Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/15

 10 s. vii. JAN. 5, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

.as to " Potie Warden of the East Marches " (query, " Potie "=petit, minor or assistant). Perhaps some of your readers will be good enough to afford it. W. B. H.

^ADMIRAL BENBOW'S DEATH. The sub- joined is from ' Shropshire Notes and Queries,' Shrewsbury Chronicle, 29 Dec., 1905 :

" The Death of Admiral Benbow. A Song. 'The following ditty has been taken down from the lips of ' Old Jones,' the celebrated Hawkstone guide, who lately sang it to a quaint old tune. Are the words and music preserved in any published collection of sea songs ? This version is traditional in the family of Jones, who have held the office of Hawkstone guide for several generations. The present ' Old Jones,' when a boy, learnt the song from his father, and these two lives would carry back the date to the early part of the last century ; and, perhaps, two other lives would cover the interval after the making of the song. Admiral Benbow.

Come, all you seamen bold, Lend an ear lend an ear,

For it 's of an admiral's fame,

Brave old Benbow called by name,

How he fought upon the main, You shall hear you shall hear.

Brave Benbow he set sail,

For to fight for to fight ; Brave Benbow he set sail, And the French they did turn tail

In a fright in a fright.

.Says Corvey unto Webb,*

' I will run I will run For I value no disgrace, Nor the losing of my place, For my enemies I'll not face,

Nor their guns nor their guns.'

Brave Benbow lost one leg

By a chain-shot by a chain-shot

Brave Benbow lost one leg.

It 's your lot it 's your lot ! '
 * Oh, fight, my lads, I beg,


 * Come, doctor, dress my wounds !'

Benbow cried Benbow cried ;

On the quarter-deck be placed That my enemies I may face,
 * May the cradle now in haste

Till I die-till I die. 3

On Sunday morning soon,

Benbow diedf Benbow died. What a shocking sight to see, Poor old Benbow carried away, He was buried at Kingston Church, There he lies there he lies !"

HERBERT SOUTHAM.

" FIRGUNANUM." This is a word the solution of which I opine may be worth recording, on account of its peculiarity, and of its having cost me very much research to

" * Kirkby unto Wade. They were shot or .board the Bristol, at Plymouth, 16th April, 1703." "+4th Nov., 1702."

arrive at it. It was effected when I was almost au bout de mon latin, by a chance effort, and the kind aid of the late erudite President of the Royal Society of Anti- quaries of Ireland, Mr. John B. Garstin.

" Firgunanum " is the valediction closing an ' Account of St. Patrick's Purgatory in Lough Derg, County Donegal, and of the Pilgrims' Business There,' which was pub- iished on 1 Aug., 1701, by the Ven. Arch- deacon Michael Hewetson (Armagh), and is the Irishism of Firgananaim, a curious compound of Greek, Latin, and Irish. It means ** A man without a name " (vir, man ; gan, without ; a, a ; naim, name). It occurs In the Latin form " Inominatus " in mediaeval inscriptions, doing duty as a Christian name, as, for example, in the Hacket one at Fethard, co. Tipperary.

One might almost feel inclined to think that it could equally signify " anonymus," but it is not so, as the author had special reasons for using his own word, appropriate to his subject and the period when he wrote it. JOHN HEWETSON.

CHRIST'S HOSPITAL AT HERTFORD. The great accuracy and value of ' Chambers's Encyclopaedia ' make it desirable to point out a mistake occurring under ' Christ's Hospital,' vol. iii. p. 224, col. 1, where we read :

" In 1863 the governors built a preparatory school at Hertford, where the children are trained till they are advanced enough to be transferred to the London school."

The true date of the erection of the Hertford school is 1683, so that the mistake seems to have arisen from one of the most fruitful sources of printers' errors that of trans- position. W. T. LYNN.

" CHURCHYARD COUGH." I can remember when a good deal used to be said about those troubled with a deep and hollow sounding cough, a cough which people called " a churchyard cough," or, as some put it, "a grave-opener cough." Now and then the term is to be heard, but far less frequently than was the case fifty years ago. Many of the old bits of speech are dying out, and this seems to be one of them.

THOS. BATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

LONG PUBLIC SERVICE. At the age of eighty-three Alderman John Banks, J.P., was on 9 November elected for the sixth time Mayor of his native town of Folkestone, having held his seat in the Corporation con- tinuously from 1 November, 1857.

Pv. J. FYNMORE.