Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/500

 414 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. iv. NOT. w. MB. monument. One can see no greater difficulty in Kit's Coty House, i.e., the cotty or cottage- house of Kit, being a sepulchral monument and a corruption of CViiigernus, than in the very modern-sounding Wayland Smith's Cave at Ashbury, on the western boundaries of Berkshire, having been, in Saxon times, but not originally, Welandes Smiththan (Weland's smithy or forge), for thus it is said to be mentioned in a deed of conveyance, the only monument of its kind directly named in an Anglo-Saxon document before the Conquest. The following are the words of Stow, whose allusion to a "coit's cast" might also be noted in connexion with MR. J. F. MARSH'S suggestions with regard to the Celtic coeten= a quoit, at 5th S. x. 50 :— " There was also slaine in the same battaile at Aeglesthorpe, Catigerne, brother to Vortimer, •whose monument remaineth till this day, on a great plaine heath in the parish of Aelsford, and is now corruptly called Cits cotihous, for Catigernea (I have my selfe in companie of divers worshipful and learned Gentlemen beheld it in Anno 1590), and is •of foure flat stones, one of them standing upright in the middle of 2 other, inclosing the edge sides of the first, and the fourth layd flat aloft the other three : and is of such height, that menne may stand on eyther side the middle stone in time of storme or tempest, safe from wind or rayne, being defended with the bredth of the stones, as having one at their backes, one on eyther side, and the fourth over their heads. And about one coits cast from this monument lyeth another great stone, much part thereof in the ground, as fallen down where the same had beene bxed." There is an illustration of Kit's Coty House in The Queen, 20 October, 1900. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. CHESHIRE WORDS (10th S. iv. 203, 332).—It is perhaps worth noting that " trapesing " is a word of two syllables (infinitive " to trapes"). By those who do not know the •word in use it might be supposed to have a pronunciation similar to that of Rhodesia. ROBERT PIERPOINT. FARRELL OK THE PAVILION THEATRE (10th S. iii. 188, 252).—MR. C. G. SMITHERS, at the latter reference, deplores the disappearance of the publications of the juvenile or toy theatre, and states that the British Museum has no collection of them. He can be re- assured on both points. Within the last few months the writer has looked through no fewer than forty thousand sheets of portraits and plays by the Skelts, Park. Green, Hodgson, and others, and thousands more are avail- able to the judicious inquirer. The task of looking over them is, however, almost as arduous as the study of the fiscal question or the reform of the War Office. There are several complete private collections of these prints, and the writer has a good many thou- sands, which are open to MR. SMITHEBS'S inspection. There is a large, but very incom- plete, collection in the Print - Room of the British Museum ; and in the Reading-Room are many of the books of words. These prints and plays are too much despised by superior persons ; their value mainly rest* in the fact that they are the only delineations of the actors, dresses, and scenery of many famous plays of the first half of the last cen- tury. The drawings for many of the prints were made at the theatres during perform- ance. Such original drawings are in the Museum collection. W. SANDFORD. 13, Ferndale Road, Claphara, S.W. GREAT QUEEN STREET, No. 56 (10th S. iv. 326). —If MR. HEBB had looked up the original quotation he would have seen that it runs:— "A house was hired It was handsomely fur- nished, and contained many valuable pictures by various masters. I resided with mv mother. Mr. Robinson continued at the house of Messrs. Yernon & Elderton in Southampton Buildings." Robinson was an articled clerk, and the marriage had not been avowed. Robinson had represented himself as heir to his uncle; hence, no doubt, the taking of an expensive and fashionable house. T. TURNEB. ENGLISH POETS AND THE ARMADA (10*5. iv. 346). — The best poem written on in English victory is Campbell's ' Battle of the Baltic.' That was not a belated memorial It would be strange if it had escaped ob*er- vation in a review of poems of this sort Byron's stanzas on Waterloo, though a part of ' Childe Harold,' should be mentioned, I think, in such a review. Addison's 'Cam- paign ' may be depreciated ; but there is » line in it which has become a part of the language :— Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm. Few of these poems have achieved such » success as this. E. YABDLET. LAMB'S GRANDMOTHER (10th S. iv. 328).—No doubt the correct date of the death of Mrs- Field is that which is recorded on her tomb- stone—viz., 31 July, 1792. Canon Aingeri statement that she died on 5 August is evi- dently an error. When he visited Widford in 1881 the inscription on the gravestone «M almost illegible. Some time afterwards I assisted my friend the Rev. J. Traviss Lock- wood, the rector of Widford, to clean the stone, and then it revealed a clearly cut inscription "To the Memory of Mrs. JUry Feild," not Field. The spelling of the mt- name must have been an error on the part«