Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/185

 ii s. i. FEB. 26, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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in the vicar's parlour. The parties had been brought before the Commissary Court to be corrected for incontinent living :

" And when their penance was enjoned to them thei agreed betwen themselves to mary, and so came into the Mr. Vicar of Newcastle's house, in the parlour, and there, in the presence of.... .iltci- talke of agreiment, the said Henry and Elizabeth wer contented ther in their presences to be handfested, which was done by Thomas Kingston, the said Henry Smith saying after Thomas Kingston, ' Here I, Henry Smith, take you, Elizabeth Frisell, to my wedded wyfe, &c., and thereto I plight the my trowth,' and * I, Elizabeth Frisell, take you, Henry Smith, to my wedded husband, &c., and thereunto I plight the my trowth,' drawing handes and drinking either to other. And the above named Walles, spiyng Henry Smith to loke down, said to him, ' Wlii lokest thou down ? If thou meane not to In it in dede, but does to avoid the penance, it is not well.' Wherunto Henry Smith answered that he ment truly, as he afterward spake. Ex- amined whi thei staied so long from marying, lie saith that at the time of ther hanfesteng Henry Smith was in prentiship a yeir after, and that he taketh to be the cause of their staying."

The handfasting was generally followed by an interchange of gifts. Christopher Rob- son and Kathren Marshall, having plighted their troth,

" dranke to gyther, and also kissett to gyther often. .. .Ther was a rynge gyven by the said Kathren to the aforesaid Christofer, and he gave another ring also to hir."

So also William Headley and Agnes Smith :

'' Therupon the said Agnes toke a gold rynge of hir fynger, and gave the same to hym, and the said William gave then the said Agnes one bowed <Jd. and bad hir put yt in hir purch."

In the case of Thomas Manwell and Helinor Colson,

" Mumvc-11 toke a rose noble of gold outof his purse and bowed the same, and . . . .gave the same noble to Helinor fora token. And then she, the s ml Helinor, imediatly then after opened hir pussf, and gave the said Thomas Manwell a rynuv of silver havynge 2 hands, one of them in another, and gilte with golde."

Clement Heweson, being handfasted to Agnes Dodds in 1580, said that he would never have " other woman in middle earth than the said Agnes " ; and then " he gave hir an old grote, and she gave him a napking." RICHARD WELFORD.

X< '\vcastle-upon-Tyne.

HOTEL, MORAS (OTHERWISE BIRON), PARIS (10 S. xii. 89). Blondel says that this hotel \\ as built after the designs of Gabriel (senior), under the superintendence of M. Aubert, architect. I am not aware of any doubt .expressed about this statement. L. P.

Vincennes.

MOHACS : THE BATTLE (11 S. i. 87). If Vambery's ' Hungary in Ancient, Medi- i seval, and Modern Times ' (" Story of the Nations," 1888) be too meagre for the purpose, perhaps Creasy' s ' History of the Ottoman Turks (1250-1878),' London, 1878, or Freeman's ' The Ottoman Power in Europe : its Nature, Growth, and Decline,' 1877, may afford the desired information.

W. SCOTT.

" OLD LADY OF THREADNEEDLE STREET " (11 S. i. 89). The directors of the Bank of England were collectively so called by William Cobbett because, like Mrs. Partington, they tried with their broom to sweep back the Atlantic waves of national progress. This action was, I think, in reference to the temporary stopping of cash payments on the 26th of February, 1797, one-pound bank notes being issued in March the same year, But is it quite clear whether Cobbett or Gillray was the first to employ the phrase ? J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

The latest authority on Sheridan states that he originated this name for the Bank of England ; see ' Sheridan, 1 by Walter Sichel (Constable & Co., 1909), p. 16. On p. 91 of that work it is further stated :

" To Sheridan is due, as we have seen, the accepted figure of the Bank of England as an old lady. Speaking on the stoppage of its cash payments in the spring of 1797, he compared it . . . . ' to an elderly lady in the City, of great credit and long standing, who had lately made a faux pas which was not altogether inexcusable,' " &c.

T. F. D.

HAFIZ IN ORIENTAL EDITIONS (10 S. xii. 429). In Sonnenschein's ' Reader's Guide,' 1895, p. 654, students are recommended, out of a number of editions of Hafiz, to select Lieut. -Col. H. W. Clarke's * Diwan-i-Hafiz,' Calcutta, privately printed, 1891, 4to, 2 vols. It is said to be a good prose trans- lation, with notes " forming a perfect mine of Sfific lore,' 2 but wanting an index.

W. SCOTT.

SIR ROBERT GEFFERY (11 S. i. 50, 94). A copy of the full-length portrait of this worthy by Phillips, alluded to in my former reply, is to be seen in the Guildhall Library, where it constitutes MS. 20. It is in water colour.

The engraved portrait mentioned by MR. ROBERTS (ante, p. 95), by Trotter, is from a full-length original at Bridewell Hospital, from the brush of Sir Godfrey Kneller. A copy of this engraving is preserved at Guildhall also.