Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/21

 io s. vm. JULY 6, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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that Boothby took the name of Clopton on succeeding to the old lady's estate, am continues :

" He dissipated three fortunes, and finally put a end to his life at his house in Clarges Street in July 1800. He was brother-in-law to Hugo Meynell."

Thomas Raikes ('Journal,' iii. 80) note that Boothby

" shot himself in his room, because he was tired o dressing and undressing, but more, I believe, fron ruined circumstances."

R. L. MOBETON.

"MABEBOAKE": " VIEBE " (10 S. vii 448). It is certain that mareboake is .spelling of mere-balk, a balk serving as a boundary ; see ' Mere ' in ' N.E.D.,' anc ' Mearbalk ' in ' E.D.D.'

I should guess viere, or rather veare, to bi the same word as fare, a track. ' N.E.D. has fare, a road, track (obsolete) ; and fare a track of a hare or rabbit (obsolete, except in dialects). The 'E.D.D.' has: "Fare, a footmark, the track, trace of a hare or rabbit

WALTEB W. SKEAT.

Merebook, a book describing the meres or boundaries. W. D. MACBAY.

Mareboake is apparently =" mere-balk,' boundary ridge left in ploughing.

Viere is furrow ; cf. O.E. fyrh, dat. of furh, and veering, id., in Halliwell.

H. P. L.

[W. C. B. refers also to the 'N.E.D. 'and Halli- well.]

BUNYAN AND MlLTON GENEALOGIES (10

S. vii. 329). A middle-aged man possessed of distinct individuality, named John Bun- yan, who claimed to be a direct descendant of the author of ' The Pilgrim's Progress,' was in my late father's employ as a porter from 1841 until 1855. Those were the days when men of that class were accustomed to wear what were called " knots " upon their shoulders the better by so doing to bear the heavy burdens then usually carried. The same kind of knots may still be seen in use at Billingsgate.

My father's place was at 39, Upper Street, [slington, N. In the early forties the thoroughfare i.e., extending from the corner of Liverpool (formerly Back) Road, so far as Islington Green was known as Hedge Row. It afterwards became High 'Street, but for many years has now been incorporated with the Upper Street.

Our Bunyan was a tinker by trade, and asserted that his ancestors had always followed the same modest vocation. I entertain vivid remembrances of him as

he was then, a rather short man, possessed of an exceptionally large and intellectual head. Rarely wearing a coat, and with shirtsleeves turned up to the armpits, he was proud of displaying very hairy arms. He suffered from a bad impediment in his speech, but, for all that, was exceedingly fond of reciting, with much dramatic action, lengthy quotations from Shakespeare. Bunyan resided in a low court (happily now swept away) leading out of Essex (then the Lower) Road, Islington, exactly opposite to Cross Street. It was an alley almost entirely inhabited by a rough type of poor Irish. The last time I saw him was in the middle of the sixties, and I heard that he passed away a few years later.

HABBY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.

"BAT BEABAWAY " (10 S. vii. 168, 258). I remember having read in Herbert Spencer's ' Principles of Sociology,' vol. i., a paragraph devoted to the superstition that associates bats with human souls.

According to a Chinese work, ' Sin-i-pi- king,' after a bat is a hundred years old, it is in the habit of inhaling man's vital essence in order to obtain longevity ; and when it attains its tercentenary, it is thereby enabled to assume human shape and to fly about for amusement in the various heavens, that is, the Taoist paradise.

Another Chinese work, ' Yu-ming-luh,' by Liu I-King, of the fifth century A.D., gives an instance of a diabolical bat carrying away human hair. The story runs :

"About the beginning of the Tsung dynasty 421 A.D.), it happened in the province of Hui-nan ihat nightly an unknown being came to cut off nany persons' hair. Chu Tan, the governor, saying le knew how to discover it, daubed walls with bird- ime in good quantity. That evening a bat, as big as a cock, was thus caught. Killing the animal, he lut a stop to the mischief, and, after searching, found he locks of several hundred men, which it had Accumulated under rafters." 'Yuen-kien-lui-han,' 703.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

" SKBIMSHANDEB " (10 S. vi. 150, 232, J55, 517). The surname of Scrimshaw, rom which this word is said to be derived, s certainly a mere variation of Skrymsher. A fortnight before his death Dr. Johnson vrote to Dr. Vyse, asking for information ,bout " Charles Scrimshaw," to whom he laimed to be " very nearly related." In ny book on ' The Reades of Blackwood Hill .nd Dr. Johnson's Ancestry ' I have shown bat the individual inquired about was