Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/18

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[11 S. I. JAN. 1, 1910.

The initials A M and M N, with date 1630, appear upon it, so that it has seen three sieges of the Castle, and has embedded in its walls a cannon ball of the " Waterloo " type, said to have been fired at Prince Charlie's troops in 1745. That is all we know about it. To drag in Sir David Baird and the Dukes of Gordon, whose town mansion on Castlehill is now represented by a public school in which the old doorway is preserved, is misleading. The two had no connexion, although the hero of Sering- apatam might have had some story of his boyhood connected with the neighbours over the garden wall, for the properties adjoin there.

I am seeking now for another property in that neighbourhood which I wish to provide with a history. I also wish to know who this historic personage really was. My facts are taken from a manuscript volume in the possession of George Heriot's Trust, as fol- lows: writ, date unascertained, regarding a tenement situated

" under the Castle Wall, on the south side of the King's Highway, bounded on the one side and the other by lands which sometime belonged to Cloud Davilonert, second lawfull son to Janet Adamson, procreat betwixt her and Sebastien Davilonert, secretary for the time to Mary, Queen of Scotts."

Is it possible that this surname is that of the Sebastien who married Christilly Hogg on the eve of Darnley's murder, and that we have used his official title " Paiges li hitherto to surname him ?

WILLIAM J. HAY.

John Knox's House, Edinburgh.

MERIMEE'S " INCONNUE. ?? Can any of your readers inform me if the letters pub- lished under the title of ' An Author's Love, 1 and purporting to be the hitherto unpub- lished letters of Prosper Merimee's " In- connue," are genuine ? If not, by whom were they invented ? C. L. H.

FUNERAL PLUMES. When and why did the custom of using plumes in funeral rites, as an expression of respect for the dead, have its origin ? In 1789 John Chater adver- tised that he furnished " very fashionable laces and plain dresses, for the Dead, Sheets, Cloaks, Hangings, Coaches, Plumes of Feathers, " &c. Is not this an early in- stance ? The earliest in the ' N.E.D.' appears to be 1832, in Tennyson's ' Lady of Shalott - :

A funeral, with plumes and lights And music.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

STAVE PORTERS. What were stave porters that they should furnish a tavern in Jacob Street, Dockhead, with its sign of "The Stave Porter." ? Presumably their burden consisted of bundles of staves ; but of what kind ? The sign, I think, still exists.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. [Did they carry their loads on staves ?]

CALTHROPS IN EARLY WARFARE. Would some correspondent of * N. & Q.' oblige by mentioning the earliest reference in Scottish history to calthrops as employed in warfare ? They are said to have been in use at the battle of Bannockburn. I know of the authorities cited in the ' N.E.D.'

WALTER SCOTT.

Stirling.

PRINCESS AMELIA, DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II. I desire information regarding this Princess and her supposed relations with Col. M'Lellan (? Lord Kirkcudbright). Can any reader give me any, or refer me to authorities ? H. L. L. D.

ST. GRATIAN'S NUT. ' The Book of the Great Caan, set forth by the Archbishop of Saltania, circa 1330,' in Yule's ' Cathay and the Way Thither,' Hakluyt Society, 1866, vol. i. p. 244, says :

" And other trees there be [in the empire of Boussaye, a name which is supposed to point to the Ilkhan of Persia, Abusaid Bahadur, 1317-35] which bear a manner of Filberts, or mits of St. Gratian ; and when this fruit is ripe the folk of the country gather it and open it, and find inside grains like wheat, of which they make bread and macaroni and other food which they are very glad to eat."

What is this nut of St. Gratian ?

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA.

Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

" oo ' ? : HOW PRONOUNCED. Will some one explain how and when these letters came to represent the sound of long u, as in cool ? The fact is chronicled in philological treatises, but I do not see that they give any reason for the change. I presume that originally they represented a long o. Does any other European language use them to express a u sound ? STUDENT.

MRS. ELIZABETH DRAPER. I wonder if any of your readers could tell me whether the engraving of Miss Draper in The London Magazine for 1776 represents the daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, the friend of Sterne, or give me a clue to a portrait of Mrs. Draper herself. Sterne alludes to one of her painted by Cosway. W. L. S.