Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/22

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XIL JULY 3, 1909.

GREEN DRAGON (10 S. xi. 129). As in variably is the case with heraldic signs, the colour (in this instance vert), is no mere fancy of the sign artist, and furnishes an important clue as to the origin of the " Green Dragon," which, as well by its colour vert as by its ubiquity in town and country, may be recognized as the badge of that celebrated nobleman and sagacious statesman William Marshall, Ear of Pembroke, Regent during the minority of Henry III. It is, in fact/ so described in a list of signs which had their origin in the heraldic badges of the nobility, or of royalty, compiled by Bagford in his MS. notes about the art of printing (Harl. MSS., 5910, vol. ii. p. 167). By his peaceful, but vigorous administration in reducing the turbulent barons to allegiance, the Earl of Pembroke became extremely popular, the sagacity of his statecraft filling England with wealth and luxury, by her commerce with the south of France (Strickland's ' Queens of England'). Probably the " dragon " is strictly a wyvern, -a kind of flying serpent, the upper part resembling a dragon, and the lower an adder or snake, for the crest of the present Earl of Pembroke is a wyvern, wings elevated, vert, holding in the mouth a sinister hand, couped at the wrist, gules. The Earl, however, traces his descent from William Herbert ap Thomas, who was advanced to the earl- dom of Pembroke in the eighth year of Edward IV., about 250 years after the three years of the Regency of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

'THE DIABOLIAD,' BY WILLIAM COMBE

S. ix. 227; xi. 458). In case some

budding bibliographer should be led astray

J ? y n5i e Wel1 to record th t copies exist

Lb77, a printer's error for 1777. One

of these is in the writer's possession, with

the blank names identified. The name

' itzpatrick is added to the initial " F. on p. 3, line 14, in this exemplar. There

Possibly the Dublin edition was revised or
 * no name blank (or annotation) on p 20

< T T her * ^ a. very interesting reference to The Dmbohad L ' in a letter from George

Selwyn to Lord Carlisle, February, 1777-

see Hist. MSS. Com., Fifteenth Report,'

Appendix, Part VI. 320 : " The author

would,

very

much into question what he asserts with any reasonable man. I do not know if you have received this performance. If I thought you had not, paltry as it is, I should send it to you. The work I mean is called ' The Diaboliad.' His hero is Lord Ernham [sic]. Lord Hertford and Lord Beauchamp are the chief persons whom he loads with his invectives. Lord Lyttleton [and] his cousin Mr. Ascough are also treated with not much levity ; Lord Pembroke with great familiarity, as well as C. Fox ; and Fitzpatrick, although painted in colours bad enough at present, is represented as one whom in time the devil will lose for his disciple. I am only attacked upon that trite and very foolish opinion concerning le pene e le delitte led i delitti], acknowledging [itj to proceed from an odd and insatiable curiosity, and not from mauvais cceur. In some places I think there is versification, and a few good lines, and the piece seems to be wrote by one not void of parts, but who with attention might write much better.

"I forgive him his mention of me, because I believe that he does it without malice, but if I had leisure to think of such things, I must own the frequent repetition of the foolish stories would make me peevish. Alas, I have no time to be peevish."

Besides corroborating a large portion of the key that I have already inserted in ' N. & Q.' this letter is interesting because it gives Selwyn' s views with regard to the popular opinion that he was fond of attend- ing executions. Simon Luttrell, Baron Irn- ham, afterwards first Earl of Carhampton, the hero of ' The Diaboliad,' was, in con- sequence, known as the " King of Hell."

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

JOHN SLADE, DORSET (10 S. xi. 488). He was usher of Magdalen College School, Oxford, 1546-8 ; master 1548-9 ; ordained deacon in London April, 1554, being then M.A. ; the master of Bruton School before 1559 ; Rector of Clifton Maybank, Dorset, 1554 ; Vicar of Stogumber 1556-9 ; Rector of Thornford 1559 ; and of South Perrot 1561. He supplicated for the B.D. degree 2 Nov., 1570. (See Macray's ' Magd. Coll. Register,' ii. 88, 89 ; Frere's ' Marian Re- action,' p. 270.)

The Catholic martyr John Slade, who suffered at Winchester 30 Oct., 1583 (as to whom see Father Pollen's ' Acts of English Martyrs,' pp. 49-62 ; Cath. Rec. Soc. v. 8, 39, 48-50, 395), was taken in Dorsetshire, which was reported to be his native county. Was le a son of the Rector of South Perrot ?

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

For Matthew Slade see ' Diet. Nat. Biog.,' ii. 365. His elder brother Samuel (1568- 1612 ?) was M.A.Oxon. 1594, then Vicar >f Embleton, Northumberland, but re- igned the living to travel in search of MSS., ind died in Zante. Their mother was Joan