Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/240

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NOTES AND QUERIES, [lo* s. m. MAECU n, 1905.

selves ; that generally, if their words appear to make nonsense, the presumption will be that we have their words mangled some way ? Here, then, it is reasonably certain that we have an error somewhere. Pry we then into this chronicler's mind ; let us see what he may have been thinking.

First, it is probable that by nepos he means grandson, not nephew. Second, iwtris is presumably a misreading of 2 iatruus - Now let us try the statement again. "To which Alan succeeded William FitzDuncan, grand- son and heir of that Alan, born of Ethred, sister of Waldeve his [William's] patruits.'' 1 It works out something like sense after all.

I

Duncan=pKthereda Waldeve . I

William Fit/Duncan

That is what the chronicler appears to say. Patruus and avunculus were constantly used without the least regard to their exact meanings. Also the chroniclers did con- stantly wrap up much intimate knowledge in a manner not readily perceived by the hasty reader. We know Duncan II. was a bastard. I have not looked up the details, but I perceive here a plain suggestion by the chronicler if he really meant patrmis (which it seems must be the word he did use) that Waldeve was also Duncan's brother, of the half blood that will be ; his use of the word suggests a possibility, no more, that Duncan and Waldeve had a common mother, as Ethereda and Waldeve had a common father. These little matters did get rather tangled up in those days ; we must not forget that they had no president of an interesting court to straighten out their little entanglements.

H. H.

EDMOND HOYLE (10 th S. ii. 409, 536). ^ have a little charm, which may be fifty years old, with whist-markers bearing portraits of Edmond Hoyle. In case XYLOGRAPHER is anxious to see this charm, I shall be happy to show it on my return in April to 13, Great Cumberland Place. MABEL V. A. BENT.

Hughes's Hotel, Jerusalem.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON DICKENS AND THACKERAY (10 th S. iii. 22, 73, 131, 151). COL PRIDEAUX is quite right in identifying T. J Thackeray with Thomas James Thackeray I am sorry that I cannot give any biographi cal particulars of him, other than those con cerning his published writings, which may be seen in the British Museum. Thes"

include several farces, tfcc., issued during the- ate twenties and the thirties, as well as the ater works cited by COL. PRIDEAUX. The
 * act that Thomas James Thackeray wrote

the libretto of 'The Mountain Sylph' is ecorded in the Music Catalogue at the British Museum under John Barnett, and is also referred to in Mr. Athol Mayhew's 'A Jorum of "Punch,"' p. 10 (1895), although there Thackeray is shorn of his first initial. WALTER JERROLD. Hampton-on-Thames.

In addition to 'The Mountain Sylph,' T. J* Thackeray wrote ' The Barber Baron,' farce'

828, Haymarket; 'The Executioner,' melo- drama, 1829, Coburg ; ' The Force of Nature,' Jrama, 1830, Haymarket; 'My Wife or my /lace' (in conjunction with C. Shannon),
 * arce, 1831, Haymarket ; ' Gustavus _of

Sweden,' historical drama, 1833, Victoria- Woman,' petite comedy, 1835, Queen's; and

Penmark Abbey,' melodrama.

WM. DOUGLAS.

125, Helix Road, Brixton Hill.

CAPT. GEORGE SHELVOCKE (10 th S. iii. 61). [t is well known that his 'Voyage' contain* the account of the killing of the albatross- which Coleridge used with such fine effect in his immortal 'Ancient Mariner' :

" We all observed, that we had not had the sighb

of one fish, of any kind nor of one sea-bird,

excepting a disconsolate black Albitross, who ac- companied us for several days, and hovered about us as if he had lost himself, till Hatley (my second captain) concluding, in a gloomy lit, that the- company of this melancholy bird brought us ill- luck ; resolved to destroy him, in hopes we might then have some better weather, and more favour- able winds than we had hitherto had to deal with in these remote tempestuous seas/' Second edition, 1757, p. 75.

At p. 411 is a description of the soil of Cali- fornia in 1721, testifying to its auriferous* character.

This second edition does not contain any allusion by the editor, George Shelvocke the younger, to the scurrilous attacks of William Betagh upon his father and himself. The latter translated from the French (in ad- dition to the work mentioned by MR. GORDON GOODWIN) 'The Memoirs of M. du Gue- Trouin,' London, 1732; second edition, 1743, 12mo. This was noted by me at 9 th S. xi. 27.

C. D.

BESANT (10 th S. iii. 28, 113, 155). I was acquainted with the late Sir Walter, and served as his guide when he made that memorable survey of the Chinese quarter in Limehouse, so graphically described in his 'East London' (1901). We were together