Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/86

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. v. to. 27, im.

and his brother John, who was the grand- father of Mr. J. H. Bulloch, that they could write their names on a wall with chalk while a, 56-lb. weight was hanging on to their little finger. ^ Another Archibald Bulloch, farmer at Brainget, Stirlingshire, early in last cen- tury, was rioted for his strength. From a manuscript autobiography written by my grandfather, whose family also came from Baldernock, I find that his uncle James Bulloch^ 13 bh Dragoons, who was killed in the Peninsular War, was " a very gigantic, strong-built man, 6ft. 4 in. in height." He was said to be a full yard across the shoulders. His brother William Bulloch, who enlisted in the H.L.L in 1806, and was wounded at Vittoria, was " so tall and stout that he passed muster at the age of fifteen for a lad of eighteen." Many a time, when the 13th Dragoons and his regiment met, " he was pointed out as the brother of James Bulloch, the tall swordsman." He could "lift up a cask weighing 4cwt. and place it on a vehicle." In Highland tradition the Ballochs (it was thus the name was origin- ally spelt) were famous for their strength. Thus (according to The Celtic Magazine), Alastair Balloch, of Strathnaver (/. 1437), was a man of "enormous strength and stature." These coincidences of a family characteristic which is so well exemplified in President Koosevelt, while proving nothing in the way of descent, are interesting.

J. M. BQLLOCH. 118, Pall Mall.

" TOPINAMBOU." This odd name for the Jerusalem artichoke is rather French than English, but it is used by some of our seventeenth-century authors. John Davies, of Kid welly, in his * History of the Caribby Islands,' 1666, p. 56, says : " These Topin- ambous or Artichokes, which are now not only very common in most parts, but cheap, and slighted, as being a treatment for the poorer sort, were heretofore accounted deli- cacies." I cannot find the term in any Eng- lish dictionary. It is unique from a philo- logical point of view, as it is really the name of a tribe of Brazilian Indians (see Littre). The French seem to have transferred it from the eaters to their staple diet, much as we transfer the surname "Murphy" to the potato. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

LINK WITH SCOTT. In its "occasional verse " this month, Chamber s Journal, which happily maintains its popularity, prints a poem entitled * Holiday,' which is of unique interest as coming from the pen of a resident in Edinburgh who is approaching his ninety-

fifth birthday. The reminiscences of the nonagenarian, Mr. George Croal, who was a journalist and is the father of journalists, include visits to James Hogg in his native Ettrick, and commendation from Sir Walter Scott, to whom he played some Scottish airs at Abbotsford. Mr. Croal, too, heard and he must be the only person now living who has this memory Sir Walter avow himself the author of the Waverley Novels. With the following cheery outlook his poem closes :

Blest spirit with the one thing needful fraught, By grace of Heaven thy utterance is taught ; ' Welcome the blessed hour, come when it may, Which brings the Everlasting Holiday."

J.

THOMAS HEARNE'S TOMB. (See 9 th S. iv. 142) MR. PICKFORD, and possibly others, may be glad to know that, by the exertions, and largely at the expense of the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society aided by contributions from the Oxford University Antiquarian Society and from several private individuals the tomb was last year rebuilt, and the inscription was recut on a stone which looks likely to preserve the antiquary's memory for some generations. ROBT. J. WHITWELL.

BREAM'S BUILDINGS. (See 9 th S.x. 407.) Here are two more notes for the repeopling of a street which interests us all :

Henry Collier, of Bream's Buildings, near Red Lion Square, died 13 August, 1743 (Musgrave's ' Obituary,' ii. 42).

In 1751 Ant. Allen, Master in Chancery, had his office in Bream's Buildings (Rider's 'Almanack,* 112). W. C. B.

" HOAST." In The Pall Mall Magazine for January, p. 25, the author of a lyric entitled 'The Little Toun' explains that the word " hoast," to which he gives prominence, is "a name applied in Scots dialect to the half- suppressed cough which denotes derision or contempt." This may be true so far as it goes, but it is not a definition. One might as well tell a Scotsman that an English luminary is none other than that which he recognizes under the name of a farthing candle. A "hoast," indeed, is at times any- thing but "half-suppressed," and it maybe infinitely distressing. In his ' King Hart,' ii. 75, Gavin Douglas links it with headache and palsy as a subtle and strenuous disinte-

g rating force. According to the historian alderwood, John Knox in his latter days " became so feeble with a hoast that he could not continue his ordinar task of reading the Scripture." Burns in his 'Epistle to James