Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/431

 10 s. vii. MAY 4, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

355

satisfactory result, and induce readers to giv me the genealogical information sought for

J. F. FULLER. Brunswick Chambers, Dublin.

HURSTMONCEAUX : ITS PRONUNCIATIO

{10 S. vii. 248). Forty years ago, as far a I can recollect, the villagers (and the aris tocrats) used to speak of " Hurst-miinceys, while educated persons pronounced the nam " Hurst-mon-sew."

More curious is the question how s purely an English word as " Hurst " cam to be joined with so purely a French wor as "Monceaux"; cf. Pare Monceaux i Paris. Has it anything to do with monks Something might be found by MR. PLAT in Augustus Hare's amusing autobiography PHILIP NORTH.

Longmans' ' Gazetteer of the World gives the following pronunciation : " Hurst monceaux, or Herstmonceaux (hert'mon-su] Sussex."

The house of Hurst-Monceaux, erected b; Lord Dacre, Treasurer to Henry VI., wa formerly one of the finest castellated brick buildings in England ; but in 1777 the roo was taken down, and a great part destroyed though a considerable part of the walls, anc the towers and gateway, are still standing. ALFRED SYDNEY LEWIS. Library, Constitutional Club.

PACOLET (10 S. vii. 225). The scene is the library of Osbaldistone Hall, and the speaker Diana Vernon, the supposable date 1715:

"' Here is a letter,' she said, 'directed for you, Mr. Osbaldistone, very duly and distinctly ; but which, notwithstanding the caution of the person who wrote and addressed, might perhaps have never reached your hands, had it not fallen into the possession of a certain Pacolet, or enchanted dwarf of mine, whom, like all distressed damsels of romance, I retain in my secret service." 'Rob Roy,' chap. xvii.

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

CHARLES LAMB ON THICKNESSE'S 'FRANCE' (10 S. vii. 205, 274). Thomas Arthur, of 45, Booksellers' Row, catalogued this volume in 1864, and from this I transcribed the punning criticism by Lamb. Without actual examination it is difficult to discuss its authenticity, but at least it is possible that " Elia " would add such an inscription to a copy of this work. The bookseller was of good repute, and not more likely than any of his contemporaries to enhance fraudulently the value of his books. MAJOR BUTTER- WORTH will perhaps remember the man. Of

all the bibliopolists in that quaint little thoroughfare he had the most intimate knowledge of his trade, and therefore kept the best stock and issued the most interesting catalogues. Of his contemporaries, he can be compared with Lilly. Yet his first com- mercial venture was to keep a " hot-potato engine " in Clare Market ; and his first taste for books resulted from his being given a barrowful " of musty old books " when one of the fine old mansions in the neighbour- hood was about to be demolished. Sic itur ad astra. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

39, Hillmarton Road, N.

" PORTOBELLO " (10 S. vii. 88, 198, 277). The names about which the Rev. John Hodgson wrote (as mentioned at the last reference) were those of farms or homesteads adopted from some local peculiarity, or the occurrence of some striking event in British history. Portobello in Northumber- land is marked on Ordnance maps as a house or farm at Haltwhistle, in the south- west of the county a station on the New- castle and Carlisle Railway. Bartholomew's 'Gazetteer' (1904) names other Portp- bellos than the famous watering-place in Scotland, viz., two in England near Willing- hall Station, Staffordshire, and near Rot- tingdean, Sussex ; and one in Ireland a suburb of Dublin. RICHD. WELFORD.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

LUNAR HALO AND RAIN (10 S. vi. 265, 338, 412 ; vii. 193). A large number of 3Opular sayings on halos and the weather will be found in Richard Inwards's charming work ' Weather Lore.' ARTHUR MEE.

Cardiff.

AUSONE DE CHANCEL (10 S. vi. 166, 216,

233, 335 ; vii. 15). I had no wish to appear

' sceptical as to the existence of a letter

rom Leon de Montenaeken .... in The

Literary World." The information at first

given was not sufficiently exact to enable

ne to trace the number containing it, so I

asked for the reference. I must thank MR.

/URRY for taking the trouble to locate it

through the editor of that journal), and

ommunicating the result to the readers of

N. & Q.'

As interesting in connexion with the ideas xpressed, so felicitously and concisely, in j. de Montenaeken's poem, here are some nes from a small book called ' Fly Leaves,' ublished in 1854. It is there stated that lines have been extracted from a rare ttle volume in the editor's library, entitled Bristol Drollery : Poems and Songs,'