Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/210

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NOTES AND QUERIES, rio s. xn. AUG. 28, im

"A NAFEDAVE." Can any readers of- N. & Q.' explain the term " nafedave " ? It is entered in the records of this parish for 27 Sept., 1733, thus :

" Paid for a Nafedave for Goodman Latter, 6d" Now Goodman Latter was buried in the churchyard here on 23 Sept., 1733, in woollen, an affidavit being made the same day.

The latter entry is in different handwriting from the former, and probably helped the conjecture that " Nafedave " and " affidavit" meant the same. This, however, appears to be negatived by the following extract from the records, on the same page and in the same writing as the extract already quoted :

" Paid for affidavit and Berin 3 pore people." As I should judge that both of the quotations given above were recorded on the same date, the writer must have had small respect for spelling if both words had the same meaning.

C. HESKETH.

Qttord, Ken t.

EXETER CATHEDEAL CUSTOM. Mr. Baring- Gould in ' Devonshire Characters,' p. 583, commenting upon a remark on Exeter Cathedral in 1820, says : " What he here refers to may be the performance of the ' Gloria in Excelsis ' by the choir in the Minstrel Gallery at midnight on Christmas Eve." When was this custom suspended ? It is no doubt a relic of the time when the Midnight Mass was said in Catholic days.

O'DUNLANG.

FREEMAN ON GLADSTONE'S ' STUDIES ON HOMER.' A bookseller, in offering the three volumes of this work as " very scarce, this being the only edition, 1858," quotes the following from E. A. Freeman :

" These noble volumes, worthy alike of the Author and their subject, are the freshest anc most genial tribute to ancient literature whicl: has been paid even by an age rich in such offer ings."

Where does Freeman say this ?

J. B. McGovERN.

Diss. I have heard that the town o: Diss, in Norfolk, was formerly included in the Hundred of Hartismere, Suffolk. I shall be glad to know if this was so, and alsc if any other Norfolk border-towns were affected. R. FREEMAN BULLEN.

Bow Library, E.

" KING OF HUNGARY'S PEACE." Shake speare in ' Measure for Measure,' I. ii., make one of the characters exclaim : " Heaven

gant us its *peace, but not the King o ungary's ! " Is this an allusion to an} special event in history ? L. L. K.

FLYING MACHINE IN 1751. (10 S. xi. 145.)

THE well-known Italian newspaper the orriere della Sera of Milan published in its ssue of the 4th inst. the text of a curious etter which has just been unearthed in the rchives of the city of Bergamo. This manuscript, which bears the title " Letters critta da uno di Loiidra ad un suo Amico i Venezia sopra la Macchina Volante, che on universale applauso vedesi cola guidata >er aria da famoso e singolare Meccanico : n Venezia, 1751 " (literally, " Letter written >y one of London to a Friend of his of Venice ipon the Flying Machine which with uni- rersal applause has been driven through he air by a famous and unique engineer "), describes" as its title implies, an early and .uccessful attempt at aviation, made in the tear 1751. The curious document is appa- ently unsigned, though dated "18 October, 1751?' and states that the inventor of the machine was " an Italian religious, a native of Civitavecchia, by name Andrea Grimaldi, aged about 50 years, and of middling stature." tt goes on to say that this worthy priest, during a twenty years' sojourn in the East,
 * \ad devoted fourteen years to perfecting

lis machine, the mechanism of which is sketched in the following terms :

' This is a box (cassa) which, with the aid of some clockwork (ordigni da oriuolo), rises in the air and goes with such lightness and strong pidity that it succeeds in flying a journey of seven leagues in an hour. It is made in the fashion of a bird ; the wings from end to end are twenty -five feet (piedi) in extent. The body is composed of pieces of cork, artistically joined together and well connected with metal wire, covered with parchment and feathers (piume). The wings are made of catgut and whale(bone), and covered also with the said paper (parchment) and feathers, and each wing is folded in three seams (or joints gitmture). In the body of the machine are contained thirty wheels of unique work, with two brass globes and little chains, which alternately wind up a counterpoise ; and with the aid of six brass vases, full of a certain quantity of quicksilver, which run in some pulleys, the machine is kept by the care of the artist (inventor) in the due equilibrium and balance. By means then of the friction between a steel wheel adequately tempered and a very heavy and sxirp rising [sic] piece of loadstone, the whole is kept in a regulated forward movement, given, however, a right state of the winds, since the machine cannot fly so much in totally calm \veather as in stormy. This prodigious machine is directed and guided by a tall seven palms (palmi) long, which is attached to the knees and the ankles (nodi de* piedi) of the inventor with strips of leather ; and by stretching out his legs, either