Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/152

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. x. AUG. 22, wu.

P. 258. La Castellane Karninska, daughter of Francis Potocki, and wife of Count Stanislas Korsakowski, Castellan of Kamien- ski. She appears to have sided at first with the Russian party, then with Kosciusko. A. FKANCIS STEUART.

THE NATIONAL FLAG AT SEA. Recent events having called attention to the question as to the flag to be flown by British subjects at sea, it appears from the following letter 1 have received from the Admiralty that the Bed Ensign is the proper flag to be flown :

Admiralty, 6 August, 1914.

SIR, With reference to your letter of the 4th inst. inquiring whether the Union Jack rnay be flown on board a yacht owned by an English- man, I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to acquaint you that under Section 73 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1804, the Red Ensign is the correct national colour to be worn by all ships and boats belonging to any British subject, except in the case of H.M. ships or boats, or in the case of any other ship or boat for the time being allowed to' wear any other national colours in pursuance of a warrant from T!is Majesty or from the Admiralty.

Admiralty warrants authorizing special ensigns to be flown by yachts are issued only upon a written application from the secretary of an approved yacht club.

I atp, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

V. W. BADDELEY.

British subjects have thus the right to two flags : the Union Jack to be flown by them on land, and the Red Ensign on the sea. JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

SCIOPPIUS'S ' SCALIGER HYPERBOLIM^US.' Among the many perils that environ the bibliographer is that of confounding folios "with pages. A slip of this kind in describing the same work has been made in succession by two authorities of such high reputation that an attempt to prevent its being per- petuated seems desirable.

Mark Pattison in his ' Joseph Scaliger,' 'Essays' (1889), vol. i. p. 191, reprinted from The Quarterly Review of July, 1860, wrote of Schoppe's famoxis attack on J. J. Scaliger :

" ' The Supposititious Scaliger ' (' Scaliger Hyper- bolimaeus ') oi Gaspar Scioppius is a thick quarto of 400 pages."

R. C. Christie in 'The Scaligers,' p. 220 of his ' Selected Essays and Papers ' (1902), reprinted from his article in the ninth edition of ' The Encyclopaedia Britannica,' speaks of " ' Scaliger Hyperbolimaeus ' (' The Suppositi- tious Scaliger '), a quarto volume of more than /our hundred pages " ;

and these same words are retained in the eleventh edition of the ' Encyclopedia ' in Christie's article revised by Sir J. E. Sandys.

Evidently the number 400 was mentioned to show how large a book could be filled with personal abuse, but it is still more remarkable when we' find that it contains no fewer than 879 pp., made up as follows : Preliminary matter, including title-page with mottoes on the reverse, 10 folios ; then folios numbered 1429 ; two are num- bered 336, and the reverse of 429 is blank.

It is curious that Christie himself in a neighbouring essay on ' Elzevier Biblio- graphy,' p. 307, foot-note 1, points out an instance where folios are inaccurately given as pages.

Jacob Bernays's ' Joseph Justus Scaliger ' (1855), p. 85, overstates the size of Schoppe's work as " ein neunhundertseitiger Quartant." EDWARD BENSLY.

3?eyclon, Southwold, Suffolk.

TWISADAY. This surname, which al.so appears as Twisday and Twiceaday, is regarded by Mr. Bardsley as a form of Tuesday, and commemorating a birth on that day of the week. The name, however, occurs in records as " Twvsontheday " (e.g., Patent Roll of 1411), showing that '" Twice- aday " is the proper spelling and meaning.

OLD SARUM.

SPOON FOLK-LORE. New to me is this fancy. A servant dropped a spoon, and as she made no attempt to pick it up, her mis- tress told her to do it. Without speaking, the girl left the kitchen, but soon returned with another maid who performed the duty. The one who dropped the spoon explained her subsequent procedure by saying that if she herself had picked it up she would have met with some dire misfortune.

ST. SWITHTN.

" THE CASE is ALTERED." The origin of this curious public -house sign has been to me, and I suppose many other people, a great puzzle, and I did not succeed in finding it until I read a memorial article in The Tablet for 18 July on the late Mr. Plowden of Plowden, who represented that very old Roman Catholic family in the West of England.

It seems that an ancestor of his, Ed- mund Plowden, the great lawyer, defended some one accused of hearing Mass. The supposed priest was proved to be an im- postor an agent provocateur we should call him now. " The case is altered," said