Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/495

 10 s. xii. NOV. 20,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

407

indeed very probable, that the moon was an object of worship in Britain in ancient times. {2 JONATHAN CEBEDIG DA VIES.

^jLlanilar, Cardiganshire.

[The first superstition named is very wide- spread.]

INDEXES TO ' N. & Q.' The strictures of MB. WHITWELL (ante, p. 331) upon the incompleteness of the Indexes to the First, .Second, and Third Series afford me oppor- tunity for remarking that I possess full MS. indexes to these three series in regard to the following subjects : London Signs, City Parishes, City Clergy, Parish Registers, and Churchwardens' Accounts.

These indexes were compiled by me while making a close scrutiny of the pages of the earlier volumes in search of stray references for my local history. That for " London Signs " gives the name and date of each sign referred to, and that for " City Parishes " gives the name of every parish ; the other indexes are in brief.

WILLIAM McMuRRAY.

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.

" SCARPINE," INSTRUMENT or TORTURE. Kingsley ('Westward Ho,' chap, vii.) uses "the scarpines^ as the name of an instru- ment of torture applied to the feet (like " the boot "). In French les escarpins had this sense, but I have not been able to discover any other instance of " the scar- pines " in English. Had Kingsley any authority for the word, or was he merely anglicizing the French (or the Italian) name of the torture ? In the latter case, what book is likely to have been his source ? The English scarpine in the sense of a light shoe (Italian scarpino) occurs in Florio and in a Scottish poem of the sixteenth century.

HENRY BRADLEY. Oxford.

MILTON COTTAGE, CHALFONT ST. GILES. I should be very glad of information on the following point. There used to be a porch to the Milton Cottage, Chalfont St. Giles, where Milton wrote 'Paradise Regained/ This was high enough to have a room, or closet, level with the upper floor. It was taken down as dangerous, probably about 1829. Mr. T. Hearne, a builder, who lived all his life next the Cottage, and who died in

1908, aged eighty, had heard his father talk of this alteration, and himself remembered seeing the mark of the gable on the wall, high up, but not reaching the eves. He described the porch as open on both sides, according to his father, and having no outer door : there were two seats in it.

There is no intention of re-erecting this porch, which has gone completely ; but it would be interesting to know its exact shape. I know of only four drawings of it : that in vol. iii. of Lipscomb's ' Bucks,' p. 235, and three which are shown in the Cottage one on the title-page of Dunster's edition of ' Paradise Lost/ published about 1800 ; another at p. 14 of The Mirror Magazine of 1825 ; and a pencil drawing, date and origin unknown. All these, agreeing as to the general shape of the porch, differ in details, the pencil sketch seeming to me to come nearest to Mr. Hearne' s description.

I should be very glad to know of any other drawings of the Cottage, really taken whilst the porch existed. Modern ones, such as Mr. Bough ton's picture of the meeting of Milton and Marvell, are of no value for my purpose. Col. R. PHIPPS, late R.A.

Secretary, Milton Cottage Trust.

The Stone, Chalfont St. Giles.

' THE GOLDEN LYRE.' Could any reader tell me the author of ' The Golden Lyre,' a book in quarto, published in London about 1830 ? I have searched catalogues, but unsuccessfully. E. FIGAROLA-CANEDA. Compostela 49 (altos), Habana, Cuba.

' TOM JONES ' IN FRENCH. In The Morning Post for 21 October there was published a review of an English translation of Anatole France's ' L'He des Pingouins,' signed by Sir Charles W. Dilke. This review, being written by one who is com- pletely master of his subject, contains some valuable remarks on translations and trans- lators. Anatole France is certainly an " untranslatable " writer, and I doubt if any reader could thoroughly penetrate into the character, say, of M. Bergeret as it is presented in ' Le Mannequin d' Osier, 'if he is dependent only on an English version of that book. Sir Charles Dilke observes that French translations of modern English works, such as Kipling's ' Drums of the Fore and Aft,' though they attain the highest standard, do not quite reach the excellence of the French text of ' Tom Jones.'

It would be interesting to know which text was in the mind of Sir Charles. The first French translation was made by La