Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/183

 io-s. iv. AUG. 19,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 147 Quite quaking, quickly " Quarter ! quarter !" 'quest. Reason returns, religious right redounds, Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds. Truce to thee, Turkey !—Triumph to thy train, Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine ! Vanish, vain victory ! Vanish, victory vain ! Why wish we warfare ?—Wherefore welcome were Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xaviere ? Yield, yield, ye youths! Ye yeomen, yield your yell; Zeno's, Zampater'a, Zoroaster's zeal, Attracting all, arms against acts appeal! A. .D. INSCRIPTIONS AT FIGUEIEA DA Foz.—In the Cruzeiro, a semi-oval enclosure in the Estrada da Varzea, adjoining the garden of the Hospital da Misericordia at Figueira da Foz, on the west coast of Portugal, the pedestal of a Latin cross bears the following inscription on cream - coloured calcareous stone, in thirty-four lines, already somewhat mutilated :— Anno MDCCCX. magna parte Lusitaniae preepotenti ac formidando Gallorum exercitu occupata cnnctisque gentibus non tnodo ex vicinia sed etiam e longinquo utmaximas belli calamitates fugiendo vitarent hoc in oppidum tnmultuose lestinantibus Dullnmque aut certe exiguum vita; subsidium secuni aferentibus dira in advenasdominata est fames inde vero exprta contagione supra quinque millia mensibus ianuario februario martioque anni insequentis extincta snnt quorum plerique iubente regio magistratu qui aliis quoque opitulatibus alimenta quamdiu potuit quam plurimis praebuit hie tandem aut non longe sunt sepulti incertos casus adversos que treme qui leges iiiuno vero Domini iudicia super filios hominum recta ilia quidem ssepe terribilia mortalibus numquam scrutanda reveretor. This inscription serves to illustrate the disorders which Wellington had to quell. In the town hall(Catnara Municipal) or Figueira there is a museum containing, in addition to some prehistoric objects, an Iberian inscrip- tion found in 1895 at Bensafrim, in Algarve; two Roman epitaphs found at Marim, in Algarve, and another found at Fedrulha, near Coimbra. E. S. DODGSON. Figueira da Foz. GEORGE BUCHANAN. — In the late Dr. Wallace's volume on George Buchanan, in the " Famous Scots" Series, there is an interesting reference to Buchanan's legend- ary character as a professional jester. The reference is as follows :— " Up to the middle of this [the nineteenth] cen- tury, a chapbook usually entitled ' The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan,' some- times adding ' The King's Jester,' ran -through many editions, original and revised, and had a certain vogue all over Scotland." I distinctly remember the occurrence of this pamphlet as late as the '' seventies," when I was a lad eager to read. One of its remarkable stories has never left my memory. This was a telling and humorous descrip- tion of an intellectual encounter between the redoubtable jester and a French or Italian "professor of the language of signs." A projws of this quaint idea of Buchanan, a question addressed the other day to an old man in a rural district of the Scottish Midlands, whether he knew aught of George Buchanan, brought the answer, " O yes ! that was the king's fule." W. B. WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct. THOMAS A BECKET.—Is the a of modern introduction in this name ; and, if so, what is the date of the introduction ? The d is used by the present family, who claim descent from the martyr. Any information on this point would much oblige THE RECTOR OF SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL. NAPOLEON ON BYRON.—I should be very much obliged to you if you would put the question to your readers whether any^of them can quote any saying or sayings of Napoleon about Byron. Byron, as you know, praised Napoleon very highly at first, as in the stanzas, " We do not curse thee, Waterloo " ; but his ' Ode to Napoleon' is justly severe: so that possibly Napoleon first praised and then attacked Byron. I am an enthusiastic admirer of Byron, and have built Byron House, in Fleet Street, _in his honour, where there is a medallion of him over the door, surrounded by a wreath of laurels, in statuary marble, and another inside, whilst several hundreds of lines of his poetry are engraved on statuary marble