Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/478

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL MAY is, im

to accept his hand, as it would place her upon a respectable footing, and at length, with re- luctance, she yielded to their entreaties. Soon after their marriage, upon his present majesty's coming to the throne, he was knighted as eldest E n, whereby she obtained the title of lady. But this titular distinction, though it might natter her vanity, did not administer any grati- fication to some other passions which reigned predominant in her breast ; and a discovery Sir Peter made brought about a separation. Her ladyship has since taken up her residence at Calais, with her two daughters, where she passes her time very agreeably and much to her satis- faction, among the French and Irish officers."

On the previous page the magazine refers to " Nancy Day, whose face may be seen Nov., 1770] under a bonnet at every print-shop in town, inscribed with the title of lady Fenh t," and describes her as "" tall, genteel, and elegant in her person, vivacious and communicative."

The name of Miss Day occurs in Reynolds's pocket-books among his list of sitters in 1757 and 1760 ('Brit. Mezzo. Portraits,' by J. C. Smith, p. 855).

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

JEWS IN FICTION (10 S. xi. 169, 254, 316). MB. SCARGILL, has surely misread, or not recently read, ' The School for Scandal.' Premium is not a Jew.

Sir Oliver. I '11 accompany you as soon as you please, Moses But hold ! I have forgot one thing how the plague shall I be able to pass for a Jew ?

Mosea. There 's no need *Ae principal in Christian.

Act III. so. i.

J. FOSTER PALMER. 8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

THE CRUCIFIED THIEVES (10 S. xi. 321). I have long known another version of the story of Dismas's relations with the Holy Family, but when, where, or by whom it was first told to me I cannot call to mind.

When the Holy Family had for some time shared in the hospitality of the cave, the Blessed Virgin asked the wife of Dismas to let her have water to wash the divine babe ; and the request was at once acceded to. When the bathing was over, she asked if she might be permitted to wash also the woman's own infant. She replied sorrow- fully that our Lady must not touch it, as the poor little thing was suffering grievously from leprosy. Mary answered that she was not afraid ; the babe was thereupon handed over to her, and when it emerged from the water and was given again to its mother, she found it, to her delight, perfectly cured. 1 he narrative has in all probability been handed down from the Middle Ages.

EDWARD PEACOCK.

The story of the two thieves being en- countered by the Holy Family on its way down into Egypt is told in the first ' Gospel of the Infancy,' chap, viii., and there the names are given as Titus and Dumachus :

" Titus said to Dumachus, I beseech thee let those persons go along quietly, that our company may not perceive anything of them ;

" But Dumachus refusing, Titus again said, I will give thee forty groats, and as a pledge take my girdle, which he gave him before he had done speaking, that he might not open his mouth, or make a noise.

" When the Lady St. Mary saw the kindness which this robber did show them, she said to him, The Lord God will receive thee to his right hand, and grant thee pardon of thy sins.

" Then the Lord Jesus answered, and said to his mother, When thirty years are expired, O mother, the Jews will crucify me at Jerusalem ;

"And these two thieves shall be with me at the same time upon the cross, Titus on my right hand and Dumachus on my left, and from that time Titus shall go before me into paradise."

Longfellow makes use of this tradition, and of these names, in ' The Golden Legend.'

In ' Cursor Mundi ' the penitent male- factor is anonymous, but it is said (line 16739)

Gesmas hight pe to^er thef ]>at was all maledight.

In the ' Gospel of Nicodemus,' as issued by Hone, he is, as MR. CURRY says, Gestas, though his companion is not Dismas, but Dimas (chap. vii.). Chap. xx. shows us how the redeemed one fared in the unseen world. ST. SWITHIN.

In a sense, it is, no doubt, true that the name of Dismas " has been adopted by the Catholic Church " as the name of the Bonus Latro ; that is to say, it is prefixed as a heading in some Missals and Breviaries, and frequently occurs in works published under ecclesiastical sanction ; but it does not appear in his Mass or Day Hours (I have not had opportunity to look up the Night Hours). I think the name has been winked at rather than officially sanctioned. In my ' Horse Diurnae,' for example (published at Tours, 1889), St. Dismas is not mentioned.

MR. CURRY'S statement that " the name of Dismas .... is commemorated on 26 March every year " is, in my opinion, liable to misconstruction. It is true that the Mass and Office " S. Boni Latronis " are prescribed on that day for the dioceses of Menevia, Middlesbrough, Nottingham, Salford, and Shrewsbury ; but in Borne itself, where a portion of his cross is preserved in the basilica of Santa Croce, and in Bologna, which boasts the possession of his body, he is commemorated a day earlier (viz., 25 Mar.) ; and in most of the other dioceses in which