Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/183

 10 s. x. AUG. 22, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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while the melodious refrain, " Buy my sweet lavender." Supplies were drawn from a cart filled with sheaves enough, it might have been imagined, to scent all the ward- robes in the neighbourhood. It is to be hoped that the visitors found, with depleted stock, good financial return for their efforts. There was a " chickweed and groundsel " merchant about as well. CECIL CLARKE.

JOHN MURRAY II. A few days since, I was talking to a lady of eighty-five, who referred to David Christie Murray's ' Recol- lections ' ; and I had the privilege of dis- abusing her mind of the impression that he was a scion of Albemarle Street. She then told me that in about 1838 her mother sent her from some distant part of London to Murray's to buy a copy of Mrs. Rundell's cookery book. When she got there, she found she had forgotten the name of the oracle, and with becoming diffidence con- fided the fact to an old gentleman in knee- breeches and woollen stockings, who ad- vanced from somewhere in the background to serve her. She tried to explain the domestic need, and was greatly relieved when her interlocutor declared : " Oh ! my child, you want Mrs. Rundell." The memory of the kindly courtesy of Mr. Murray (as she believes) remains pleasantly with my friend to this day, and I could see that she had been much interested in per- suading herself that David Christie Murray, of whom she knew nothing, was one of the great publisher's descendants.

ST. SWITHIN.

DR. JOHNSON: FLORA MACDONALD. In The Lady's Realm of October, 1897 (vol. ii. p. 671), is an article called * The Real Flora Macdonald,' by Margaret Macalister William- son. Allan Macdonald of Kingsburgh, who married Flora Macdonald, was the authoress's great-great-grand-uncle (p. 672). Near the end of the article is the following :

"I shall finish by giving one or two anecdotes culled from the same long-lived individuals [i.e., certain grand-aunts and grand-uncles].

"When Dr. Johnson made his tour to the Hebrides with Boswell he was hospitably enter- tained at Corry by my great-great-grandmother, Kingsburgh's daughter Anne, who was first married to Macalister of Strathaird, Isle of Skye, and secondly to Mackinnon of Corry. At dinner one day Mrs. Mackinnon said to Dr. Johnson, ' Sir, how do you like the Scotch broth ? ' He politely replied, 4 Madam, it is fit for pigs.' She quietly rejoined, ' Will you allow me, sir, to give you another plate- ful ? ' This anecdote is not recorded by his admirer Boswell.

" Mrs. Mackinnon's daughter, Margaret Mac- alister, then a young bride of sixteen, having

just married Dr. Macdonald of Gillen, took a bet with some sprightly young ladies that she would sit on Dr. Johnson's knee in the drawing-room and kiss him. These young ladies had dared her to do it, saying he was too ugly for any woman to kiss. This anecdote in recorded by Boswell."

It may be worth adding that the authoress says (p. 673) that many interesting facts about Flora Macdonald, told by Colina Nicholson, whose grandmother was maid to Flora Macdonald, and whose aunt lived to be a hundred and four years of age, " will appear in Mademoiselle de Bo vet's forthcoming book, ' En ^cosse.' ' " Colina still [1897] lives in Portree.".

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

OLYMPIC GAMES IN ENGLAND. It would be interesting, in connexion with the British Olympiad just celebrated, to know some- thing more of the sporting event which seems to have been mainly dog-racing thus described in a letter of 30 April, 1679, from Col. Edward Cooke in London to the Duke of Ormond, Viceroy of Ireland, in Dublin :

" As for Thursday, I have little to say of State affairs, the Votes speaking for the House of Com- mons, and the Lords not sitting. Yet that I may not leave an absolute blank on that day, I presume to give your Grace an account of Hampton Court Olympic, where the King honoured the pastimes with his presence, and thousands followed his ex- ample, so that the breadth of the paddock course was fain to be divided with stakes and ropes." Historical MSS. Commission, 'Ormonde MSS.,' New Series, vol. v. p. 75.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S HOUSEHOLD AND PRIVY COUNCIL. Is there any existing record of the names of the officers of Queen Elizabeth's Household, with the dates of their appointment ?

I also wish to obtain a list of the members of the Privy Council under Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, with the dates when sworn.

F. B.

" CADEY." What is the origin of this word as applied to a hat ? It duly appears in Farmer's ' Slang Dictionary ' with a reference to Wai ford's Antiquarian. The year is not given, but on p. 251, vol. xi., 1887, of The Antiquarian Magazine, edited by the late Edward Walford, it is stated :