Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/13

 10 s. viii. JULY 6, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

to him, and to assure him that I keep his Welch chronicle untouched, and uncopied with the excep- tion only of some few dates, which I think he gave mie permission to use.

I have the honour to he, dear Sir, with sincere regard, y r devoted and obed' hble. servt.,

CH. O'CoxoR.

Dimensions of Stowe Great Library above : length, 75 ft. ; breadth, 25 ft. Number of books .and books of prints above stairs, 21,000.

Below stairs : Gothic Room or MS. Room. ^Dimensions omitted.] Number of MSS., 2,000.

The Ebony chairs were purchased at Antwerp ; they were Rubens's, and are beautifully carved in festoons, wreaths of flowers, &c., &c. I cannot be more accurate. Who carved them I cannot dis- cover ; but the workmanship is worthy of such a possessor as Rubens. My 2 11 vol. \vill come out immediately after my catalogue is completed and an Irish map of the Middle Ages engraved.

There is no identification of the person addressed in the letter, but the most obvious suggestion is Joseph Nash or George Lips- comb. The chairs referred to occurred in the sale as lots 2500, 2501, 2502, 2504, and 2505, and " are said to have formerly belonged to Sir P. P. Rubens, and to have been brought from his house at Antwerp."

Mr. William Gosling, the banker of Fleet Street, visited Stowe in May, 1814, and made a number of pen-and-ink drawings in the house and grounds.

ALECK ABRAHAMS

" POPULAR ETYMOLOGIES " OF THE OLD HOMILISTS. Dr. Richard Morris in his Introduction (p. ix) to ' Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century,' Second Series ((E.E.T.S.), gives several illustrations of the above : e.g., " King " from kennen (to direct) ; "' housel " f rom hu sel( how good) ; "Easter " from (1) ar'ist (arising), (2) este (dainty).

More than two hundred years later there will be found in the homilies in ' Mirk's Festial ' " Schere Thursday " from scheren (" for men. . . .wold ]>at day make scher horn honest, and dodde hor heddys, and clyp hor berdys, and so make horn onest a^eynes Astyr-day"); and "Astyr-day " (i.e., Easter), from astyr (hearth), for on that day it was the custom " forto do fyre out of )>e hall at ]>e astyr." The late MR. F. ADAMS pointed out at 9 S. vi. 425, under '"Astre" = Hearth,' that this earlier quotation, by some 100 years, had been overlooked in the compilation of the ' N.E.D.' H. P. L.

" NEITHER MY EYE NOR MY ELBOW." I have never heard this phrase except from Derbyshire folks. It is used as a comment on an unsatisfactory answer, promise, or arrangement, as "It's neither my eye nor my elbow "neither the one thing nor the other. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

SIR CLAUDE CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY'S MONUMENT. Can any one give me the wording of the inscription formerly on the monument to Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny in the churchyard of the parish chapel of St. Marylebone ? In Stowe's ' Survey of London,' ed. Strype, 1720, vol. ii., appendix i., p. 137, the inscription reads :

"Hie jacet Claudius Champion de Crespigny e Gallia natali solo pro fide prot'ugus animam Deo reddidit anno setatis LXXV. salutis MDCXCV. Apr. 10."

On the present stone there has been a longer inscription, which has become so effaced as to be hardly legible. It begins :

Hie jacet in fornice Claudius Champion

de Crespigny Et Maria de V ierville

Ejus uxor Gallia persecutione profugus.

I desire the complete inscription.

ARTHUR F. G. LEVESON-GOWER. 31, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, W.

" LOMBARD STREET TO A CHINA ORANGE." Can you inform me if the correct saying should not be " Lombard Street to a Cheyne Row orange " ? I have been told that orange trees were first planted in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, to see if they would bear fruit the result being unsatisfactory, black, little, hard balls, so to speak, and entirely useless. I have been given to understand that the latter saying is the correct one, and that the former " China orange" is really a corruption of "Cheyne Row orange." MARK KEBBELL.

Wellington, N.Z.

[The version of the proverb quoted by our New Zealand correspondent is not familiar to us. At 5 S. i. 337 MR. JOHN ADDIS suggested that in the proverb "All Lombard Street to a China orange" the " enormous riches of Lombard Street are con- trasted with the worthlessness of a China orange, the China orange, as it appears, being a fruit of inferior size and quality, and held in no esteem by the Chinese themselves." MR. E. LEATON BLEN- KINSOPP at 5 S. iv. 17 showed that the proverb appeared as "All Lombard Street to an eggshell" in Arthur Murphy's farce 'The Citizen,' Act II. sc. i. (a work published in 1763, according to Mr. Knight's notice of Murphy in the 'D.N.B.'). MB. LEATON BLENKINSOPP added: "Why are the best oranges called ' China oranges ' when none come from China ?" As to the confusion between Cheyne