Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/97

 10 s. x. JULY 25, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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that had been engaged in soap- and candle- making for two centuries, and he sent a bundle to the professor. He also told me that the industry, very small as it was, was disappearing, as plumbers now used spirit lamps instead of the rushlight torches.

AYEAHB.

I have about twenty holders of different shapes, sizes, and stands some with candle holders attached, and some for hanging up all collected in Shropshire and Mont- gomeryshire. I saw a few weeks ago at Knighton an iron rushlight pan in which the fat was melted ; and I have a rushlight properly made, which was manufactured for a friend of mine about three years ago. HERBERT SOUTHAM.

Shrewsbury.

MAPS (10 S. x. 8). Perhaps a reference to

by Thomas Glazebrook Rylands, printed for the author by Ponsonby & Weldrick at the University Press, Dublin, 1893, may be of some use to YGREC. The book contains no bibliography of Ptolemy's
 * The Geography of Ptolemy Elucidated,'

says (pp. v, vi) :
 * Geography,' but in his preface the author

" So far as could be made out, we have no editio princeps worthy of the name. It was in the course of this study (i.e., of nearly every printed edition, and not a few of the manuscripts, in the libraries at home and abroad, including the Vatican), after examining the two manuscript issues of Nicolaus de Donis, and the edition of 1482, that the con- clusion was reached as to its value It is not

suggested that any one edition is a safe guide alone ; but that, of all that have been examined, the edition 1482 is, on the whole, the one which is most reliable."

A foot-note on p. vi says :

" So far as I am aware, no edition of the ' Geo- graphy ' has hitherto been printed in England, while more than seventy have been issued on the Con- tinent. I have good reason to believe that a photo- lithographic fac-simile of this Donis volume is likely to be pu Wished."

Mr. Rylands died some years ago. Pro- bably his son Mr. W. Harry Rylands, F.S.A., formerly Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, or Mr. W. R. Scott of Trinity College, Dublin, who helped Mr. Rylands in the production of his book, the latter being the editor, could give YGREC much information as to the early copies of the Ptolemy maps. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

The 33rd c Bulletin Annuel ' of the Societe Jersiaise, issued this month (July) to members, pp. 319 to 381, would prove of great assistance to YGREC.

CHAS. A. BERNAU.

PRIOR AND HIS CHLOE (10 S. x. 7). If Chloe were respectable, the parallel between her and Lydia would not be good ; for Lydia certainly was*not respectable. And let us like Horace and Lydia agree. If Prior wrote charming verses on Chloe, Horace wrote verses ten times more charm- ing on Lydia, Barine, Nesera, and other disreputable ladies. It is possible that Prior knew an estimable Miss Taylor, but he did not do her much honour if he iden- tified her with Chloe. The whole poem seems to me to admit only of one interpre- tation. One of Prior's poems to Chloe (for she is mentioned by name in it), called 'A Lover's Anger,' concludes with these lines :

So saying, she careless her bosom displayed ; That seat of delight I with wonder surveyed, And forgot every word I designed to have said. She softened her lover's anger in the same way in which Phryne obtained her acquittal. Those verses would never have been written on a'modest woman. E. YARDLEY.

VICTORIAN COIN (10 S. ix. 209, 497 ; x. 16). The coin as described in the query differs both as to obverse and reverse from the " Godless " or " Graceless Florin," of which I have one before me as I write.

In the latter both D.G. and F.D. are omitted. The inscription on the obverse is simply " Victoria Regina, 1849." On the reverse are four shields placed crosswise bearing the arms of England (twice) and Scotland and Ireland, encircled by the inscription ONE FLORIN ONE TENTH OF A POUND. This, I believe, was intended as a first step towards decimalizing the coinage. The coin was issued under the Mastership of Richard Lalor Sheil, who was a Roman Catholic, and was Master of the Mint 1846-50 (see 'D.N.B.'). Whether he was dismissed on account of the coin or not I do not know, but in the year following its issue he was appointed Minister at Florence, and died in 1851.

See also Dr. Brewer's ' Reader's Hand- book,' s.v. ' Godless Florin.'

C. S. HARRIS.

"THE CROOKED BILLET" (10 S. ix. 190, 452 ; x. 38). Instead of the traces being attached directly to a harrow the old-time wooden one they are attached to what is called a " billet," the equivalent of what is more generally known as a " swingle- tree." To assist in preventing this from hitting the horse's heels it was often curved, and as such is known as a " crooked billet."