Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/46

 NOTES AND QUERIES. cio* s. v. JAN. 13, im

ROMNEY PORTRAIT (10 th S. iv. 410). The second wife of Nicholas Kempe, of the Mint and of the Villa, Chelsea, was Anne, daughter and coheir of Mr. Meriton, of Oxford. After the death of Nicholas Kempe, which occurred in 1774, she married Dixon, the mezzotint engraver. Her beauty attracted many men of considerable note in their day to the Villa, and the entertaining of these guests seems to have been the cause of financial difficulties. Nicholas had mortgaged his stipend as bullion porter at the Mint, but he managed to transfer his post to his son John, who thus partially paid his father's debts by service. The Gentleman's Magazine, in obituary notices of Nicholas Kempe and his relatives, states that the children were "shorn of their just expectations" by Nicholas in his infatuation for his second wife leaving the family estate and his personal property to her unreservedly. This is not in accordance with facts, for by his will (P.C.C. 233 Bargrave), proved in 1774, he left only the income from his residuary estate to his wife Anne, with remainder to his three sons James, John, and Thomas Limburnum Kempe. He had, it seems, no real estate to leave, but among his effects was a piano on which Haydn composed his early works. Alfred John Kempe, F.S.A., a writer and antiquary of importance in his day, was grandson of the above - named Nicholas. He, as well as his father, was for a time employed at the Mint, and died in 1840, leaving little but his good name as a provision for his issue. He was buried with his beloved sister, Ann Eliza Bray, in Fulham Churchyard, where their monument may be seen with the simple legend "Brother and sister."

Engravings after Romney of Mrs. Dixon are still obtainable. I do not know where the original Romney is, but believe that the Rev. John Edward Kempe has a miniature of the lady. FRED. HITCHIN-KEMP.

6, Beechfield Road, Catford, 8.E.

HERALDIC (10 th S. iv. 508). The nearest approach to the coat given by SADI to be found in Papworth's ' Ordinary ' is assigned to Cuily, co. Leicester, and is as follows : "Argent,. on a chevron between three mullets of six points, pierced sable, a besant." This coat is also given in Burke's ' General Armory ' with the date of grant, viz. 4 Henry II. S. D. C.

[MR. J. RADCLIFFE also refers the coat to Cuily.]

BELLS (10 th S. iv. 409). The bells in the south Norman tower of Exeter Cathedral built, with the corresponding one on the

north side, by William Warelwast, the blind nephew of William the Conqueror (Bishop of Exeter 1107-36) are reputed to be the heaviest ringing peal in the world. Their respective weights have been variously re- corded, and generally exaggerated ; but when Messrs. John Taylor & Co., the well-known bell-founders of Loughborough, put them in order a couple of years or so ago, the weights were obtained accurately, and may be de- finitely given as follows : No. 1, 7 cwt. 22 lb.; No. 2, 8 cwt, 3 qrs. 10 lb. ; No. 3, 8 cwt. 2 qrs.; No. 4, 10 cwt. Iqr. 2 lb. ; No. 5, 18 cwt. 4lb.; No. 6, 19 cwt. 19 lb. ; No. 7, 28 cwt. 4 lb. ; No. 8, 33 cwt. 2 qrs. 11 lb.; No. 9, 40 cwt. 3 qrs. 19 lb,; No. 10, 72 cwt. 2 qrs. 2lb.; No. 11 (the half tone), 11 cwt. Iqr. 8 lb. ; making a total of 258 cwt. 1 qr. 17 lb., i.e. 12 tons 18 cwt. Iqr. 17 lb.

No trustworthy record of the weight of the great bell known locally as Peter (originally at Llandaff), which hangs in stately solitude, in the opposite tower, can be quoted ; but Messrs. Taylor do not consider it would turn the scale at more than 80 cwt.

A story was long current (I had heard it from my youth) that the vibration, when the bells in the south tower were rung, was so great that it caused joints in the old masonry to open and shut so much so that the end of one's coat might, at times, be thrust between the stones. Hence in consequence of reputed danger to the fabric it was only on rare occasions the melodious notes of these bells were heard. When, therefore, on my first coming to Exeter in the sixties, I learned that on a given day a peal was to be rung, I hastened to the belfry, anxious to test the truth of the assertion. But the tradition appeared to be naught but a fairy tale. I could perceive no visible effect upon the massive stonework in question. HARRY HEMS,

Fair Park, Exeter.

The weights of the largest bells are given,

thorpe's

See also 'Church Bells' in The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, a series of articles published in pamphlet form in 1903.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Shrimpton's * Historical Handbook and Guide to Oxford,' 1878, p. 143, gives a list of fifty bells in different countries, from Russia's largest bell, 443,7721^, down to Beverley Minster, 5,000 lb., Great Tom of Oxford being 17,640 lb., and the thirty-first on the list.

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.