Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/207

 io^s.iv.Aco.26,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 169 FAMOUS PICTURES AS SIGNS.—Can any reader of'N. <t Q.' tell me of shops which have used reproductions of famous pictures as signs ? There are one or two interesting examples of the use of Moroni's picture of 'A Tailor'(in the National Gallery) for outside certain tailors' shops. RUDOLPH DE CORDOVA. PICTURES OF SCENES IN ' JULIUS C.ESAR' AND ' ROMEO AND JULIET.'—Can any readers help me with information regarding pictures painted by well-known artists illustrating scenes or incidents in Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' and 'Romeo and Juliet'? F. HERBERT. DARWINIAN CHAIN OF ARGUMENT.—Who is the author of the whimsical argument that British military brawn and muscular skill are largely dependent upon the number of old maids in Great Britain 1 The argument is as follows :— " British military brawn and muscular skill are the result of eating an abundance of good mutton ; good mutton is grown from the best clover; the clover is best where the bees are thickest; the bees are thickest where the mice are fewest; the mice are fewest where cats do most abound ; where cats are gathered together, there are old maids also." I had thought that it all belonged to Spencer, but Lord Avebury writes me :— " The first part of the sequence is. of course, due to Darwin, and I had thought Huxley brought in the old maids ; Spencer, however, may have added the Empire." D. M. Jackson, Ohio. ['Darwinism,' by A. R. Wallace (1889), p. 20, quotes the sequence from the clover to the oats as Darwin's. Darwin connects the humble-bee and the clover in his' Origin of Species,' p. 117 (Murray's edition, 1900).] CHESS BETWEEN MAN AND HIS MAKER.—I should be much obliged if any of your readers could tell me with whom originated the comparison of life to a game of chess played between man and his Maker. I am acquainted with Retsch's etching of 'The Game of Chess,' in which the players are man and the enemy of mankind ; but I feel sure I have also seen the former comparison. A similar idea is, of course, found in Omar Khayyam. C. M. HUDSON. PEEMONSTRATENSIAN ABBEYS.—There are, I understand, twenty-seven or twenty-nine of these abbeys in England. Can any reader of ' N. <k Q.' give a list of them ? A partial list was given some years ago in ' N. & Q.,' bat never completed. T. CANN HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A. Lancaster. THE NOTHE, WEYMOUTH. — Can any of your correspondents tell me the derivation of " The Nothe," Weymouth, where volunteers are now encamped .' E. S. C. PEERAGE TITLES : PECULIARITIES. — Is it known why the titles Earl of Devonshire (1618) and Duke of Devonshire (1694) were adopted 1 The Cavendishes appear to have had no family connexion with that county ; also the Duke does not possess a single acre of land in Devonshire. Their marquisate refers to Derbyshire (Hartington). We find in very many cases that titles and acreage do not go together. At the time of the creations of the Earl and Duke of Devonshire the ancient title Earl of Devon ^Devon- shire) was dormant. Again, the present title Earl of Derby is sometimes claimed for the county and also for the town _ of Derby. Has the title any connexion with Derbyshire ? Also, what reasons, if any, had Sir Thomas Osborne, the second baronet, afterwards the first Duke of Leeds (1694), which Mr. Burke ('Peerage') informs me refers to Kent, the English home for a long period of the Norman Osbornes, for taking as his first title that of the Scotch Dunblaine, and later, for his marquisate, that of the Welsh Carmarthen ? He surrendered the Dunblaine title, and it was conferred on his son Peregrine, who became the second Duke of Leeds. Lux. CUMBERLAND DIALECT.—The discussion on the word " lonning " (ante, p. 70) suggests a question and answer in the Cumbrian dialect, familiar to me over fifty years ago, through association with certain Cumberland lads. Not having seen the words in print, I give them as well as I can from sound : " Theeau thee [th sounded as in "think"] kittles, what mun ye do wi' it ? " " Scrat it.' Perhaps some reader will supply the trans- lation. HENRY SMYTH. Edgbaston. ROGER ASCHAM : " SCHEDULE." — What is the proper pronunciation of Ascham's name? Everybody in London calls him Asham, although I know in Yorkshire a firm of manu- facturers of the name of Askham. In connexion with this subject, I may state that I have heard Americans pronounce the word schedule as ikedule. They were people who would use the word every day in business. L. L. K. [In ' The Middle Temple Records' for 1554 the name is spelt Roger Assam. We are unfamiliar with the pronunciation you mention as customary in London.]