Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/545

 10 s. XL JUKE 5, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

this I find a head-line, "A Gyrdell for the stone." This disease was endemic, and almost pandemic, for centuries in this county. Is it too fanciful to suppose that Girdlestone means a lithotomist ? The name Stonehewer is a trade name ; why not this ? R. T. H.

STEVENSON ON " N.B." Where can I find in Stevenson's works his indignation at the term " N.B." being used instead of the name Scotland ? ZEPHYB.

[See 'The Letters of R. L. S.' under the year 1888.]

STEVENSON AND THE HOUSEMAID. In which of his books does R. L. Stevenson describe how he, in his boyhood, used to look up at the windows of an hotel near the Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, and ogle a pretty housemaid ? S. H. S.

THOMAS BRETT was elected a King's Scholar at Westminster in 1729, aged 14. Any information concerning him would be acceptable. G. F. R. B.

GAINSBOROUGH, ARCHITECT, c. 1300. On 20 May, 1762, Horace Walpole wrote as follows in a letter to the Rev. William Cole :

" In the itinerary of the late Mr. Smart Lethiul- lier, I met the very tomb of Gainsborough this winter that you mention ;^ and, to be secure, sent to Lincoln for an extract or draught of it. But what vext me then, and does still, is, that by the defect at the end of the inscription, one cannot be certain whether he lived in ccc. or cccc., as another c might have been there. Have you any corroborating circumstance, Sir, to affix his existence to 1300 more than to 1400 ? Besides, I don't know any proof of his having been architect of the church. His epitaph only calls him Csementarius, which I suppose means Mason."

I shall be glad to have further information about this architect or mason of the name of,Gainsborough. J. G.

' STAR,' 1789. Can any of your readers tell me where there is to be seen a copy of The Star for 23 May, 1789 ? This paper, begun a year or two before under the editor- ship of John Mayne, is defunct. There is an incomplete file at the British Museum, but the copy for the particular day named is wanting. That issue contained some verses beginning " By Logan's streames that rin sae deep." A.

TWINS : WHICH is THE ELDER ? In an article on ' Strange Customs regarding Twins,' in Household Words for 20 June, 1903, it is stated that " the faculty of Mont- pelier have given it that the latter-born of

twins is to be reputed the elder ; but by all the laws which now obtain the first-born enjoy the privilege of seniority."

Where could one see the original of this singular pronouncement 2 What would be its approximate date ?

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

ROWEN FAMILY. Information wanted concerning this family in Scotland, especially William Rowen, who married Katherine Evans about 1830, or the birthplace of Anna Rowen, daughter of the above on 21, Jan., 1848. GEORGE E. FLEMING.

741, Fifth Avenue, New York,

CHINESE PUZZLE. To what did this ex- pression originally refer, and what early examples can be found of its use ? I have
 * seen it applied to some of the ingenious

curiosities, after the manner of a " reel in a bottle," only more complicated, which i Chinese patient ingenuity produces ; but it appears to be also applied figuratively to anything specially puzzling. We shall be glad of quotations, either of early or later date, for the expression.

J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.

fUplws.

" BOURNE " IN PLACE-NAMES. '! (10 S. xi. 361.)

PROF. SKEAT " wholly demurs " to an obiter dictum of mine that names in bourne " generally denominate, not brooks or streams, but villages." If my remark bore the meaning that PROF. SKEAT seems to attribute to it, I should certainly sympathize with him. I should demur to it myself. But perhaps the Professor mistakes me. I do not believe that bourne means a village, or that Milborne means mill-village, except in an indirect kind of way. And I willingly admit that there is not " the least indication that bourne ever meant anything but a ' spring ' or ' stream ' in any Teutonic lan- guage at any time whatever."

So much "being common ground between the Professor and myself, I should like to be permitted to explain my position a little more clearly.

It is not a habit with English people to call by its specific name the river or stream with which they are most familiar. Londoners do not talk of taking a house on the Thames ; and although PROF. SKEAT has lived for many years in Cambridge, I doubt if he has