whitewash.

DOUGLAS OWEN.

TIGEB FOLK-LOBE AND POPE (10 S. x. 88). ASTABTE will find the description of Stanton Harcourt to which he refers in an undated letter of Pope's to the Duke of Buckingham (probably written in the summer of 1718). The quotation as given from Mortimer Collins' s ' Pen Sketches ' is not literally accurate. The whole passage referring to the kitchen runs :

" The kitchen is built in form of the Rotunda, Ireing one vast vault to the top of the house ; where one aperture serves to let out the smoke and let in the light. By the blackness oE the walls, the circular fires, vast cauldrons, yawning mouths of ovens and furnaces, you would think it either the forge of Vulcan, the cave of Polypheme, or the temple of Moloch. The horror of this place has made such an impression on the country people, that they believe the Witches keep their Sabbath liere, and that once a year the Devil treats them with infernal venison, a roasted tiger stuff'd with tenpemiy nails."

WALTEB JEBBOLD.

Hampton-on-Thames [Ms. E. YAKDLEY also quotes Pope's letter.]

ST. ANDBEW'S CBOSS (10 S. viii. 507 ; ix. 32, 114 ; x. 91). St. Andrew's tomb is not " in the north of Italy," but at Amalfi, in the south of Italy, where he is much venerated. Baedeker says the body is said to have been there since the thirteenth century, when it wfcs brought from Con- stantinople. " The relics, from which an oily matter (manna di Sanf Andrea) of miraculous power is said to exude, attract numerous devotees." The tomb is in a crypt under the high altar, and is readily shown in return for small buona mano.

G. S. PABBY.

The tomb of a " Sant' Andrea di Scozia," probably one of the Columban apostles of the Apennines, is in the church of a small village near Florence I believe Ponte a Mensola. This is probably the saint re- ferred to by Lord Rosebery. Q. V. [Reply from MR. A. R. BAYLEY next week.]

RUSHLIGHTS (10 S. x. 27, 76, 93). In my communication on p. 93 I should have written grisset instead of " cresset," and should have stated that a common name for these implements is " rush-boat." This is not in the ' E.D.D.' They were either cast or made of two iron plates rivetted together. They are of a half-moon shape, and generally have three legs.

E. E. STBEET.

I can remember rushlights being in use in a farm-house in the neighbourhood of Holt, Norfolk, in 1870 ; and at about the same date I can recall seeing one burning in a perforated iron shade in a sick-room in Norwich.

About twenty years ago I discovered the apparatus for making rushlights in an old farmhouse in Virginia, and learned that it had been in full use " before the War," but that rushlights were now used only " by a few old-fashioned darkies."

FBEDEBICK T. HIBGAME.

DICKENS ON "HALF-BAPTIZED" (10 S. x. 29, 90). The private baptism of an infant in danger of death is still practised in the Down Country, and in the majority of cases, if the 'child survives, the full ceremony follows in church. MB. RATCLIFFE'S sug- gestion that half -baptism means registration is new to me. But I have heard civil marriage (i.e., by the registrar) spoken of as half-marriage, and the belief still exists in the isolated hill-district of Berkshire that such marriage is not legally binding after a time. GEOBGE C. PEACHEY,