Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/627

 io*s. ii. DEC. 24, law.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

519

day the names Gilroy and Gilruth are much more frequently to be found in the Mearns and the neighbouring shires of Aberdeen and Angus than elsewhere in Scotland, and their owners are doubtless of the same strain as the MacGilray commemorated by the Shrop- shire tablet.

"Emernensi Agro" is evidently a transcrip- tion for 41 E Mernensi Agro." "Hie erat occisus Mernensibus in Monahedne " ('Chro- nicles of the Picts,' tr. by Skene, Edinburgh, 1867, p. 181, 'Chron. Elegiacum '). This quotation refers to the death of Duncan II., at Monachden, on the banks of the River JBervie, at the hands of ** the men o' th' Mearns," the Viri na Moerne of the Pictish Chronicle. Skene derives Mearns from Maghcircin, the plain of Circin, i.e., of St. Cyriac, and says that Dunottar was the stronghold of this Pictish province.

HENEY T. POLLARD.

Molewood, Hertford.

SHELLEY FAMILY (9 th S. xii. 426 ; 10 th S. ii. 155, 457). At the last reference MR. WAINE- WRIGHT mentions Henry Shelley, the success- ful defendant in "Shelley's case." There is a curious error about this case in the account given by the D.N.B.,' Hi. 41, of Sir William Shelley. After mentioning Sir William's brothers (1) John Shelley, who "became a Knight of the Order of St. John, and was killed in defending Rhodes against the Turks in 1522," and (2) Edward Shelley, ancestor of " the baronets of Castle Goring, Sussex (created 1806). and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet," the 'D.N.B.' proceeds thus :

"The youngest brother, John Shelley, died in 1554. The settlement of an estate which he pur- chased on the dissolution of Sion Monastery led to the important lawsuit known as ' Shelley's case,' and the decision known as the rule in ' Shelley's case' (see Coke, 'Reports/ i. 94)."

The settlement was in fact made by the above-mentioned Edward Shelley, who died 9 October, 1554 (see Coke, loc. cit.). The de- fendant, Henry Shelley, who lived until 1623, was his grandson. A pedigree tracing the descent of the baronets of Castle Goring from the defendant is given in Dallaway and Cartwright's * Sussex,' II. i. 40 (cf. II. ii. 77). Henry Shelley and Walter Shelley, the Win- chester scholars of 1594 and 1598 (Kirby), were two of the defendant's sons. Both may be found in Foster's 'Alumni Oxonienses.' The Benjamin Beard whom MR. WAINE- WRIGHT mentions appears in a pedigree in Berry's 'Sussex Genealogies,' p. Ill, as having sold his lands in Sussex and moved into Hampshire. He claimed to have been at school at Winchester (S. P. Dom. Eliz., ccxlviii.

88), but I do not know whether he meant at> the College. H. C.

ASHBURNER FAMILY OF OLNEY, BUCKS

(10 th S. ii. 168). One Ashburner was residing at Olney in the time of the poet Cowper. Under 1791 and 1792, he is mentioned in the ' Diary ' of Samuel Teedon, schoolmaster, of that place, which dates from 17 October, 1791, to 2 February, 1794, and was printed, under the editorship of Mr. Thos. Wright, in 1902, for issue to the members of the Cowper Society. W. I. R. V.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Prioress s Tale, and other Tales. By Geoffrey

Chaucer. Done into Modern English by Prof.

Skeat. (De La More Press.) The Early Lives of Dante. Translated by Philip

H. Wicksteed, M.A. (Same publishers.)' WE have here two notable additions to that series of " King's Classics," issued from the De La More Press, which constitutes one of the pleasantest, prettiest, cheapest, and most scholarly series of this age of cheap books. Prof. Skeat's modernization of Chaucer is the fifth volume that he has con- tributed, and seems intended to be final. It con- tains, in addition to 'The Prioress's Tale,' 'The Pardoner's Tale,' 'The Clerk's Tale," The Secondt Nun's Tale,' and 'The Canon's Yeoman's Tale, 5 " together with notes and an index of names. Like- the preceding renderings, it is spirited and excellent? in all respects, while its introduction and notes- supply a mass of useful, instructive, and entertain- ing matter. A picture of Griselda, from the National Gallery, forms an appropriate and very interesting- frontispiece.

The lives of Dante by Boccaccio and Bruni were issued by the Rev. Philip Henry Wicksteed in 1898- to his pupils. They have now been enlarged and corrected, and are for the first time given to a general public. Whatever estimate may be formed of the accuracy of statements made by Dante's early biographers, and especially by Boccaccio,, both works are indispensable to the student, and- the opportunity of obtaining them in so beautiful and trustworthy a shape is not easily to be over- estimated. Boccaccio, it is known, is responsible for the charges of licentiousness in Dante which modern biographers are anxious to disown or deny. Leo- nardo Bruni's life has some inaccuracies, but is in the main trustworthy, even though disfigured by one or two misstatements. Passages from Villari are given in the appendixes. Both works deserve- and will obtain a warm reception.

The. Smith Family. By Compton Reade, M.A.

(Stock.)

A COUPLE of years after the appearance of Mr. Compton Reade's excellent history of the Smith family it has been found expedient to issue it in a popular edition. That an account of this numerous family, sept, or clan should enjoy a large circula- tion was to be expected. It is seldom, however, in the case of a work of serious aim and purpose, a second and cheaper edition treads so close upon the