Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/257

 10 S. VII. MABCH Hi, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

209

Exchequer, who died in 1824, I am desirou,' of obtaining information as to the where abouts of a portrait of him that has beer lost sight of for many years. It is by Lonsdale, and represents him in full robes seated, holding a quill pen in the right hand the left resting on an open book. It was engraved by Hodgetts, and published by Sweet on 12 July, 1824 (five days after Sir George Wood's death). I have a copy of the engraving, and there is another in the National Portrait Gallery.

I should like to find the original portrait and shall be much obliged to any reader oJ ' N. & Q.' who can help me in the matter.

(Mrs.) D. TUCKER. 51, Belsize Park Gardens, N.W.

" GRINDY." A set of words familiar to me from childhood, used also in other parts of New England, and I find on inquiry familiar in the north of Ireland as well a plain survival on this side of the water, therefore has escaped the notice of every dictionary in existence, and every recorder even of dialectic usage, so far as I am aware This is " grindy " and its congeners, with the i short. It means " grimy " with special incidence : grime rubbed or ground in, as the dirt into a child's or a workman's grubby hands. This adjective has a noun companion, of which it rather seems to have been the progenitor, " grind," grime as before ; and a verb, " to grind " mostly used in the participle " grinded." " You have got the dirt all grinded in " was fairly common ; and " grindy hands " were almost as common in name as in fact. It seems odd that the word should so utterly have been left out of literature. The derivation I do not know. It may be simply from " grind," the shortening of the i being paralleled by " grindstone," mostly pronounced " grin- stun " in my neighbourhood ; yet I cannot think it probable that dirty hands would have been called " grindy " on the analogy above, unless the verbal form created the adjective. Could it be an old Teutonic " griindig " thus clipped, and the other forms outgrowths ? FORREST MORGAN. Hartford, Conn.

" PARAMOUDRA." In ' The Age of the Earth,' by W. J. Sollas, on p. 136 is this paragraph :

" These are known as pot-stones or paramon dras. The etymology of the last word is not clear. It is said that when Dean Buckland came across these objects in Antrim, he asked his guide what name they went by. The Irishman, who had heard the Dean calling stones by strange names, was equal to

the occasion, and invented ' paramoudra' without a moment's hesitation."

In the ' N.E.D.' paramoudra is " suggested by H. Norton to be Anglo-Irish corruption of Erse peura muireach (= sea-pears)." A quotation from Buckland shows that he " adopted the word because he found it thus appropriated," i.e., as a name " known at Belfast." But if Mr. Sollas's story is correct, is there not here a delightful case of Bill Stumps's mark ? H. K. ST. J. S.

STURMY OR ESTURMY FAMILY. (See 4 S. i. 606.) I should be obliged if any reader could give me the reference to a note on this family which appeared, I believe, in an earlier series than the above ; also for any particulars of the Yorkshire branch of the Sturmys. I am acquainted with the pedi- gree in Graves's ' Hist, of Cleveland.'

H. D.

[We cannot trace either form of the name in the General Indexes to the first three Series.]

PALJEOLOGUS IN THE WEST INDIES. Last year, cruising about in the West Indies, I met a fellow-traveller, Col. Ward, who told me that in one of the islands (I think Antigua) he had seen in some church the tomb of the last surviving descendant of the Greek Emperors, and that the rector of the parish was seeking funds for its repair. I am sure that I could not have dreamt this, and am only uncertain as to the precise island. What was the Palaeologus doing " in that galley " ? FRANCIS KING.

" BADGER'S BUSH " OR " BEGGAR'S BUSH" [NN. An old pewter tankard of the time of William III., in my possession, is inscribed " at ye Bager's Bush in Grauel Leane " [sic]. Can any reader inform me of any record or reference relating to this sign ? I have not n able to trace the badger in any record of inn or tavern signs. There is a play of Beaumont and Fletcher called ' The Beg- gars' Bush.' Is it possible that this could lave once been used as a tavern sign, for hich this inscription might be intended ? C. V. H. S.

" LESBIAN LEAD." What is the meaning

f this expression, used by Mr. Andrew Lang

n his sonnet on Homeric unity prefixed to

he translation of the ' Iliad ' by Lang, Leaf,

and Myers ? In another version of the

onnet the expression used is " tool of lead."

J. B. DOUGLAS.

MANTELPIECE. I should be glad of any uggestions with regard to an old pro- ably sixteenth-century mantelpiece in the