Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/39

 us. X.JULY n, mi] NOTES AND QUERIES.

MILITARY MACHINES (US. ix. 430, 471). I am extremely obliged to your corre- spondent for his kind help, but my query still remains unanswered as to particulars of penthouses and galleries in John Gray's time (1731). As they were classed with mantlets and blinds, and like these were said to be similar to musculus, pluteus, testudo, and vinea, they were evidently of a movable kind. As an old sapper and miner, I am fully acquainted with every- thing connected with modern immovable galleries and huts put up for an army.

Since sending in my query I have found descriptions and drawings of mantlets and blinds in ' The Military Engineer,' com- posed by M. Le Blond, 2 vols., an English translation of which appeared in 1759, hence very near to John Gray's time. More modern Military Dictionaries, such as Major James's (4th ed., 1876), give an explanation of penthouses and galleries, but these are fixtures. L. L. K.

DEVICE ON ENCAUSTIC TILES (11 S. ix. 509).

' Encaustic Tiles and Recent Discoveries at Launceston Priory.' Arch. Cambrensis, Fifth Series, v. 13.

' Flooring and Mural Tiles.' Hulme's ' Birth of Ornament,' 1893.

' Manufacture of Tiles.' Art Journal, 1895.

' Pavements of Figured Tiles.' " Gentleman's Magazine Library " (' Ecclesiology '), 1894.

Greenfield (B. W.), 'Encaustic Tiles of Middle Ages, especially South Hampshire,' 1892.

Henniker ( J. H. M. ), ' Two Letters on the Origin of Norman Tiles,' 1794.

Shaw (H.), 'Specimens of Tile Pavements,' 1858.

The last three books are in the London Library. WM. H. PEET.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION WANTED (11 S. ix. 488). (4) ?Balph Carr, s. of Ralph of Whickham, co. Durham, arm. Christ Church, matric. 12 May, 1785, aged 17, B.A. 1789 ; Merton Coll., M.A. 1792 ; of Stannington, Northumberland, and Bar- rowpoint Hill, Middlesex ; barrister-at-law, Middle Temple, 1796 ; died 5 March, 1837, aged 67. A. R. BAYLEY.

JOHN CURWOOD (11 S. ix. 430, 498). Some interesting personal impressions of this learned counsel are to be found in the late Serjeant Robinson's ' Bench and Bar.' Curwood at one time shared with Mr. Adolphus the bulk of the most lucrative business at the Old Bailey, but some time before he relinquished practice he had been to a great extent ousted by younger men. According to Serjeant Robinson, he was

blest with a very extravagant wife, and was the defendant, under an assumed name, in the case of Seaton v. Benedict, which estab- lished the non-liability of a husband for debts contracted by a wife who is properly supplied with necessaries by her husband. LEONARD J. HODSON. Robertsbridge, Sussex.

ALEXANDER SMITH'S ' DREAMTHORP *" (US. ix. 450, 493). MR. F. A. CAVENAGH'S first quotation comes from the well-known English folk-song ' The Beggar.' This may be found in Mr. Cecil Sharp's ' Folk-Songs from Somerset,' pt. iv., where the first verse and the chorus go thus :

I'd just as soon be a beggar as a king,

And the reason I '11 tell you for why ; A king cannot swagger, nor drink like a beggar,. Nor be half so happy as I.

Let the back and the sides go bare, myboys,-

Let the hands and the feet gang cold ; But give to the belly, boys, beer enough,

Whether it be new or old.

Mr. Sharp has a long note on the song. The- chorus is almost the same as that of "I cannot eat but little meat."

IOLO A. WILLIAMS.

VOLTAIRE ON THE JEWISH PEOPLE (US ix. 49, 298). I find that the words quoted by me at the first reference occur in a letter- written by Voltaire at Ferney on 12 Sept., 1761, to M. de Burigny, who had sent him a book on Bossuet (' Lettres Choisies de Voltaire,' tome troisieme, p. 36, Paris,. 1792). HERTHA HAMILTON'S apposite extract from ' Le Pyrrhonisme de 1'Histoire ' shows that the author still retained, when compos- ing a serious work, the opinion he had hastily expressed in a letter.

JOHN T. CURRY.

CENTENARY OF THE CIGAR (11 S. ix. 89, 235, 454). Godsmark, tobacconist, Mickle- gate, York, still holds out the bait of " Se- gars " upon his sign. The spelling of the word cigar was not fixed until the Victorian Age. Segar and seegar seemed to John Bull's ear in the eighteenth century to be the best phonetic rendering of cigarro. Spelling reformers may, perhaps, revert to that opinion. ST. S WITHIN.

REGISTER OF MARRIAGES OF ROMAN CATHOLICS BEFORE 1837 (11 S. ix. 469). The record of the marriage of two Frenclt emigres in 1795 might very possibly be found at the old Sardinian Chapel, the Registers of which are now, I believe, at St. Anselm and St. Cecilia's Church, Kings-