Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/118

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. JULY ao, MM.

with the termination of participles, for there are no known verbs from which the} 7 can come. There are many such words in Latin ; but it may be said that I am assuming too much in supposing them to have the termi- nation of participles. E. YARDLEY.

Without going into the question of the proper or other use of this word, I may state, with reference to MR. CURRY'S quotation from the Cornhill Magazine of the two lines,

Talk not of genius baffled, &c., that a very able friend of mine once described to me the difference in meaning between the words "genius" and "talent" as follows: " Genius is a native (or inborn) faculty ; talent is an acquired faculty."

EDWARD P. WOLFERSTAN. There seems to me a great deal of feeling about the use of particular words. For example, I do not object to " talented," but I think "vocable" a "vile and barbarous" word and un-English. I do not think any- thing would ever induce me to use it. The same with " locution." RALPH THOMAS. 30, Narbonne Avenue, S.W.

REBECCA OF 'IVANHOE' (10 th S. ii. 28). See 7 th S. v. 457 ; vi. 16. JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

MARY SHAKESPERE (10 th S. i. 448). Whether the Chattocks can claim any kinship with the great dramatist through John (?) Chat- tock, of Castle Bromwich, having married Anne, daughter of Joseph Prattenton and Mary Shakespere his wife, I cannot say. It may, however, interest MR. GUIMARAENS to know, what I have recently proved, that in 1704 John Chattock, of Castle Bromwich, married one of Dr. Johnson's second cousins, and had a son Thomas (?) Chattock, who married Anne Prattenton.

I am preparing to print privately a volume in which will be given a long and elaborate account of Dr. Johnson's maternal ancestry and connexions, of which practically nothing has been known up to now. The subject will be exhaustively treated from a literary as well as a genealogical standpoint, and I feel convinced is of much constructive as well as destructive interest. As proof of the necessity of some exact information on the subject, I need do no more than refer to Dr. Birkbeck Hill's weak and inaccurate foot-notes, and to the fact that even such a careful writer as the late Sir Leslie Stephen, when writing Johnson's life for the 'D.KB ' knew no better than to allude to "Parson -tord as the doctor's uncle. Biographers and commentators have been engaged for

over a century in similarly fumbling and stumbling in this small department of Johnsonian history. The references by Johnson himself, and by his various bio- graphers, to the Ford family are so numerous as to render a critical examination of them, in the light of actual evidences, necessarily of interest; even if to some it may not appear profitable to pursue the mafeter further and to learn more of Johnson's kinsfolk, their names, occupations, and circumstances, than he can possibly have known himself. ALEYN LYELL READE. Park Corner, Blundellsands, near Liverpool.

RAMIE (10 th S. i. 489 ; ii. 12). I should like to correspond with DR. FORSHAW, MR. WALTER KINGSFORD, and the REV. C. WARD about ramie. I think it is wrong to call it China nettle, as it is very liberally distributed in other countries. The wearer will be the gainer if his tailor gives him that material. I doubt very much if ramie would attain the age of a hundred years. It is certain that plantations, if properly handled, will be pro- fitable for sixteen or eighteen years before being replanted. As regards the prize offered by the Government, what they required was an almost impossible machine ; if they offered a prize to-day they would find no difficulty in obtaining a process to treat ramie. Ramie should be filassed that is, degummed at the place of production ; in other words, on the plantation. It is quite a mistake to dry the gum into the ribbons, and then send them over here for treatment. An interesting article on ramie is being published in the British Trades Review.

D. EDWARDS-RADCLYFFE.

Ramie Mills, Hythe End, Wraysbury.

[MR. EDWARDS-RADCLYFFE obliges us with a specimen of ramie. ]

KING OF SWEDEN ON THE BALANCE OF POWER (10 th S. ii. 8). This tract was written in French, and first appeared in 1789 under the title ' Du peril de la Balance politique de 1'Europe, ou expose des motifs qui Font alteree dans le Nord, depuis 1'avenement de Catherine II. au trone de Russie,' Londres (Paris). It was published anonymously, and is ascribed in the * Biographic Universelle,' and also in the * Nouvelle Biographie Gene- rale,' to M. de Peysonnel ; but Barbier, 'Dic- tionnaire des Ouvrages Anonymes,' gives it as the work of Mallet du Pan. In the English translation Gustavus III. is stated to be the author ; the title of the second edition of this reads thus : " The Danger of the Political Balance of Europe. Translated from the French of the King of Sweden. With pre-