Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/402

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. OCT. 24, im

BRIEFS IN 1742. About 1742 briefs were issued for Drayton, Hubey, Whittington, Middlechurch, Culcheth Chapel, Wallop, Chilton, Altcarr, Hornby, and Lanhassa. Is anything known about the reasons for the issue of these briefs ? who received the pro- duce of them ? The Bounty Office ?

When were briefs discontinued ?

F. HARRISON.

North Wraxhall Rectory, Chippenham.

[Many articles 011 briefs will be found in ' N. & Q.' See, for instance, 8 S. ix. 421 ; x. 6, 7, 58, 80, 299, 46L; 9S. xi. 86, 289, 513. 1

FIFE FISHERMEN'S SUPERSTITIONS. The fishermen of Fife are said to refrain from going to sea if, on their way to the boats, a clergyman or a pig crosses their path. Can any of your readers explain why these should bring ill-luck ? The old saying that " pigs see the wind " might possibly account for the pig. M. P. M.

[For notices of fishermen's folk-lore see 1 S. v.,xi.; 4 S. iii. ; 6 S. i., ii., x. ; 78. v., xii. MR. H. ANDREWS at 9 S. viii. 248 gave a list of books and articles on the subject. 1

GORDON AND SHORT FAMILIES. On 11 March, 1873, Charles Henry Short, lieutenant in the 104th Bengal Fusiliers, announced in The Times that, in accordance with the wish of his late cousin Miss Louisa Power Short, of Exmouth and Charmouth, he had resolved to assume the name of Gordon-Short. Miss Susannah Gordon, (died at Bath 25 Feb., 1802), sister of Sir William Gordon, K.B., diplomat (1726-98), and aunt of Thomas Gordon of Middleton Court, Somerset, and of Charmouth (1760-1855), left a legacy to her niece Susan Short.

Can any reader throw further light on these Gordons and Shorts especially the ambassador ? Thomas's father, Robert, in 1768, while living in Flanders (Sir William was then Minister at Brussels), bequeathed his real property within the diocese of Canter- bury and in Jamaica to his brothers John und William, and his daughters Susannah and Rebecca. J. M. BULLOCH.

118, Pall Mall, S.W.

GREEKS AND NATURE. What Greeks eulogized Nature like Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus ? I. x. B.

JAMES FRASER I. OF PHOPACHY. I shall be much obliged for a pedigree of the above, and for the name of his wife. He was appa- rently nephew of John Fraser, Bishop of Ross 1485 to 1507. A. R. BAYLEY.

St. Margaret's, Malvern.

ERASMUS WILLIAMS OF DORSET: RICHARD HAYDOCK.

(10 S. x. 208, 258.)

ERASMUS WILLIAMS was Scholar of New College, Oxford, 1570 ; M.A. 19 April, 1578 (Foster's 'Alumni Oxonienses ' ) ; Rector of Tingewick, Bucks, 1589-1608 (Lipscomb's ' Bucks,' iii. 124). The " Sir John Williams of Dorsetshire " to whose " line " he is stated to belong was. doubtless Sir John Williams of Herringston, Kt. (1545-1617), Sheriff of Dorset 23 and 24 Elizabeth, and M.P. for that county James I. (Hutchins's ' Dorset,' ii. 524). I have not had time to look up the " Sir William a Barowe in Hamp." with whom he was connected by his mother. The brass has no connexion with Freemasonry. The objects depicted on it symbolize an elaborate series of antitheses between the wisdom of this world and the spiritual light of the hereafter. Thus the pillar on the right hand of the kneeling effigy bears a dove, brooding over a terrestrial globe, with the blazing sun behind it ; while the pillar on the left is surmounted by the owl, the emblem of Minerva, with a setting moon behind it. Various texts emphasize the distinction ; e.g., " Ye are now light in the Lord, but you were darkness " ; "in plaine evidence of the Spirit, not in the entising speach of man's wisdom," &c. The objects that MR. BROADLEY has supposed may have reference to Freemasonry are suspended from the left-hand pillar under the emblem of Minerva, and are, on one side, a terrestrial globe (symbolizing geography), musical in- struments, painting implements, a dial and T-square (symbolizing astronomy and geo- metry), and writing implements. These are balanced on the other side of the pillar by volumes bearing the names of Ptolemie, Livie, Plinie, Aristotle, Virgil, Cicero. The whole composition simply is one of those quaint conceits of which the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were so fond. There seems to be some confusion in the last two verses of the epitaph

Erasmus More's encomium set forth ;

We want a More to praise Erasmus' worth. It looks as if the writer of the epitaph sup- posed that the " Encomion Moria3 " was a eulogy of Sir Thomas More.

Richard Haydock, the " Schollar and the frende " of Williams, who " contrived " his epitaph, was also a New College man ; he is described as of Hants, plebeian, matricu-