Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/332

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. m OCT. -2, im

From 1783 onward there are numerous references to nights and experiments in all countries ; also several verses in the same magazine ridiculing the rage for balloons. F. M. R. HOLWOBTHY.

Bromley, Kent.

On referring to my note in MS. I think it will be found that the last reference, to ' Pioneers of the Air,' is from The Daily Express, not The Globe.

J. H. MACMlCHAEL.

FLYING MACHINE IN 1751 (10 S. xi. 145; xii. 170, 238). MR. JOHN H. DURHAM asks whether any reader of ' N. & Q.' has found traces in a contemporary English work or journal of the alleged flight of an Italian machine from London to Windsor and back in October, 1751. Having made a search of the newspapers of the period for "mention of an event which, if the letter [alleged to exist in the archives of Bergamo] is really genuine, must have created considerable excitement at the time," I reply in the negative. There is no allusion to any such extraordinary occurrence in The General Advertiser, The London Daily Advertiser, The London Morning Penny Post, The London Evening Post, The Whitehall Evening Post, or Read's Weekly Journal, though all these contain items of news and gossip of a far less startling character. In face of this consensus of silence where speech would have been certain, the whole story seems to be an elaborate invention.

ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

Father Grimaldi's flight from Calais to Dover is mentioned by David Bourgeois in his ' Recherches sur 1'Art de Voler ' (Paris, 1784, p. 65) ; but he does not believe it ever had taken place, although it was reported in a dissertation by three members of the Lyons Academy. One reason of his doubt was that nothing was known about the feat in either of the localities mentioned. L. L. K.

Evelyn in his ' Diary ' mentions having seen " machines for flying in the air " at Venice in May, 1645. T. M. W.

COURT OF REQUESTS (10 S. xii. 208, 257). There are two seventeenth-century books on this Court. I do not remember the names, but believe they will be found under * Eng- land : Courts,' in the British Museum Cata- logue. The records of the Court (extending from the reign of Henry VII. to that of Charles I.) may be found in the Public Record Office (see Scargill Bird's ' Guide to the Public Record Office,' third edition,

1908, pp. 300-1). But the classical book is ' Select Cases in the Court of Requests [1497-1569],' by Mr. I. S. Leadam, issued by the Selden Society in 1898 [mentioned ante, p. 258]. Q. V.

"BOURNE" IN PLACE-NAMES (10 S. xi, 361, 449 ; xii. 130, 191). I beg COL. PRIDEAUX'S pardon for misinterpreting his original proposition, which I now understand to be that " the names of towns are very rarely identical with the names of rivers." I still think that is hardly borne out by facts. Writing as I do in a train, I cannot refer to any books except a Scottish time- table ; but between that and memory I am able to jot down the following names of towns and villages situated on streams of the same name. Carron*, Ayr*, Irvine, Leven (Fife), Helmsdale, Brora, Thurso, Moffat*, Biggar*, Lauder (the river-name has become Leader), Nairn, Alness, Bannock- burn, Blackburn, Broxburn, Calder (Lanark- shire and Midlothian), Closeburn, Douglas (Lanarkshire and Isle of Man), Usk, Fearn r Findhorn, Alva, Leadburn, Leith, Lugar, Lyne, Palnure, Wick*, Avoch, Whitburn, Dunlop, Conway, Annan, Bladenoch, Girvan, The names marked with an asterisk are those of towns which have been transferred to rivers on which they stand : in every other case I believe the river-name to be the older. COL. PRIDEAUX has dis- missed the last three on the list from con- sideration because they are of Celtic origin ; but I fail to see how any advance in the study of place-names, especially river-names, can be made without taking account of those derived from Celtic appellations, so greatly do they prevail, even in the most thoroughly English districts.

COL. PRIDEAUX is of opinion that my view of the simple descriptive names given by Celtic and Saxon settlers is inconsistent with PROF. SKEAT'S, which he interprets as being that " during the many thousand years of its existence, a stream had no name until some Anglo-Saxon settler came along," &c. I will not presume to explain PROF. SKEAT'S views on the subject ; but I shall be very much surprised to learn that this is a correct statement of them. My own opinion is that, so soon as a country is settled, all the more prominent natural features must receive names, which will either be generic, like hill, water, crag, &c., where a single one of these features occurs in a neighbourhood ; or, more commonly, specific, like Greenhill, Blackwater, Goat- crag, &c., where it becomes convenient or