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NOTES AND QUERIES. ms. XL FEB. 13, 1915.

The remarkable changes in the fortunes of this house are further illustrated by some later MSS. in my collection. On Monday, 14 March, 1853, after Lumley's bankruptcy, the mortgagee sold in one lot the whole of the fittings, tenants' fixtures, wardrobe, scenery, machinery, stage properties, the organ by Flight, two pianofortes, three drums, and the monstre (sic) bass violin. The opening bid was to be 12,OOOZ., and the highest bid above that would secure the very compre- hensive lot. On Saturday, 4 Feb., 1854, Alfred Wright, for Mr. North appointed broker, distrained for Poor and Highway Bates. The amounts due were respectively 3631. 3s. 6d. and 14R 9,9. 2c?., but presum- ably only the edifice remained, and the broker's man camped in one of the boxes looking down on what formerly held the most brilliant scene in Europe.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

DR. EDMOND HALLEY'S ANCESTRY. (See 11 S. x. 408.) An English correspondent suggests to me that the three Halley wit- nesses mentioned in the manuscript cited by Mr. E. Williams may, perhaps, have been first cousins of Edmond Halley the eldest (salter, obit. 1684), that is, sons of a brother of Humphrey Halley, vintner. There will be some further inquiries made in due course at Chesterfield, in the Parish Registers of which, and in those of Taddirigton, some Halley entries may be found.

The next most promising source of new data on the ancestry of Dr. Halley seems to be Bateman's manuscript pedigrees of Derby- shire, which are said to be in the library at Chatsworth. They have not as yet been examined for Halley data, so far as the present writer is aware. We appear now to be rather closer than heretofore to a confirmation of the Derbyshire origin of Halley's grandfather.

EUGENE F. McPiKE.

1200, Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

MOXTROSE AND IBN EZRA ON GRIEF. The

following lines by the Marquis of Moritrose on Charles I.

Great, good, and just! could I but rate My grief to thy too rigid state, I 'd weep the world to such a strain As it should deluge once again, remind me of our own poet Ibn Ezra's apostrophe, which I render thus : Were floods of tears to be unloosed

In tribute to my grief, The doves of Noah ne'er had roost,

Nor found an olive-leaf !

M. L. B. BRESLAR.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME HAMMERSMITH. I am anxious to find out the meaning of the name Hammersmith, as applied to the parish on the Thames which many of us know so well. It does not occur in Domes- day Book, the place then merely forming part of the manor of Fulham, nor have I found any instance of it before the reigri of Edward II., when it was called Hamersmyth ; but doubtless earlier references occur. On the Sheldon tapestry map of part of Middle- sex which belongs to the Bodleian Library, and is now, I believe, at the Victoria and Albert Museum the word is spelt Hamer- smith. Faulkner in his history of the parish, 1839, expresses the opinion that it was originally " Ham-hythe a town with a harbour or creek," but this nowadays will hardly pass muster.

I am no authority on place-names, but I venture to quote two suggestions, neither of them my own. Can it have been called after a piratical Northman, Haemer or Hamer (the name is spelt variously in Norse, Frisian, and cognate languages) ? In search of booty, lie perhaps made his way up the Thames to the creek now dividing the Upper and Lower Mall, which was once the mouth of a considerable watercourse. If he found the haven convenient, and settled there per- manently, it- may have acquired the appella- tion Hamers-hythe. Unfortunately, this would entail the change of hythe to myihe, afterwards mith, which, perhaps no philolo- gist would consider possible.

To my mind a more plausible idea is that mith is a corruption of O.E. muth, or mouth. In. that case Hamers-rnith would be the mouth of the old watercourse referred to above (it could not be the mouth of a man). Here, however, we are confronted with the difficulty that there is no evidence of the stream having early been called the Hamer, while on Bocque's map, 1741-5, it is marked Stamford Brook, the name, not the stream, still surviving. I am. quite prepared to hear that neither of these conjectural derivations will pass muster. I send them for the pur- pose of eliciting an expert opinion on the

sub J' ect - PHILIP NORMAN.