Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/301

 10 S. VII. MAKCH 30, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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all that appertained to me under the title of a simple citizen. There is no property more precious than liberty, and yet it has been taken from me for three months past, when I have been detained in a honse of arrest, always claiming and sighing for it, the barrack of the Rue de Seve, having unceasingly claimed it without having been able to obtain it ; but to-day my soul entertains the full hope I have some hope, since the National Convention, after having favourably received a memorial that I addressed to it the 26 Frimaire last, has sent it to the Committees of Public Health and Safety as if received. The registered memorial which contains the proofs of the desire that I have long felt to render myself worthy of the glorious title of the dependant and ally of the French nation, which I hare enjoyed during the space of more than 60 years, and the justice which animates the members of the two Committees to which my appeal has it has been sent, are to me a certain presage that I shall obtain the safe favour which I solicit from the generosity of the nation, and which is contained expressed in my letter to the Citizen President of the National Convention, of which I add a copy.

Permit me, Citizen, to appeal to your help in this matter, and I pray you to remind the Committees of Public Health and Safety, of which you are a member, of the right that yon have recognized me to hare of claiming the protection, the mfegard, the generosity, I may say, the justice of the nation, my ancient a/It/, of that which you have said in regard to me in your Report to the National Convention, and deign to assure them in my name that I defy any one to prove that my sincere attitude towards the French nation has ever failed for a single instant.

Metivier says the Prince was arrested 28 Sept., 1793, and liberated 28 July, 1794 (' Monaco et ses Princes,' 1862, vol. ii. p. 96) ; and Pemberton mentions that he died at his house in the Rue Varennes, Paris, 12 March, 1795, his life shortened by the hardships of his captivity (' History of Monaco,' 1867, p. 217). D. J.

" FRIEZE " : ITS PRONUNCIATION. The usual pronunciation of the kind of cloth called " frieze " is " freeze " ; the name Friesland has the same sound. Apparently this was not always so ; witness the follow- ing :

Cloth of gold, do not despise

To match thyself with cloth of frieze.

Cloth of frieze, be not too bold,

Though thou art matched to cloth of gold.

Presumably this is intended as an admoni- tion to those of high and low degree re- spectively. Pv. S. B.

YORK'S " OLDEST INHABITANTS." The notes which have appeared recently on ' The Old Highlander ' (see ante, pp. 47, 92) remind one of the description of the figure of the Wooden Midshipman which decorated the shop of old Sol Gills, the nautical- instrument maker, as recorded in ' Dombey

and Son,' and for which he had so strong an affection. With this Phiz has made us acquainted.

In York there was an " old inhabitant " familiar to me from early days : the figure of Napoleon I., standing upright, about life size, in uniform, taking a pinch of snuff, at the door of a tobacconist's shop in Micklegate. This was supposed to repre- sent him when going to fight the battle of Marengo in 1800, and formed one of the prized lares et penates of the proprietor.

Over the projecting clock at St. Martin's,. Coney Street, in the same city, was the small figure of a naval officer taking an observa- tion, which represented, I suppose, some local celebrity or benefactor.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

CARDINALS WISEMAN AND MANNING r INSCRIPTIONS ON THEIR COFFINS. The fol- lowing inscriptions, which were revealed when the coffins of Cardinals Wiseman and Manning were removed from Kensal Green Cemetery to the crypt of Westminster Cathedral in January, are worthy, I think, of record in the pages of ' N. & Q.'

On Cardinal Wiseman's coffin :

"E'mus et R'musDominus Nicolaus, Tit. S. Pru- dentiana? S.R.E. Presb. Card. Wiseman, Primus Archiepiscopus Westmonasteriensis. Natus die 2 Augusti, 1802; cpnsecratus die 8 Junii, 1840. Obiit die 15 Februarii, 1865. Orate pro eo." On that of Cardinal Manning : "Henricus Eduardus Cardinalis Mannine, Archiepiscopus Westmoriast. II., Natus die 15 Julii, 1808, Archiepiscopus Conseeratus die 8 Junii, 1865, S.R.E. Presbyter Cardinalis creatus die 15 Martii, 1875. Post Vitam Sanctam in terra, ad vitam seternam transivit die 14 Januarii, 1892. R.LP."

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

SIMPSON'S RESTAURANT : GUESSING THE CHEESE. The following paragraph, which has appeared in several papers, records some odd customs at Simpson's Restaurant in the Strand :

"An interesting custom is observed every day at Simpson's in connexion with the fish luncheon. The luncheon consists of soup, four sorts of fish, a joint, and cheese. Immediately after grace which is said every day the permanent chairman, Mr. Shelton, invites the company to guess the height* girth, and weight of the portion of cheese before; him, which stands on a pedestal cut from the- wood of the old Victory. Should any one guess; correctly, the proprietor has to provide champagne and cigars for all. This custom has been observed ever since 1725. The names of those who have guessed correctly in recent years are engaved on a silver plate on the Victory pedestal. Since 1887 only six have been correct in all three answers*