Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/381

 10 s. vm. OCT. 19, loo?.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

315

the aspen tree ; and, ever since the Cruci- fixion, the leaves of this tree have trembled in commemoration of the dire event.

Some time ago, the immunity of the laurel from injury by lightning was men- tioned in ' N. & Q.,' and some illustrative quotations were given. The following, how- ever, are new. In Corneille's tragedy of ' The Cid ' there is a reference to this virtue of the laurel, where the count is warned not to trust too much to his glory shielding him from harm : Tout convert de lauriers, craignez encor la foudre.

In Cowper's ' Table Talk ' is the line : The laurel, that the very lightning spares. E. YABDLEY.

I remember being told, " when that I was and a little tiny boy," that an elder tree was always safe shelter in a thunderstorm ; the Cross of Calvary was made of elder, and since it had been the means of the expiation of the sins of mankind, it was exempted from being struck by lightning,

R. L. MORETON.

'THE MELTON BREAKFAST' (10 S. viii. 269). This picture was No. 245 in the Royal Academy Catalogue of the exhibition for 1834. The portraits are given in the follow- ing order : " Earl of Wilton, Count Matus- civic, Lords Rokeby, Kinnaird, Forester, and Gardener, Sir Frederick Johnston f Johnstone ?], Messrs. Stanley, Errington, Gilmore, and Lyne Stevens."

ROBERT WALTERS.

Ware Priory.

At least two versions of the painting in question exist : one at Belvoir Castle ; the other in the possession of Miss Grant, daughter of the late Sir Francis, at her house at Melton. H.

W. B. H. may like to know that in the Catalogue of the South Kensington Exhibi- tion of 1868 No. 474 was entitled ' The Melton Hunt : Going to Draw the Ram's Head Cover,' and was lent by the Duke of Welling- ton. The short description appended says that it contains portraits of " the Countess of Wilton, in pony phaeton, Hon. Mrs. Villiers, Hon. Aug. Villiers, E. of Wilton, E. of Darlington, Sir F. Johnstone, Bt., Sir D. Baird, Bt., E. of Rosslyn, Count Batthyany, &c." It is further stated that the portraits are " full-length, small-size figures on horseback, in hunting dress with hounds."

W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY. .[Reply from MR. WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK next week.]

HUME'S PAPERS (10 S. 'viii. 268). I believe that all Joseph Hume's papers were destroyed in the great Pantechnicon fire. His son, Mr. A. Octavian Hume, lives at the Chalet, Kingswood Road, Upper Nor- wood, S.E. WM. H. PEET.

BOTTVEAR, BOUVIERE, OR BEAUVAIS (10 S.

viii. 251). The Beauvais family came from Nantes, Morbihan, settled in Cornwall about the end of the eighteenth century, and intermarried with the Annears, another refugee Huguenot family. Their descend- ants are now represented by several branches of Annears in Australia and the United States, and are also connected by marriage withBergnor, Edwards, Finch, Grose, Payter, Petherick, Varcoe, Wade, Wallace, Wooton, and other families at home and abroad. My wife Mary Agatha (born Annear), granddaughter of Samuel Annear and Jenifer Beauvais of St. Austell, desires earlier information as to both families.

E. A. PETHERICK. Streatham, S.W.

ST. ANTHONY'S BREAD (10 S. viii. 230, 277). The Misses Tuker and Malleson in a note at p. 161 of Part III. of their ' Hand- book to Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome,' which was published in 1900, write thus :

" In churches there is often an alms box marked 'S. Antony's bread.' Six years ago a woman of Toulon could not enter her baker's shop.^ the lock of which was damaged, and she promised S.Antony a little bread for his poor if the door could be opened. A key was now tried, and the door opened immediately. Hence it has become the custom to accompany every petition to S. Antony with a promise of bread for the poor. As S. Antony is the finding saint, and is, unhappily, invoked to re- store every lost article, the alms box receives the donations of those whose petitions have been heard. A list of poor institutions and orphanages is kept, and these send in turn for the bread, which is distributed to each according to the number of inmates. Antony is also patron of firemen."

JOHN B. WAINE WRIGHT.

" St. Anthony's Bread " means offerings

always spent in poor relief given to the

saint in return for granted requests ; fre- quently, in gratitude for lost property re- covered. I have experienced several favours of this sort, the last instance (now two months since) being, in the circumstances of it, nothing short of miraculous.

PHILIP NORTH.

"The Work of the White Bread of St. Anthony of Padua " is a system of obtaining benefits, through the intercession of the saint, against the promise of a certain sum