Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/83

 ii s. i. JAN. 22, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

75

nephew Sir Michael Newton, K.B., who was M.P. for Grantham, and died in 1743 (Le Neve, ' Knights,' 205 ; Musgrave, ' Obi- tuary,' iv. 287). Shinbones, or thighbones, saltire-wise were borne by many families of Newton ; see, e.g., Dugdale, ' Visitation of Yorkshire,' 67 ; Foster, ' Visitation of Yorkshire,* 274 ; Le Neve, ' Knights,' 489 ; ' D.N.B.,' xl. 402, a. W. C. B.

' DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD * IN ' ONCE A WEEK' (11 S. i. 8). The author of the articles in Once a Week I believe to have been Henry Duff Traill, D.C.L., who after- wards published his contributions to the magazine, in a greatly altered and amended form, in 1884 under the title ' The New Lucian : being a Series of Dialogues of the Dead.' Only five of the names mentioned in the query as occurring ip. Once a Week reappear in ' The New Lucian.' The- dia- logues in the book amount to fourteen. In a subsequent edition of ' The New Lucian ' further alterations were made. Fifteen dialogues were given, of which nine were in the first edition, and the rest were new.

W. SCOTT.

JOHN WILSON PATTEN, LORD WINMAR- LEIGH (11 S. i. 23). The will of Thomas Wilson, D.D. (P.C.C. Rockingham, 240), is abstracted in ' Notes on the Parish of Burton in Wirral,' by F. C. Beazley, F.S.A., vol. xxiii. N.S. Trans. Hist. Soc. Lanes and Cheshire, and separately published by Young, Liverpool, 1908. It appears from these notes that the Wilsons had no recorded right to the arms they assumed ; also that Thomas Macklin obtained a royal licence in May, 1784, to take the surname of Wilson only and to bear the. arms, after they had been exemplified and recorded in the Heralds' College. R. S. B.

DEVONSHIRE REGIMENT (10 S. xii. 490; 11 S. i. 35). In Cannon's ' Historical Records of the British Army * there is a volume devoted to the history of the llth or North Devon Regiment of Foot, 1685-1845.

There is a special account entitled ' The Record of a Regiment of the Line, being a Regimental History of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment during the Boer War 1899-1902,' by Col. M. Jacson, with a preface by Lieut. -General W. Kitchener, 1908.

Finally, in Hart's 'Army List,' pp. 242a- I 242d, there is an account of the services j of the officers. Though not an official publication, this is valuable and trust- ! worthy. A. RHODES.

[MR. W. SCOTT also thanked for reply.]

JAMES O'BRIEN, 1798 (10 S. xii. 511). O'Brien was in Government service in Ire- land from 1797 to 1800. He acted under Major Sirr in coping with rough and desperate characters. Martial law empowered Major Sandys, Provost Marshal, to arrest and detain guilty or suspected persons. O'Brien and other men served under him as well as Major Sirr.

Ho well's ' State Trials * is the authority for saying that O'Brien was introduced to Government by Lord Portarlington, and was enlisted in a dragoon regiment that he might have its protection while his life was in danger. He brought Patrick Finney's scheme to light. Finney organized a funeral pro- cession attended by 10,000 persons, 30 April, 1797. The corpse had already been buried ; the procession was intended to overawe the Government, and the military were ordered out. O'Brien had reported the affair to Lord Portarlington, for he attended the meetings in Dublin when it was organized. Finney was tried for high treason.

O'Brien was hanged for manslaughter three years later. He was so exasperated by the populace and their jeers when he was guarding a field in which they were assembled that he violently assaulted the nearest person, an aged man, who died from the injury inflicted. Mr. Justice Day sent the Lord Lieutenant a report upon O'Brien's trial, on behalf of Lord Yelverton and him- self. A copy is preserved with Major Stir's manuscripts. Madden complains that Major Sirr appeared at the trial of O'Brien ; but this was not to condone his guilt. Major Sirr naturally appeared to testify, as any one in his position might have done. Plowden mentions that " other persons of more consequence about the Castle interceded for O'Brien.''

Dr. D'Arcy Stir's note about O'Brien (10 S. iv. 112) was mistakenly quoted with the object of discrediting another note concerning Robert Emmet and Sarah Curraii (10 S. iii. 303). Evidence of Dr. Stir's credibility is even stronger than I showed, and it is obvious, as he recognized, that Sarah Curran was misguided under Emmet's influence. Dr. Stir had good grounds also when he penned the note about O'Brien that he was a " calumniated, honest, brave

man.

H. SIRR.

MR. GAZE will find a good deal about " Jimmy O'Brien " in the Appendix to Madden's ' United Irishmen,' First Series, vol. ii. (1842), and Third Series, vol. ii. (1846), p. 307; in Fitzpatrick's 'Sham