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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vn. JUNE 29, 1907.

ferred on him as an honoured guest. Less

favoured persons had only an allotted

portion of meat and drink at feasts :-

 s 7r / ty 10 Tit'tv ore "Yet your cup stands always full, as mine does, to take a drink, whenever your humour inclines you."

This was the sort of arrangement after- wards desiderated by Mrs. Gamp :

"Don't ask me whether I won't take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottle on the chimley- piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged." 'Martin Chuzzle wit,' chap. xix.

JOHN WILLCOCK. Lerwick.

BIRCH-SAP WINE : ITS MANUFACTURE. <See 9 S. xi. 467 ; xii. 50, 296 ; 10 S. i. 18, 98.) On p. 109 of ' A Treatise on Dry Rot,' by Ambrose Bowden (London, 1815), there is the following allusion to this subject :

" Early in the Spring, when little or no sap had as yet entered the plant, Dr. Hope made a number of incisions of different altitudes into the root and stem of a birch tree. As the sap rose, it first flowed from the superior margin of the lowest incision, and then in regular succession, from the upper margins of the other incisions, until, at last, it reached the highest. It will be very apparent that these juices are not merely the succus communis, but that they also consist of succus proprius ; for the Spring is chosen as the bleeding season, not only because the juices are obtained, as they rise in great abundance ; but because they then contain their peculiar quali- ties in greater energy ; and whether the sap of the fir be required, for the manufacture of turpentine ; that of the maple, for sugar ; or that of the birch, for wine ; the time most proper for obtaining this sap is when they [sic] ascend fresh from the roots." A foot-note on p. 109, referring to what immediately precedes, says :

"It is asserted that the juices which are caught in the bleeding season from the birch, exceed the weight of the whole tree, including branches and every other part."

The name of the birch in Baskish is urki, which apparently means " water-stock," refers to its sappiness. A connexion with Latin urceus, urceum, orca, Greek vp\a= a water vessel, is not quite out of the question. EDWARD S. DODGSON.
 * ' water-producer," from ur= water, and

KENNETT ARMS. Kennett of Sellendge, in Kent, and of Coxhoe, co. Pal. Durham Surtees, pedigree, p. 72, commencing with Reginald Kennett (said to be descended from Kennetbury, in Berks), Gentleman Huisher to Edward IV. Arms, Quarterly gules and or, a label of three points. , Dr. White Kennett, born at Dover, Bishop of Peterborough, had two book-plates,

copies of which were kindly sent to me by the late Mr. James Roberts Brown : 1. Quarterly, or and gu., label of three points (about 1720). 2. Quarterly or and gu., a label of three points in chief, each point charged with three bezants in pale. Mr. Brown mentioned that Harris's ' History of Kent,' pub. 1719, to which Dr. Kennett subscribed, had the arms of some of the subscribers, Kennett's being Quarterly or and gu., three bezants counterchanged.

Brackley Kennett, Lord Mayor of London 1780, according to Burke' s ' General Armory,' third ed., bore Quarterly or and gules, a label of three points in chief sa., each point charged with three bezants in pale.

Benjamin Kennett (see 10 S. vii. 127) in 1807 had arms confirmed, Quarterly or and gu., in first and fourth quarters a pheon.

From the above it may be inferred that the bishop, the Lord Mayor, and the grantee of 1807, had each satisfactorily proved descent from the first-named Reginald Kennett.

In Archceologia Cantiana, vol. xv. p. 14, there is an earlier and totally different coat, namely, Or, three (?) talbots passant, 2 and 3, gules, borne by N. de Kenet in Matthew Paris' s collection of arms.

R. J. FYNMORE. Sandgate.

EPIGRAM ON FERDINAND I., KING or THE Two SICILIES, 1751-1825. Ferdinand, the father of Bomba, King of Naples, succeeded his father Charles III. as Ferdinand IV., King of Naples ; he afterwards assumed the title of Ferdinand III., King of Naples and Sicily ; and ultimately called himself by royal decree, in 1816, Ferdinand I., King of the Two Sicilies. These changes of name occasioned the following epigram : Era quarto, e ppi fu terzo, E divenne poi primiero, E se coil tin ua lo scherzo Finera per esser' zero. This may be roughly translated :

He first was fourth and then was third, And then advanced to first, our hero ; If it goes on, this game absurd

Will end in his becoming zero. The epigrammist was very nearly an actual prophet : Ferdinand I. did not, it is true, fall to zero, but Francis II., of infamous memory, did when, in 1861, Gaeta fell, and with it the Bourbon dynasty.

JOHN HEBB.

CHATTERTON IN LONDON. Now that tablets are being placed not only on the