Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/501

 m. MAY 27, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

413

been contracted contrary to the regulations of the Royal Marriage Act, their two children, a son and a daughter, took the surname of d'Este as being the original name of the family. R. L. MORETON.

A newspaper paragraph which I read a year or two ago gave the late Queen's maiden name as Azon, not Guelph. No authority was advanced. Is there any ground for such a statement 1 E. H. BROMBY.

University, Melbourne.

GUINEA BALANCES (10 th S. iii. 347). One of these that I have has the name "I. Wilkinson " on it, but there is no indication where the maker lived. The guinea balance is in the original oaken case, to which it is securely fastened, and when in the folded position it fits the box compactly. It was evidently made for merchants and business men to carry about with them, and is five inches long, nearly an inch wide, and about half inch depth outside measurement. The lid is hinged from one end, and closed with a snap at the other ; but part of this is missing. With it are printed instructions for using, which run, in old fashioned type, as follows :

"The Turn to be at the end for a guinea, the other way for half a guinea, and the slide at the cypher, where it will stop. It stops several times in removing towards the centre, each a farthing above the standard. When gold is short of weight, remove the slide the other way, where every division is a penny. These balances are as accurate as the best scales, more expeditious, portable, and not so liable to be out of order. If ever they vary from the standard, they are soon rectified by the slide."

As far as I can judge, this "guinea balance " is in good working order.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

If LIBRA will send me his address I will forward, for his inspection, a small pocket balance belonging to me. It is of steel and brass, and is fixed to, and folds up in, a mahogany pocket case 5 in. long, 1| in. wide, and I in. deep. There are holes at the side for weights, but only one now remaining. I think it is of early nineteenth-century make. HERBERT SOUTHAM.

Innellan, Shrewsbury.

SARAH CURRAN, ROBERT EMMET, AND MAJOR SIRR'S PAPERS (10 th S. iii. 303). I cannot give the original authority for Major Sirr's weep- ing over Sarah Curran's letters. Charles Phillips's ' Curran and his Contemporaries,' 1818, is the earliest mention known to me ; Madden quoted from Phillips, and probably O'Hart from Madden. Lord Hardwicke describes the letters as "clever and strik-

ing" ; and a recent review in The Athenaeum of 'The Viceroy's Post -Bag,' by Michael McDonagh, says they are " pathetic," and indicative of the noble nature of the writer. The letters were discovered by Mr. McDonagh in a sealed box in the State Paper Office, marked "most secret, most confidential." They and other contents of the box form the second part of ' The Viceroy's Post-Bag.' As I live far from libraries, I have not seen the book, which from the reviews seems to be both interesting and very painful. It is fortunate the letters were not destroyed, as they prove J. D. S. was misinformed as to their contents. If MR. SIRR can consult the book it will prove this to him. If he cannot, perhaps some more fortunate contributor to 1 N. & Q.' will furnish copies of the letters or their substance, and so answer both MR. SIRR'S and my queries.

With regard to Major Sirr's character, ifc was the business of a town major to hunt and catch rebels ; whether he liked or disliked his duties they had to be performed. As to- the famous trial of Hevey v. Sirr, when, as- counsel for Hevey, Curran made one of his most famous speeches, Sirr and Major Sandys possibly could not clear themselves without betraying McNally and some of the other informers. FRANCESCA.

"VASTERN" (10 th S. iii. 347). Sir Robert Howard, sixth son of the first Earl of Berk- shire, through whom the late Mrs. Greville Howard inherited her Ashtead property in Surrey, was styled of Vastern, co. Wilts.

SHERBORNE.

There is an old house near Wootton Bassetfc Station (Wilts) of this name, also spelt Eastern, Vasthorne, Wasterne, <fcc., "but the derivation is probably from the Anglo-Saxon fasten, an enclosure. It was a royal hunting place. Leland says that Henry VII. slew his gres (buck) here in 1489 " (' Wilts Collections/ by Jackson). C. V. GODDARD.

STRAW- PLAITING (10 th S. iii. 148). MR. CHALKLEY GOULD will find an early reference to the straw-plait industry in Miss Agnes Strickland's ' Queens of Scotland,' where the story goes that Mary, Queen of Scots, imported the art into Scotland from Lor- raine, where she observed the happiness and contentment, compared with other parts, consequent upon the pursuit of this calling. Other circumstances with regard to the straw-plait trade, in Luton in particular, led to certain evidences of im- morality among those engaged, which have- since, I believe, been subject to improvement.