Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/145

 n s. XL FEB. is, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

135

Glasgow. Design, a tree with a bird and bell ; across the trunk a fish with ring (arms of the city).

Dundee. Design, a vase with flower.

Aberdeen. Design, three castles and star.

Each face value is printed in the same colours, viz., one farthing in green, three- farthings in brownish yellow, one penny in red, threepence in bright yellow.

A. WEIGHT MATTHEWS. 60, Rothesay Road, Luton.

I have a brown British farthing stamp from Malta, the design showing the harbour, but am not aware if the stamp is still issued. J. LANDFEAR LUCAS.

Glendora, Hindhead, Surrey.

"WANGLE " (11 S. xi. 65, 115). "Wangle " must surely spring from the same root as " wankle," if, indeed, they are not merely different forms of the same word. B. W. B. suggests that the former belongs to Scottish dialect ; and Brockett in his ' Glossary ' gives the latter as a North-Country word. Very much the same connotation would appear to underlie both. " Wankle," however, accord- ing to Brockett, is an adjective =uncertain, variable ; applied, for instance, to weather. He derives it from the Saxon " Wancol, instabilis, vacillans "; while B. W. B. gives " to totter " as the force of " wangle." Brockett quotes 'The Ballad of True Thomas ' :

Bub, Thomas, truely I thee say, This world is wondir wankel.

It is difficult to see how the verb could adapt itself to Private Brown's phrase in B. W. B.'s story, " See me wangle a jelly " ; but the epithet would be altogether apposite to the jelly itself, a substance which is very apt to be instabilis ! S. B. C.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATION WANTED (11 S. xi. 90).

Sure there are poets, &c.

The author is Sir John Denham ; the lines occur in ' Cooper's Hill.' S. B. C.

Canterbury.

MEDAL OF GEORGE III. (11 S. xi. 88). I have two of these medals which were issued at the centenary celebrations, at Whittington and Chesterfield in 1788, of the Bevolution of 1688, when the Earls of Devonshire and Danby with Mr. D'Arcy met at " The Cock and Pynot " inn at Whittington to plan their course of action. " The Cock and Pynot " is now known as " The Bevolution House," and the old building remains much as it was in 1688. It is well worth a visit. The

visitor may be shown the Plotting Parlour where the plotters met, and the chair in which the Earl of Devonshire sat as leader of the proceedings. The people of that part of Derbyshire are intensely proud of " The Old Bevolution House," as they call it. It is well looked after and " done to," so that the historic " Cock and Pynot " is in no immediate danger of disappearing. * ' Pynot is an old Midland name for the magpie. The bicentenary celebrations of 1888 were remarkable for a grand display of enthusi- asm, feasting, and speechmaking, in which many county magnates took part.

THOS. BATCLIFFE. Southfield, Worksop.

DUFFERIN : ' LETTERS FROM HIGH LATI- TUDES ' (US. xi. 88). 3. The "seven men of Moidart " were the seven followers of Prince Charlie who embarked with him at Nantes in the Doutelle, and landed with him at Boradale in Moidart (or rather Arasaig) on 25 July, 1745. They were :

The buke of Atholl (the Marquis of Tullibar- dine),

Sir Thomas Sheridan,

Sir John MacDonald,

Col. Strickland,

Capt. O'Sullivan,

Mr. George Kelly (a non-jurant clergyman), and

Mr. JSneas MacDonald (banker at Paris), brother to Kinloch Moidart.

See 'The Lyon in Mourning,' i. 201 Scottish History Society, Edinburgh, 1895).

T. F. D.

6. This seems to be a memory of the ' Arabian Nights ' : in the story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Perie Baiiou, three brothers each shoot an arrow, and the youngest finds an iron door in a rock. The trap-door with the iron ring is common to many of the stories in the same collection.

W. B. S.

HENRY GREGORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE (US. xi. 49). MR. L. C. PRICE wiU probably not obtain any previous details as to Harry Gregory unless he can find anything locally, and local tradition is short. Gregory was a Gloucester eccentricity of about 1710. The engraver of the print in question is not known, and there is no definite information as to what Gregory was famous for ; he may have been a great consumer of malt liquors or a bone-setter. It is worth noting that it was not uncommon to celebrate a well-known provincial character by placing his portrait on a mug. At the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Early English Earthenware in 1913, a good Shelton jug, with a portrait