Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/615

 10 s. x. DEC. 26, 1908. NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mayor declared that the Serpent was nothing but a large peacock. The ballad then concludes :

The story through the country ran,

As stories always do ; And Turkey Folkestone town was called,

And Turks the men so true.

The men of Dover to some fame

Had a small claim at least ; And in the neighbourhood were called

The wise men of the East. So Heaven protect the Folkestone Turks,

From serpents keep them free ! And when another monster comes,

May I be there to see.

I notice that the above was the third edition, so that it was published earlier than 1852. The reference to " The Essex Serpent " in recent numbers of * N- & Q.' (ante, pp. 310, 376) suggests that possibly at some period Folkestone was visited by a sea-monster. R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

NAMES TERRIBLE TO CHILDREN. In many a crisis in history the name of some con- queror or tyrant has been used to still unruly children. I am conscious of having read of many such, but not having the fear of ' N. & Q.' before my eyes, I failed to make the necessary notes, and now plead guilty in an apologetic query. Can anybody add to my brief list, and give serious, not mere farcical, authorities ?

Tarquin. Shakespeare, ' Rape of Lu- crece ' (' Poems,' ed. R. Bell, p. 111).

Black Douglas, 1319. Sir W. Scott, ' History of Scotland,' 1830, i. 137.

Hunniades, 1456. Hallam, * Europe during Middle Ages,' 1872, ii. 106.

Marlborough.

Napoleon Bonaparte.

Wellington. W. C. B.

FIELD MEMORIALS TO SPORTSMEN. I am contributing to an early number of Baily's Magazine of Sports and Pastimes an illus- trated article called ' Field Memorials to Sportsmen.' It includes the following :

1. Speke's memorial, near Box (see ante, p. 493).

2. Stone commemorating the spot where Capt. " Bay " Middleton was killed by a fall from his horse, when riding in a steeple- chase, near Kineton, Warwickshire, on the occasion of the Parliamentary Steeplechase Meeting, April, 1892.

3. Obelisk on Killiney Hill, co. Dublin, commemorating the death from a hunting accident of the fourth Duke of Dorset, 14 Feb., 1815.

4. Monumental tomb of Capt. Whyte- Melville (killed out hunting, near Mamies - bury, 5 Dec., 1878) in Tetbury Churchyard, Glos.

5. Rufus Stone, in New Forest.

6. Memorial cross, at Brixworth, near Northampton, to the late Lord Chesham, killed while hunting with the Pytchley hounds, near Daventry, 10 Nov., 1907. This memorial was unveiled by Lord Annaly on 9 Oct. last.

Can any readers of ' N. & Q.' supplement this list ? H. G. ARCHER.

29, Sussex Gardens, Hyde Bark, W.

GAINSBOROUGH'S WIFE. In all the bio- graphies of Gainsborough which I have read there has always been a doubt as to the origin of Margaret Burr, the wife of Thomas Gainsborough. But in vol. iii. of the now defunct Portfolio a well-known writer says, speaking of Gainsborough and his wife :

" His [Gainsborough's] father has a partner, and that partner a very beautiful daughter, and that daughter an annuity of 200 a year in her own right."

Can any one tell me what foundation there is for such a statement ? J. G.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT AND THE BLACK PIG. I remember reading that the followers of Joanna Southcott in the course of their rites usually killed a small black pig by beating it to death with sticks, the women followers each bestowing nine blows upon the animal's head. The dead body was then burnt to cinders, which were scattered about and trodden under foot. This rite was enacted in the woods, or at any rate in covert-places. Where may any account of this procedure be found ?

THOS. KATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

CARLYLE ON THE GRIFFIN : HIPPOGRIFF. May I call attention to what appears to me to be a strange slip of thought, in Car- lyle's ' French Revolution,' Book I. chap. iv. ? In his description of the death-bed of Louis he writes :

" Wert thou a fabulous Griffin devouring the works of men ; daily dragging virgins to thy cave :

clad also in jscales that no spear would pierce ; no real."

spear but Death's? a Griffin not fabulous, but

Now, unless I am altogether wrong in my recollection, this description does not apply to the griffin at all. The griffin was a fabulous being combining the natures of the lion and the eagle, having the strength of the one, and the swiftness and vision of the