Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/23

 10 s. xii. JULY 3, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES:

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Owsley of Misterton, Somerset. Matthew married Alethea Kirford of Honiton, Devon ; their son Cornelius, born at Amsterdam in

1599, was Professor of Hebrew and other languages there ; and, like his father, Rector of the Academy in 1628. Cornelius married Gertrude, daughter of Luke Am- brose, and English preacher in Amsterdam, -and was father of Matthew Slade (1628-89), born in England, who became a Doctor of Physic. He died while travelling in a stage coach on Shotover Hill, and was buried in St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford.

A. R. BAYLEY.

In the Catholic registers of Lulworth, printed in the Catholic Record Society's volume vi., which is just being issued to subscribers, MB. G. SLADE will find many of his name, though whether what he wants I cannot say. JOSEPH S. HANSOM.

27, Alfred Place West, South Kensington, S.W.

SAINTE-BEUVE ON CASTOR AND POLLUX (10 S. xi. 309, 392). The idiom " se Jeter sur Castor et Pollux " in the quotation from Sainte-Beuve means to talk diffusely or at random, not confining oneself strictly to any single subject, in order to prevent the conversation from flagging. In all proba- bility it originated with a sentence of D'Alembert's (see Littre, s.v.) : " Je ferai eomme Simonide, qui, n'ayant rien a dire de je ne sais quel athlete, se jeta sur les louanges de Castor et de Pollux." Here the allusion is doubtless to the military achieve- ments of the renowned Dioscuri.

N. W. HILL. New York.

MARGARET OF RICHMOND : INSCRIPTIONS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY (10 S. xi. 463). The suggestion that " reinpa " stands for " requiescere in pace " is borne out by the manner in which the letters are spaced in Camden's ' Reges, Reginae, Nobiles,' &c.,

1600, sig. D3, verso, the reading there given being GALON AGATON CVM ARETA RE IN PA. All the inscriptions are given by Camden.

W. M. B. AND F. MARCHAM.

J. WILLME (10 S. xi. 469). There was a note on him by J. F. M[arsh] at 4 S. iv. 493 ; but the fullest information obtainable is to be found in an article by another of your valued correspondents, the late John Eglington Bailey, in his Palatine Note-Book. July 1, 1881 (vol. i. p. 117), from which we learn among other things that Willme was the son of a yeoman at Martinscroft, War- rington, born 11 May, 1692, and baptized at Warrington Church on 2 June. Willme,

in the book named by MR. SOLOMONS, calls himself a mathematician and ploughman, and says " his whole life may be looked upon as an umbrage of troubles and per- plexities among vexatious neighbours and people of bad principle arid conduct." He died on 27 Sept., 1769, aged 76 years.

C. W. SUTTON. Manchester.

MR. SOLOMONS will find two considerable articles on Willme and his writings in the Palatine Note-Book, vol. i. pp. 117, 193.

A. H. ARKLE.

Elmhurst, Oxton, Birkenhead.

COMETS (10 S. xi. 489). The French game at cards was called not comette, but comete; and in English was called comet. It was an old game played without aces, and received its name from the fact that the nine of clubs was sometimes replaced by a picture of a black comet, and the nine of diamonds by that of a red one. I believe it somewhat resembled Pope Joan. I have played at it, or a variety of it, long ago, but forget the rules. The earliest allusion to it in Littre is from Voltaire, dated 1763 ; and the earliest allusion to it in English is dated 1689 ; see the ' N.E.D.' The statement that it was played in Scotland in the six- teenth century must be due to a mistake ; probably the seventeenth century is meant. In 1864 it was called the comet-game, or manille. See also ' Manille ' in ' N.E.D.'

The quotation from Byron is duly given in ' N.E.D.' s.v. ' Comet.' The poem en- titled ' Churchill's Grave ' begins :

I stood beside the grave'of him who blazed

The comet of a season.

Here " comet " simply means " blazing star," and is used metaphorically ; so that no particular comet is alluded to.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

See Byron's poem ' Churchill's Grave.' The reference is to the Rev. Charles Churchill (1731-64). He was conspicuous for a short period, but was quickly forgotten ; hence Byron's comparison of him with a " comet of a season." T. M. W.

[Other contributors thanked for replies.]

" STICK TO YOUR TUT" {10 S. xi. 307, 417). This expression can, I think, hardly refer to the game of tut-ball, which is said to be played in East and West York- shire, in Shropshire, and particularly at Exeter about the Easter holidays. A " tut " is the stopping place in the game, which resembles, and probably is the game of