Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/453

 10 s. VIL MAY 11, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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was dead. But though signed by Robert Home Gordon who is designated in the text simply as " Robert Gordon " it was invalid because it was based on the assump- tion that Dr. John's brother George (d.s.p.), who left his property to the doctor and his sons, had made a second will for the benefit of his sisters. It was discovered, however, that this second will was never signed. In the divorce case of 1794 Robert Home Gordon is cited throughout as Robert Gordon. His sisters were Jane, who mar- ried Bailie Robert Murray, of Edinburgh, and died 1795 ; Catherine, who married

Munro, of Dalmore ; Elizabeth, who married George Mackenzie, factor to Sir H. Munro ; and three others whose names I do not know. Catherine's daughter married Alexander Smith, and became the mother of Katherine Gordon Smith, who married (1) Lieut.-Col. Ross, died at Badajos ; and (2) Major John Gordon, 2nd Queen's, the father of Lord Gordon of Drumearn. That is why Lord Gordon utilized the Embo coat when registering his arms.

J. M. BULLOCH.

118, Pall Mall.

' A SCOUBGE FOB, THE ASSIBIAN ' (10 S. vii.

208). The volume in the Bodleian to which my friend MB. DODGSON refers was pub- lished at Shrewsbury from the press of W. Laplain in 1770, at the instance of Thomas Meredith, a Methodist who had joined Howell Harris in his community at Trevecca, in Brecknockshire. Later he adopted An- tinomian and mystical views, and separated from Harris, returning to his home in Montgomeryshire, where he attempted to win converts to his views. To this end he caused to be printed ' A Scourge for the Assirian,' the work of William Erbury, a seventeenth-century Welsh mystic, together with some letters of Erbury and Morgan Llwyd (or Lloyd), of Wrexham, a contem- porary and friend of Erbury's. For Erbury and Llwyd see ' D.N.B.' There is a brief account of Meredith in * Montgomeryshire Worthies,' by Richard Williams, 2nd ed., Newtown, 1894. The book described by MB. DODGSON is fully entered in the ' Cata- logue of Printed Literature in the Welsh Department of the Cardiff Free Libraries ' (London, Sotheran & Co., 1898), under the heading Erbury. The subject of these seventeenth-century Welsh mystics is too large to be entered upon here, but it is a fascinating one. BB.

CABLYLE ON PAINTING FOAM (10 S. vii 310). The allusion seems to be to Proto-

genes, a painter of Rhodes, who lived in the fourth century B.C. He wished to paint a dog, frothing at the mouth, but was un- successful in painting the froth. In a fit of anger he threw his sponge at the picture. The sponge fell on the mouth of the dog in the most perfect and natural manner.
 * he picture, and represented the froth in

E. YABDLEY.

See Sterne, " that it was as casual as the foam of Zeuxis's horse " (' Tristram Shandy,' vol. ix. c. xxv.). W. BBADBBOOK.

Bletchley.

DANTEIANA (10 S. vii. 202, 251). MB. R. J. WALKEB'S interesting suggestion is worthy of careful consideration, and I have given it such. Yet I cannot, with the best will in the world to accept or weigh plausible interpretations, bring myself to read Mark x. 29-30 into the passage. The difference between " a thousandfold " and " a hundredfold " is immaterial ; but Dante's reference is more material, and relates either to the abbey or the proposed, but abortive, colony. Prebendary Ford's rendering gives, I think, the spirit, if not the letter, of the line : Above San Benedetto, from her head

Sounds thundering headlong to a base, just where

Full many, in truth, might well be hous d and fed. It is a question, it seems to me, rather of numerical accommodation (realized or other- wise) than one of spiritual emolument con- sequent upon a renunciation of earthly things. The suggestion, however, argues thought and ingenuity.

J. B. McGovEBN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

WOBPLE WAY (10 S. iv. 348, 396 ; vii. 233, 293). The inexactitude is on the part of MB. CLAYTON, who should verify his refer- ences before venturing into the Temple of Accuracy, i.e. ' N. & Q.' I have the map before me (Stanford's 'London,' 1st ed.) upon which are plainly marked Middle Walpole Lane and Lower Walpole Lane in Wimbledon. This is clear evidence that there were persons in the sixties who knew the roads by that name.

EDWABD SMITH.

NOTICES IN THE UNITED STATES AND SWITZEBLAND (10 S. vii. 287). With refer- ence to the curt notices instanced by MB. HEMS from America, the Swiss seem to have adopted the American system in trans- lating into English or American some of the notices to be seen at railway stations and elsewhere. Thus the notice begging