Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/525

 io s. xii. NOV. 27, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

433

The correct pronunciation of the name seems to have been lost in Olney, unless I was misinformed in the shop in the village where I was buying post cards some time ago. I was then told, " Every one about here calls him Cowper," the syllable being pronounced as is the name of the animal except in the North of England, where the rustics still sound ow as oo both in " cow u and " Cowper," as I can myself testify.

F. NEWMAN.

109, Club Garden Road, Sheffield.

The poet Cowper was a cadet of the family of which the late Lord Cowper was the head and last survivor. Nobody ever dreamed of pronouncing his family name except as " Cooper." If any doubt survives in any perverse mind, reference could be made to his widow, Katrine, Countess Cowper, Panshanger, Hertford. G. W. E. R.

LAST DUEL \VITH SWORDS IN ENGLAND (10 S. xii. 227, 290, 378). Alfieri's duel with Viscount Ligonier in 1771 was with swords. See " Vita di Vittorio Alfieri, scritta da esso, Londra " (but evidently printed in Italy), 1804, p. 161 seq. There were no seconds.

In the ' Histoire des Duels,' by Fougeroux de Campigneulles, Paris, 1835, vol. ii., at pp. 153-61 is an account of a duel with swords between two women in 1833. One of them was killed, and the other was tried for murder at the Leinster Assizes. Is the story true ? J. F. R.

Godalming.

" ALL RIGHT " : ORIGIN OF THE PHRASE (10 S. xii. 228, 314). A very useful instance of this phrase, and one earlier than those quoted, is to be found in a boyish fragment of Tennyson, entitled ' The Coach of Death, written when the poet was fourteen or fifteen years of age, i.e., about 1824. The verse in which the expression occurs will be found on p. 26 of ' Tennyson : a Memoir,' by Hallam, Lord Tennyson, and runs : They mounted slow in their long black cloaks, The tears bedimm'd their sight : The grim old coachee strode to the box, And the guard gasp'd out, " All 's right."

C. E. LOMAX. Louth, co. Lincoln.

EP WORTH PARSONAGE GHOST (10 S. xii 129, 197, 338). There is no tombstone to the memory of " old Jeffrey "- in Ep worth Churchyard. I believe the oldest stone to be found there is the one to Samuel Weslej himself ; I, at any rate, have not found ar older one, and I know the yard well. I have

also searched the parish registers more than once for different names, though never or Jeffrey's ; but I should probably have noticed his, had it been there, which I do not think is the case. C. C. B.

' NOTES AND QUERIES l COMMEMORATION (10 S. xii. 167, 251, 331, 376). MR. PICK- FORD is certainly not " the oldest living orrespondent of ' N. & Q.' ? I doubt if I am ; but some years before his date of 1856 I was a contributor, probably under my then name of " Adams," or my then initials " G. E. A." The Index does not enable me to trace these contributions, but one of them, on the ' Wellesley Pedigree,' is in 1 S. vi. 585 (18 Dec., 1852), signed " G. R. [sic] Adams, Oxford and Cambridge Club." By mistake of the printer, the initial letter of my second Christian name is there given as "R." instead of " E." I may add that, having been admitted to that Club 11 May y 1848, I was on 1 Dec., 1908, the third in seniority of its then existing members.

G. E. C.

MR. PICKFORD is not quite the oldest living contributor to ' N. & Q.' If he will refer to the volumes for 1851-2, he will find several small contributions from me, signed with my initials.

HENRY N. ELLACOMBE.

Bitton Vicarage, Bristol.

[The earliest instance we can trace of our vener- able correspondent's contributions is at 1 S. iv. 72 (26 July, 1851). But in the Index to our second volume there are two signatures that are happily still familiar to readers of 'N. and Q.,' viz., EDWARD PEACOCK and K. P. D. E. There is no harm at this time of day in disclosing the fact that they cover two gentlemen under one hat.]

EPICURUS IN ART (10 S. xii. 347). Accord- ing to Helbig, ' Fiihrer durch die offentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertiimer in Rom,' vol. i. 2nd ed. p. 185, in consequence of the cult of Epicurus's portrait that prevailed among his numerous followers, his likenesses that have come down to us are more numer- ous than those of any other ancient philoso- pher. Portrait-busts of him have naturally been found in Herculaneum and Pompeii and among other representations may be men- tioned a head in the Sala delle Muse of the Vatican (described by Helbig at the reference already given), and a double Hermes of Epicurus and his pupil Metrodorus in the Capitoline Museum. Helbig supplies many references including one to ' Schuster iiber die erhaltenen Portrats der griechischen Philosophen ' that may be of use to DR. KRUEGER.