Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/23

 io<s.in.jAN-.7,i905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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that Bill was as follows : " All ancient statutes prohibiting the use of O or Mac before Irish -surnames are hereby repealed." It is evident that the promoters of the Bill were under the impression that the prefixes mentioned were prohibited by law, although they were apparently unable to refer to the particular statutes. When the Bill was in Committee the Attorney-General for Ireland stated that there was " no statute or principle of common law to prevent any one taking the prefix O or Mac." The Bill was afterwards dropped, .and has not been reintroduced. It may, therefore, be inferred that its promoters were convinced that the supposed "ancient statutes " have no existence in fact.

F. W. READ.

MR. ALASDAIR MACGILLEAN wishes to know if at any time the prefixes Mac and O were prohibited in Ireland. In 1465 (5 Edw. IV. cap. 3) a law was passed enacting

"" that every Irishman that dwells betwixt or amongst Englishmen in the County of Dublin,

Myeth, Uriell, and Kildare shall take to him an

English surname of one town or colour or

arte or science or office.'' Blue-book on 'Sur- names in Ireland,' 1894, p. 15 : Irish Ptnny Journal, 1841, p. 383.

I myself know that it was fashionable in Belfast forty years ago, and doubtless earlier, when a person "came into town" to drop the paternal O or Mac. I have known persons named Connor, Allen, Waters, and Alexander, whose rural relatives still retained the original cognomens of O'Connor, McAllen, McWaters, and McElshender. Dr. Killen, in his 'Remi- niscences,' 1901, p. 172, says :

" The Rev. Henry Cooke is by far the most cele- brated name connected with the ministry of the Irish Presbyterian Church in the nineteenth cen- tury. When he entered College he was known as MacCooke, and is so designated in the earliest printed Minutes of the Synod of Ulster. He dropped the Mac from his name before he appeared as a licentiate."

There are families of the name of Leane, out as they all occur in county Cork or Kerry, I presume they are of pure Irish extraction, Leane being the ancient Gaelic name for the Lake of Killarney.

JOHN S. CRONE.

INSCRIPTION ON STATUE OF JAMES II. (10 th S. i. 67, 137). The inscription given in the first reply at the second reference corresponds with that now on the pedestal, except that in the latter there is "gratite" instead of "gratia," and that there are full stops after at D and c in the date, while there is none at the end.

The second reply says that the inscription faas evidently been shorn of its greater part

and the last word altered. The words quoted in the query were only an extract, i.e., the first two lines. The inscription as given by Chamberlayne in the 1723 edition of his 4 Magnte Britannia? Notitia,' to which refer- ence is made, is actually shorter than the existing inscription, in that JCOBUS appears instead of JACOBUS, and the date " 1686 " (Arabic figures without "anno") is given, instead of "Anno M.D.C.LXXXVI " (Roman). Also there are five commas and two full stops, which do not appear in the pedestal inscrip- tion. On 11 August, 1904, in the House of Commons, Lord Balcarres, representing the First Commissioner of Works, replied to a question drawing his attention to the error in the Latin inscription. He said :

"The inscription is a facsimile of that on the original pedestal. When the statue was removed some years ago from Whitehall-yard it was found to be necessary to renew the pedestal, but it was thought best to make no alteration in the old inscription, which was probably contemporaneous. In the circumstances the First Commissioner of Works considers it would be preferable to leave it alone." See Times, 12 August, 1904. There is no doubt that " gratise " for " gratia " was in the inscription on the old pedestal. I have seen at the Office of Works the rubbing taken from it.

One would think that a grammatical error was not worth renewing. If the mason had cut an extra c in the date, I suppose that the official mind would have thought it right to reproduce it. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

BENJAMIN BLAKE : NORMAN : OLDMIXON (10 th S. ii. 447). The 'D.N.B.,' under John Oldmixon (1673-1742), the historian and pamphleteer, says :

"In his 'History of the Stuarts' (p. 421), Old- mixon, speaking of the disinterment of the remains of Admiral Blake, a native of Bridgwater, says that he lived while a boy with Blake's brother Hum- phrey, who afterwards emigrated to Carolina. Mr. John Kent of Funchal has pointed out that Old- mixon was in all probability author of the ' History and Life of Robert Blake written by a Gentle- man bred in his Family,' which appeared without date about 1740."

This publication is called by Prof. J. K. Laugh ton, under Admiral Robert Blake, "an impudent and mendacious chap-book."

No doubt your correspondent has consulted MR. JOHN KENT'S reference to the Norman family at 8 th S. v. 149. A. R. BAYLEY.

Could Oldmixon be Old Mikes son ? Mike was formerly pronounced with an ee.

DR. GUSTAV KRUEGER.

Berlin.

TRAVELS IN CHINA (10 th S. ii. 408). Two "lists of works of various descriptions re-