Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/382

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NOTES AND QUERIES, uo s. XL APRIL 17, im

one will investigate the origin of this per- plexing name. If the present reply prevents such an investigator from wasting time over America, it will perhaps serve a useful pur- pose.

ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, U.S.

In ' Memories of Men and Books,' by the Rev. Alfred John Church, he says at p. 166 :

" The house I occupied fat Hadley] was known as the Pymlico or Pymblicoe House, and appears under that name in the Hadley Register of 1670 as a ' house for Travellers.' "

JOHN E. NORCROSS. Brooklyn, U.S.

It appears to have been overlooked that eyebright was formerly thought good not only, as the name imports, for the eyes, but for the liver also ; and that when used for the latter it was given in wine. Thus Lyte : " Eyebright boyled in wine, and dronken is good against the jaundice." It was indeed given internally in wine for the sight and memory also (see Lyte again).

Coles ( ' Adam in Eden ' ) under ' Eyebright ' says :

" Arnoldus de Villa Nova, in his book of Wines, much commendeth the Wine made of Eyebright, put into it when it is new made, and before it work ; and certainly if it were tunned up with strong Beer, as Worm-wood, Scurvy-grasse, and the like use to be, it would work the like effects as the Wine doth."

C. C. B.

A distant memory suggests that a popular poem, in a Peter Pindar style, of which the hero's name was Pimlico, was seen many years ago. It described how a suitor, before making his choice among three sisters, marked how one ate her cheese unscraped, another cut off the rind with a large portion of the cheese, while the third scraped the rind, and upon her his choice fell. The poem began :

There was a man whose name was Pimlico. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

POLHILL FAMILY : CROMWELL DESCENT (10 S. xi. 149). Oliver Cromwell's eldest daughter Bridget married Henry Ireton in 1646. They had issue one son Henry, and one daughter Elizabeth, who in 1674 was married to Thomas Polhill of Clapham, Surrey. This Thomas had a brother David Polhill, who inherited the family estate at Otford, and bought Chepstead House or Place from Ralph Suckley in 1658. He died without children, and left his estates to the said brother Thomas, who before his

death in 1665 sold Chepstead (? also Otford estate) to Sir Nicholas Strode of Westerham, whose widow and two daughters passed it away in 1693 to William Emerton of the Temple, London. This Emerton built the "present" (1808) seat. His widow and two daughters, by means of an Act of Parlia- ment in 8 Queen Anne, sold the estate or estates to David Polhill, the eldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Ireton) ; i.e., he bought back what his father had sold.

This David Polhill was M.P. for Kent 1709/10-1710 ; for Bramber 1722/3-1727 ; for Rochester 1727-1754, when he died aged 80. Having been elected for Rochester 16 Aug., 1727, he was re-elected on 3 May, 1731, after appointment to an office of profit by the Crown. Probably this was when he had been made Keeper of the Records in the Tower. He married (1) Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Trevor of Glynd ; (2) in 1713, Gertrude, sister of Thomas Pelham- Holles, afterwards Duke of Newcastle ; (3) Elizabeth, daughter of John Borrett of Shoreham, prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas.

By his first two wives he had no issue ; by his third he had four sons and one daughter. In them was united not only the blood of Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton, but also that of John Hampden, for Elizabeth Borrett's mother was daughter of Sir John Trevor of Denbighshire by Ruth eldest daughter of John Hampden.

David Polhill's children by his wife Eliza- beth were Charles, Thomas, Henry, John, and Elizabeth. All died unmarried except Charles, the eldest (1726-1805). He married

(1) in 1754, Tryphena Penelope, daughter of Sir John Shelley, Bt., of Mitchell Grove, Sussex, by whom he had one daughter, Tryphena Penelope, who married George Stafford, printer, Crane Court, Fleet Street.

(2) Patience Haswell, by whom he had six sons and one daughter.

Charles was succeeded by his son George (1767-1839), who married Mary, daughter of Robert Porteus, grand niece of Dr. Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London. The other sons and the daughter appear to have died unmarried.

George was in possession of Chepsted Place in or about 1808. By his marriage with Mary Porteus he had four sons and one daughter, viz., Charles ; Mary Elizabeth Campbell (d. 1884 ) ; Frederick Campbell of Sundridge, Sevenoaks, curate of Hever, a post he resigned in 1850 ; George (d. 1892) ; and Henry Western Onslow, Rector of Ashurst, Kent.