Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/360

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [u s. x. OCT. 31, 1014

THE AUTHOR OF ' PADDIANA ' (11 S. x. 310). The writer of this entertaining volume was B. F. Walrond. It ran through several editions. Mr. Walrond subsequently edited the ' Memoirs of Dr. Blenkinsop. ' R. B.

Upton.

Are the following facts of any use to L. L. K. ? I have a book in two volumes called :

" Memoirs of Dr. Blenkinsop, written by him- self, including his campaigns, travels, and adven- tures, with anecdotes of graphiology, and some of the letters of his correspondents : edited by the author of ' Paddiana.' London : Richard Bentley, 1852."

There is a Preface in which the editor's name is not mentioned, but I always looked upon the book as the life and adventures of the author of ' Paddiana ' himself, largely spiced with fiction. If I am correct, on looking at it again there appear many details in it which ought to lead to his identity, and I will lend it to L. L. K. if he wishes to read it. On the other hand, the book has an unreal air, and may be a literary fraud.

The earlier part is most racily written. The hero's aunt, Joan Featherstone, is extremely like David Copperfield's aunt Betsey Trot-wood ; and Col. Featherstone is twin brother to Rodney Stone's uncle in Conan Doyle's book; while Lieut. Briggs, R.N., is a naval Jingle. The book deals with the days of the Dandies, Beau Brummell, and prize-fighting. As an ensign the hero goes to the Peninsular War, and in his old age becomes a graphiologist, or writing expert. WILLIAM BULL.

Hammersmith.

CLOCKS AND CLOCKMAKERS (11 S. x. 310)-

In the list of 'Former Clock and Watch

Makers' appended to Mr. F. J. Britten's

' Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers,'

3rd ed., 1911, there appears the following :

" Gilkes. Richd., apprenticed in 1678 to Wm. Hancorne ; C.C. [Clockmakers' Company], 1686. Geo., apprenticed in 1693 to Richd. Watts, C.C. Jno., Shipston, on plate of watch, Mary Gilkes on dial, hall-mark 1766."

No " William Stephens " appears in Mr. Britten's list.

I have an old " grandfather " clock, the dial of which bears the name " H. Purse, N'Ards," i.e., Newtownards, in -co. Down, Ireland. Mr. Britten's list has a William Purse of the Strand, 1804 ; George Purse, also of the Strand, 1804-25; and Messrs. Purse & Catchpole of Regent Street, 1835; but has no mention of the Irish Purse. G. L. APPERSON.

ST. ANGUS (11 S. x. 88, 174). Since my query I have found some notes on this saint in the Proceedings of the Societv of Anti- quaries of Scotland (1886-7, N.S., ix. 83-4) by Mr. James Mackintosh Gow, F.S.A. St. Angus is said to have come to the glen of Balquhidder from the eastward, and to have been so struck with its beauty that he blessed it. At the date of Mr. Gow's note the remains of the stone on which the saint sat to rest were still to be seen in the gable of one of the farm buildings at Easter Auchleskine, and the turn (now, I am told, altered) of the road was then called Bean- nachadh Aonghais (Angus's Blessing). The saint's day falls in April.

ROLAND AUSTIN.

Gloucester.

LANGUAGE AND PHYSIOGNOMY (10 S. xii. 365, 416; 11 S. i. 33; x. 158, 196). I am glad to have found another example in support of the theory that the face of a nation may be altered by its language. Lecturing in 1913 on 'The Alphabet: its Present and Future,' Prof. Sir Gilbert Murray is reported to have said :

" He had heard from travellers in remote places in South Arabia that the features of the people there became distorted owing to the violence \vith which they pronounced their consonants." Morning Pos, 1 Oct., 1913.

ST. SWITHIN.

THE PATRON SAINT OF PILGRIMS (11 S- x. 210, 254, 297). In a list of " patrons o* mariners and sea-travellers," by MR. THOS- W. HUCK, at the second reference, no men- tion is made of St. Peter Gonzales, the Leonese, who, as San Telmo or St. Elme, is par excellence the patron of Spanish and Portuguese navigators. He is honoured on 15 April, and strangely shares with St. Erasmus, Bishop of Formise and martyr (2 June), the privilege of being invoked as St. Elme. A fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Catalan book I believe, a ' Consolat de Mar,' but have mislaid the title published at Barcelona, whose patron, St. Eulalia, MR. HUCK mentions in this connexion, gives a woodcut showing San Telmo as protector of seamen and voyagers.

A. VAN DE PUT.

FOUNDATION SACRIFICE (11 S. x. 288). Cf. the Magyar folk-ballad ' Clement the Mason' in The Academy, 31 July, 1886; and the legerid of the building of the monastery and newly restored cathedral of Ardjish, in Rumania, published in V. Alexandras collection of Rumanian ballads.

L. L. K.