Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/351

 w s. XIL OCT. 9, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

287

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

MATTHEW ARNOLD, SHELLEY, KEATS, AND THE YEW. Matthew Arnold in his lyric
 * Requiescat ' writes :

Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew !

We are not surprised when we remember the sad associations of the tree and its sombre aspect. But we start when the dark Forms and Shadows in the forest near the Cave of Shelley's ' Prometheus,' as they bear the bier

Of the Father of many a Cancell'd Year, sing

Strew, oh strew

Hair, riot yew !

I should be greatly obliged if any of your readers could tell me if this strange request refers to any ancient custom or legend.

I shall be glad to know also what Keats means when he makes Peona say to Endy- mion (quoting apparently his own narration)

How a ringdove

Let fall a sprig of yew tree in his path, And how he died.

Is the poet alluding to any legend in which the yew tree is the precursor of death ?

I. M. L.

PELLE'S BUST OF CHARLES II. I am anxious to know something about the sculp- tor of a marble bust of Charles II, dated 1684, and placed in the South Kensington Museum. The bust is signed " Honnore Pelle, F." Can any reader give me par- ticular^ of Pelle ? R. A. L.

SPANISH WINE DAY : PIGEONS AND DYING PEOPLE. I am writing the history of my parish amongst other things that of its superstitions and I shall be glad of informa- tion on the following points :

1. On Easter Monday the children make Spanish wine or liquorice water. The day is called Spanish Wine Day. Why

GILBERT OF KILMINCHEY : SUTTON OF OSBASTON. I am anxious to discover the ancestry, as far back as possible, of Sir William Gilbert of Kilminchey, Queen's County. He was born 1599, was Governor of Leix, and married Catherine Castilioii.

Is anything known of the family of Sutton of Osbaston ? Walter Blount, of Blount's Hall, Leicestershire, married, temp. Eliza- beth, Mary Sutton, daughter and co-heir of John Sutton of Osbaston.

KATHLEEN WARD.

Castle Ward, Downpatrick.

" DISH OF TEA." When did this ex- pression, so pleasantly redolent of The Spectator and Tatler, finally disappear ? Macaulay uses it once, I am sure, but I have lost the exact reference. I should think he is the last writer of note to use it.

T. M. W.

[The ' N.E.D.,' s.v. dish, 3b, quotes Macaulay for a dish of coffee " (' Hist. Eng.,' 1855, iv. 688. The

latest quotation for "dish of tea" is 1862, Saturday

Revieiv, vol. xiii. p. 526, col. 2. ]

PORTRAIT BY LINTON, 1683. On the back of a half-length portrait of a youth, appa- rently in court dress, painted in oils on canvas, and in a contemporary frame, is the following in ink much faded :

JStat. Suae 5 yrs I. Linton : Pinx*

1683

From this I gather it to be the portrait of some illustrious person who was born in 1678. Can it be Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke ? It has long been supposed to be the young Prince Charles (afterwards Charles II.) ; but the date belies this. And where can I find information as to the artist ? Lint on' s name is not apparently to be found in Mrs. Jameson's ' Handbook to the Public Galleries ' ; in Walpole's ' Anecdotes of Painting ' ; in ' A Concise Introduction to the Knowledge of the Most Eminent Painters,' 1778 ; or in Pilkington's

Dictionary of Painters.' But I have not consulted Bryan.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

SEACOME OR SEACOMBE FAMILY. From the time of Edward I. down to the end of

2. It is a common belief here that people

the eighteenth century, persons of this name

cannot

are put in the bed or pillow." Why

W. D. WOOD REES. The Vicarage, Barmby Moor, York.

[2. For the connexion between pigeons and sick people see 7 S. i. 49, 97, 198. For superstitions about feathers see 6 S. iii. 165, 339, 356, 418 ; iv. 236 ; v. 55, 196.]

of Liverpool and district. My numerous local references cease after the death, in 1779, without male issue, of John Seacome, whose daughters married into the Ellison, Lafone, and other families. I know of no pedigree of this interesting family, and I do not think the name was, or is, at all common