Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/305

 10 S. XL MAR. 27, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

249

ANNE STEELE, THE HYMN-WRITER. Can any one tell me if Anne Steele of Broughton Stockbridge, Hants, the poetess who wrote as Theodora, was any relation to Sir Richarc Steele ? F. H. S.

JOHN KELSALL, MAYOR OF CHESTER 1767. I shall be much obliged to any one who can inform me to what branch of the Kelsal' family the above belonged, when he was born and died, whom he married, what children he had, and what became of them. H. J. KELSALL, Major R.A.

Golden Hill Fort, Freshwater, I.W.

" THOUGH LOST TO SIGHT," &c. Some years ago a friend of mine, Mr. H. F. Cutler, now deceased, perpetrated a literary hoax upon the people of America and England by asserting that he had found in a magazine published at Greenwich in the seventeenth century, and entitledMagazinefortheMarines, the poem in which is contained the line Though lost to sight, to memory dear. To make good his assertion he gave the poem in full, each verse happily ending with that line. The hoax was quite successful until some doubting Thomas discovered that no such magazine ever existed. I am not aware that the author of the line in question has been discovered. But it may interest your readers to know that, in search- ing in a graveyard in Dresden for the tomb of Karl Maria von Weber, I came across the following upon a mortuary slab in proximity to his grave :

Dem Augen fern ; dem Herzen ewig nah'.

Could this have been the original, and the English line merely a translation ?

HENRY P. BOWIE.

[Bartlett in the 1891 edition of his ' Familiar Quotations ' prints the song in full, under George Linley, and in a foot-note states that it was written and composed by Linley for Braham, and sung by the latter. " It is not known when the song was written probably about 1830." Mr. Bartlett in a letter printed at 5 S. x. 417 stated that the song was published by Cramer, Beale & Co. about 1848.]

CROSS BANNER. In the churchwardens' accounts of South Tawton, Devon, of 1532 are entries which may read :

"de xvj d [sic] solut' Oliu'o p' le crossebau' de xv 8

sol' p' alio crossebau' ex ferios, et de xl a solid' solut' p' alio crossebau'."

In view of the frequent references to parish armour or arms, these items might perhaps be interpreted as referring to cross- bows (procured, in one case, at the fair or market) ; for though these weapons are generally associated with an earlier period

in the history of warfare, their continued use as late as 1533, or even as 1599, is testi- fied to by passages cited in the ' N.E.D.' The alternative reading has been suggested : " crosse ban' [i.e., cross-banner] ex series " or " serico " (cf. serious, silken, made of silk), and this seems somewhat supported by the description of an Oliver probably the same person as the above in 1533, as " Oliu' Paynt'." Has any reader met with the term " cross banner " ? and would more than one be required in a church for carrying in pro- cessions, &c. ? ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.

DICKENS QUOTATION.

" Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order that you may avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything. ' '

Speech.

What is the reference ?

It is not improbable that Dickens borrowed from the following :

" I call upon them [the rising Youth of this Country] to have the courage to be ignorant of many subjects, and of many authors, at their inestimable age." ' The Pursuits of Literature," 13th ed., 1805, p. 325, note on the Rev. Humphry Sumner, D.D., Dialogue the Fourth, 1. 203.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

" MONSTROUS CHILDE OF FFENNYST AN- TON." Arber's ' Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers,' 1875-6, con- tains an item (ii. 172) entitled [a] ' Monstrous Childe borne at Ffennystanton in Hunting- donshire.' It was licensed to " h. hyneman. anno 22 Reginae Elizabethae vj 10 Octobris," 1580. Is it known if a copy of this tract is extant ? I have searched several of our large libraries for it without success. Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt mentions it in his ' Collec- tions and Notes, 1474-1700,' p. 297 (1882) ; but he has not seen it. There is a longer account of the " monster " in Steele's MS. (1740-53) in the Bodleian Library, which is as follows :

" Fenstanton. Anno 1580, on the 23 September, at Fenny Stan ton, one Agnes, wife of William Lingey, was delivered of an ugly and strange monster, with a face blacke, mouth and eyes like a Lyon, and both male and female."

This was, however, taken from Edm. Howe's ' Abridg. of Stow's Chron.,' p. 333.

HERBERT E. NORRIS. Cirencester.

MANOR COURT TERMS. I should feel very grateful if any of your readers could supply

ne with definitions of the following words that occur in the Court Rolls of a Somer- setshire parish : " corr," " cum haltio,"

' sterred fytelfoted," " cornbote," " hoi-