Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/213

 lO" S. III. MARCH 4. 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

seems to be due to a wrong notion of the raison d'etre of such titles. Churches are all dedi- cated to God and His service, and they are named at the same time in honour of some Christian person, place, event, or even doctrine. Our forefathers honoured indif- ferently person, place, and thing connected with our holy religion. Such titles as the Church of the Annunciation, the Resurrec- tion, the Epiphany, the Nativity, the Holy Sepulchre, and Creed Church, do not imply that the church is dedicated to those things, but in honour of those things. Dedications in honour of St. Pulcheria are quite possible ; but there is no reason to suppose that any of the churches connected with the Knights Templars, when the history of the knights is taken into consideration, were dedicated in honour of the holy person rather than the holy place. FRANK PENNY.

In B. W.'s very interesting article is a reference to the vulgar pronunciation of the name as it obtains in Northampton. A propos of this it may be as well to place on record the facts that (a) there is a main street in Doncaster called St. Sepulchre Gate; and (b) that until some twenty years ago the pronunciation almost invariably was Sepul- chre Gate, Saint being dropped, and the accent placed very strongly on the second syllable of Sepulchre. At the present day, however, it is rarely heard this way, the pronunciation being in harmony with that generally in use. E. G. B.

I am glad that any imputed conjecture of mine should serve as a peg upon which to hang a learned and lucid note like that of B. W. ; but might I not expect, at least, that the peg should, as a trifling preliminary, be properly adjusted ? I spoke in a somewhat more tentative way than that in which B. W. makes my words appear when saying that " in St. Sepulchre the ' St.' is, / think, believed to be redundant, being in reality a contrac- tion of St. Pulchre." B. W. himself acknow- ledges that the pronunciation at Northampton is "St. Pulker's," and to one not so well versed in hagiology it would seem reasonable, given a " St. Pulcheria," that in some cases "St. Sepulchre" might be an abbreviation of St. Pulcheria ; but perhaps I drew a too hasty conclusion from the former prevalence of expressions like " St. Pulchre's," as applied to the church outside Newgate, and like " St. Pulchre's boots," as applied to the fetters with which were shod aspirants to the honours of the Newgate Calendar.

The contention of B. W. seems, how- ever, so incontestably just that instances

are desirable of a church in any part of Western (or Eastern ?) Christendom dedi- cated in the name of St. Pulcheria ; and the- whole tenor of B. W.'s argument renders it almost indisputable that churches so dedi- cated commemorate not St. Pulcheria, but the Holy Sepulchre, the recovery of which by the Crusaders has played such an im- portant part in English history.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

BIRTH-MARKS (10 th S. i. 362, 430, 493 ; ii. 516), A young woman from Sussex tells me that, in the neighbourhood of Pagham, a child \va born marked on the cheek with a bunch of currants. An old woman told the mother that she should lick the mark daily whilst fasting ; she did so and the mark disappeared. My informant has strong convictions in the- matter of birth-marks ; she has also the courage of them. A dog, believed to be rabid,, flew at her as she walked with her pregnant sister, and, heedless of danger to herself, she- caught her sister's hands as she was about to cover her face with them.

FRANK REDE FOWKE.

GEORGE YILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (10 th S. iii. 109). Clarendon, in his 'History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars ' (i. 62), says r

"His majesty was at the public prayers of the church, when Sir John Epsley (Hippesley) came- into the room, with a troubled countenance, and, without any pause in respect to the exercise they \vere performing, went directly to the king and: whispered in hia ear what had fallen out. His majesty continued unmoved, and without the least charige in his countenance, till prayers were ended ;. when he suddenly departed to his chamber, and threw himself upon his bed, lamenting with much passion and with abundance of tears the loss he had of an excellent servant and the horrid manner in which he had been deprived of him."

A. R. BAYLEY.

The 'Memoirs of Sir John Oglander,. Deputy - Governor - General of Portsmouth,. 1620-4,' edited by the late W. H. Long, and published in 1888, state that the name of the- messenger bearing the news was Pryce (a- mariner?). F. PAUL.

BLOOD USED IN BUILDING : SUGAR i MORTAR (10 th S. ii. 389, 455 ; iii. 34, 76, 114). The residuum left in a sugar mill after the- juice of the cane is expressed is known in Northern India, when dried and compressed, as (JUT (Hindi and Sanskrit ; the r is cerebral). It has been believed from time immemorial by the natives of those parts that to mix a. certain proportion of this substance with lime, when making mortar, greatly increase* the hardness and tenacity of the cement ; and it is still customary among them to use it