Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/470

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [10 s. x. NOV. u, im

phenomenon. Governor Hutchinson, John Hancock, Charles Chauncy, and others declared their belief that the poems were genuine. But the internal evidence stamps them as a literary fraud. The dedication is dated June, 1773. Is it credible, except to a " Judseus Apella," that a full-blooded negro child, in less than twelve years, could -acquire such a knack of versifying, and so much classical knowledge, and classical instinct too, as is here displayed ? Observe particularly the phrase ** Hear me propi- tious," and the strictly proper use of the word " transpire."

RICHARD H. THORNTON. 36, Upper Bedford Place.

" STONEHETSTGE." The derivation of Stone- henge is easier than its interpretation. The second syllable is the M.E. henge, a hinge, derived from the verb to hang. We must here look upon the word hinge with sole reference to its being that upon which a door is suspended or supported, and entirely disregard the notion of the revolving of the gate or door upon it. The sense then becomes " a stone-hanging " or " suspension of stones " upon supports. Cf. A.-S. hengen, & hanging, a gibbet.

We find it mentioned as ston-heng or ston- .henge in Robert of Gloucester, ed. W. A. Wright, 1. 156 ; where one MS. has ston- hyngel. In the Anglo-French chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, ed. T. Wright, vol. i. p. 226, it is called Stonhengles or Stanhingels ; one MS. has Stanheges, an obvious mis- writing of Stanhenges, due to the omission of a stroke above the former e. Hengle or hingle is the diminutive of hinge, with the same sense : " Hengyl of a dore, or wyndowe, vertebra, vectis " Prompt. Parv. The plural Stonhengles of course refers to the fact that the number of suspended stones is more than one. Cf. prov. E. hingle, (1) a hinge ; (2) the handle by which a pot or bucket hangs. WALTER W. SKEAT.

THE LANCASTERS OF MILVERTON, SOMER- SET. William Lancaster, Esq., of the ! Manor House, Milverton, Somerset, married Jane, daughter of Edward Richards, Esq., of Lovelinch, in the same parish. In Oct., 1587, they are described as "lady-matin folks " (Strype, ' Ann.,' III. ii. 462), a phrase not noticed in the ' N.E.D.,' but presumably implying people who said the Office of Our Lady. He survived his wife and eldest son. His will, dated 4 June, 1596, was proved 6 Dec., 1596, by his son-in-law James Cappes, of Wiveliscombe, who had married his second daughter Mary (see

Harl. Soc. Pub., xi. 66).* In it he describes himself as "a member of our Saviour Jesus X s Catholicke Church " (' Somerset- shire Wills,' iii. 49).

1. John, the eldest son, was educated at C.C.C., Oxford, where he became Fellow in 1560, and B.A. in 1560/61. He went to Gray's Inn in 1564, and became a barrister in 1577. His evidence given after the verdict saved his friend the priest John Colleton, son of Edmund Colleton, of Milverton, from death in 1581. He married Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Carew, of Camerton and Crocombe, Somerset, by whom he had one daughter. In 1587 Thomas Godwin, the Bishop of Bath and Wells asked (Strype, loc. cit.) that he should be removed from the commission of the peace.

"Ihon Lancaster, of all honest men taken to be an enemy of the truth. And for the same once expelled Gray's Inn. His father and mother lady- matin folks. One of his beloved brothers a seminary at Rhemes : his wife's father no recusant, but back- ward in religion. And so is all his alliance ; and more countenanced by his place. His liability too smal ; that at this last rating in the subsidy refused to be cessed at 101. lands."

However, he remained a Justice of the Peace, and in 1594 he was Treasurer of Gray's Inn. He was buried at Milverton 6 June, 1595. His heir, his daughter Joan, married Arthur Bluet, of Holcombe, Devon- shire.

2. The second son Thomas went to C.C.C., Oxon, in 1559, and took the degree of B.A. in 1566. He went to Gray's Inn in 1569, and dieds.p. in 1609.

3. Roger, the third son, went to C.C.C., Oxon, in 1566, and became M.A. in 1572, and B.C.L. in 1575. In 1580 he was in Paris. In 1584 he was ordained priest from the English College at Rheims. His father gave him by his will " the cuppe of silver with the cover to the same which my Lord Bishop Bourne gave me," and 10?., with the delivery of his Patent for the Registrarship of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, wherein he is jointly named with me ; I also give him all my books." It would seem from the Visitation of 1623 that Roger Lancaster was still alive at that date and resident in Germany.

4. Of Edward Lancaster, the youngest son, his father says :

"My son Edward Lancaster has most mon- gtrouslie slandered me, has attempted to take away my living, disdained me in the presence of a great number of people, taken part with my enemies

set and Dorset Notes and Queries, v. 116.
 * The Cappes family M-ere recusants. See Somer-