Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/492

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NOTES AND QUERIES. no* s. m. MAY 27, 1905.

and what hundreds of things once in doubt have been set at rest ! " I see in 5 th S. ii. 269 I asked Z. Z. for information about the Zornlin family. She gave it to me, and it has been lying by since 1874. I hope now that it will be of interest. It is an accurate record of the other of the two " alien " families now extinct referred to ante, p. 192.

When in 1874 I heard from Miss G. M. Zornlin she was living at 11, Clifton Terrace, Winchester. The last time I find Z. Z. in 'N. & Q. 3 is August, 1880. Her name no longer appeared in the ' P.O.D.' for Win- chester in 1885.

She was most reluctant to give any par- ticulars about herself. What I got was drawn out by degrees, and even that I believe was only obtained through the halo cast about me from being afellow-contributor to'N. &Q.' ME. CHARLES MASON will be interested to hear that one of those delightfully accurate pieces of biography he used frequently to contribute to ' N. & Q.' did not meet with her approval. In her first letter she says :

"Miss Zornlin presents her compliments to Olphar Hamst, and encloses an account of her family. At fhe same time she desires to say that she does not approve of the principle of making public inquiries into the details of private families, as in the answer ent by Mr. Mason relative to the Jourdan family."

Another reason for family objection is that families always desire to conceal just what the public wish to know.

Miss Zornlin also sent me a beautifully designed and well-engraved book-plate (now before me) of the eighteenth century, with the motto at the top, "fai-bien ; crain-rien," one on which all may faithfully rely, I am sure if coupled with good health. Under- neath is the name " J. J. Zornlin." She writes :

" As to the description of the Zornlin arms, I will do my best: Or, two bars (or barbels) counter salient proper. At the base is a charge I have often seen in foreign heraldry, which the English engraver has twisted into seven loaves and fishes. I believe the embowed arm [and hand holding a iish] to be meant for St. Peter's arm. I have a cabalistic medal with the head of Christ on one side and a badly executed Hebrew legend on the other. The type is well known as a pious fraud in the Middle Ages, said to be the piece 01 money taken out of the mouth of the fish for tribute. This one has been in the Zornlin family time immemorial, -and I suspect it has something in connexion with the crest. My father never would have the arms registered at the Heralds' College, for he considered them as older than the College, and to have entered them there would have constitxited a grant of arms."

Her description has been checked by an expert and found to be accurate. If any excuse were necessary for so long a

note, I would make it in the words of Godwin in his 'Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraf t ' (1798, p. 2) :

"Every benefactor of mankind is more or less influenced by a liberal passion for fame ; and sur- vivors only pay a debt to these benefactors, when they assert and establish on their part the honour they loved."

RALPH THOMAS.

MARY MASTERS. Francis Barber, the negro servant of Dr. Johnson, included in the list of the doctor's friends at the date of his wife's death "Mrs. Masters, the poetess who lived with Mr. Cave." Mrs. Gardiner, the tallow- chandler's wife, of Snow Hill, one of his oldest friends, was introduced to him, says Boswell, " by Mrs. Masters, the poetess, whose volumes he revised and, it is said, illuminated here and there with a ray of his own genius." The latter passage produced a query and some answers in 7 th S. x.

Her first volume was entitled "Poems on Several Occasions. By Mary Masters. Lon- don, printed by T. Browne in Bartholomew- Close _for the Author. MDCCXXXIII.," and the copy in the British Museum has the inscrip- tion "E Libris Elizse Carter e dono autricis," by whom it was given to her nephew, Montagu Pennington. An interesting preface says :

"The author of the following poems never read a treatise of rhetorick or an art of Poetry, nor was ever taught her English grammar. Her education rose no higher than the spelling book or the writing master : her genius to poetry was always brow-beat and discountenanc'd by her parents, and till her merit got the better of her fortune, she was shut out from all commerce with the more knowing and polite part of the world."

A friend revised the grammar of her work, probably Thomas Scott, of Ipswich, who con- tributed several poetical pieces ; and many subscribers chiefly from Norfolk, Suffolk, and the neighbourhood of Otley, in York- shirepatronized it. A local piece, called 'A Journey from Otley to Wakefield,' occu- pies pp. 140-4.

The second work was "Familiar Letters and Poems on Several Occasions. By Mary Masters. London, printed for the author by D. Henry & E. Cave. MDCCLV." The sub- scription to the first work had increased her little stock of money beyond her merit, and she "for a while lived contented and quiet, but the death of some friends and treachery of others rendered the situation very inconvenient and uncomfortable." She was now seeking another subscription. The subscribers to this volume are mostly from the eastern counties, but a few come from Yorkshire, and the list includes Dr. Thomas