Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/468

 386 NOTES AND QUERIES. letters, playbills, and a number of other items appertaining to the theatre, which I shall be pleased to show any one interested. ALECK ABRAHAMS. 39, Hillmarton Road, N. [The same information is contained in the account of the Strand Theatre supplied by E. L. Blanchard to the ' Era Almanack' of 1872.] " THE VOUCHSAFE OF YOUR REFUTE."—Sir Thomas Browne's letter to Sir Kenelm Digby regarding the possibility of Digby's criticism of the ' Religio Medici' closes thus :— " However yon shall determine, you shall suffi- ciently honour me in the vouchsafe of your refute, and I oblige the whole world in the occasion of your pen." In this neat and pithy compliment it is curious to find in one phrase two words that have ceased to be used as substantives. Some dictionaries recognize " refute " in its ancient character, duly distinguishing it by their stigma for antiquity ; but " vouchsafe " as a noun would appear to have escaped the research of the compiler. THOMAS BAYNE. [The ' N.E.D.' has only two illustrations of refute used for refutation: one from Sir T. Browne's J. Sergeant, 1657.] MULBERRY AND QUINCE.—Visiting a friend who has recently settled in Warwickshire, I had my attention called to a fine old mulberry in his grounds. An admirer of the tree had puzzled iny host by the sudden question, "Where's the quince?" He was quickly enlightened. " Why, don't you know? A quince must always be planted near a mulberry, or ill-luck will cling to the house." An anxious search was made immediately, and, but a few yards distant, a quince was found, probably coeval, but so smothered by •evergreens that its stunted trunk had only a few sickly branches remaining. Still, it was a veritable quince, and the situation was «ayed. Is this superstition peculiar to the Midlands, or does it obtain elsewhere 1 Any hint of the possible origin will bo welcome. I have consulted all the Indexes to' N. & Q.' {folk-lore), but can trace no reference to the •connexion of these trees. There is, however, a note of a curious gift of quinces at an English wedding in 1725, which the con- tributor associates with the ancient Greek custom that the bride and bridegroom should •eat a quince together (1st S. iii. 20). CHAS. GILLMAN. Church Fields, Salisbury. WHEATSTONE. — It is stated in the bio- graphies of Sir Charles Wheatstone that his first venture was a music shop. 1 have just come across the following piece of music at the British Museum, the publisher of which, I think, might be Sir Charles :— La fantaisie a rondo for the piano forte commied by J. Rampini. London published by C. What- stone ft Co. 436 Strand. The date conjecturally assigned to it is 1815, which would be several years too early, as the discoverer of the electric telegraph was not born till 1802. RALPH THOMAS. SEVEN SACRAMENT FONTS. — Gorleaton Church, it is worth remarking, boasts one of these excessively rare fonts, and the fact, if not already recorded, merits a place in the memorials of ' N. & Q.' Originally the eight sides of the monument were filled with rich sculpture in high relief of the fifteenth century, which even survived the ruin of the Reformation, until they were destroyed by the notorious Will Dowsing, whom every East Anglian antiquary has learnt to execrate. Practically effaced as the carved work now is, it is still possible to identify each sacra- mental subject represented. I wonder if this is the solitary instance in England of a foot of the kind. F. K. FLIES IN COFFIN. — Many years ago a surgeon of this neighbourhood, who is now dead, told me that he had been present at an inquest, held in a village near here, on the body of a young woman very recently buried, which the coroner had ordered to be ex- hutned. When the coffin was opened a large number of very small flies flew out. He was anxious to know how they came to be there. It occurred to me that if the coffin were made of elm, as it probably was, they might have been in what our carpenters call " worm holes" in the wood, or possibly in the material which formed the mattress or packing on which the body rested. -My attention has been recalled to the sub- ject by my having come upon the following passage in Southey's ' Omniana,' 1812, vol. L p. 75 :— ' When the French, in their war with Pedro of Aragon, took Gerona, a swarm of white dies is said a have proceeded from the body of St. Narcis in the church of St. Phelin (I copy the names as they stand in the Catalan author), which stun); the french, and occasioned such a mortality that they evacuated the city. This is so extraordinary • uiracle that there is probably some truth in it, Because miracle-mongers have never the least in- vention, and because a curious fact in confirmation of it is to be found in The Monthly Mayazinf for December, 1805. In preparing for the foundation of the new church at Lewes it beoame necessary to disturb the mouldering bones of the long defunct, and in the prosecution of that unavoidable business
 * Pseudodoxia Epidemica,' 1646, and the other from