Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/398

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. XL MAY 15, 1915.

The Currency Maze : an Entertaining Sketch of

" the Question without an End." 1877. Life's Pleasure Garden ; or, The Conditions of a

Happy Life. [1884.] On the Bank's Threshold ; or, The Young Banker :

a Popular Outline of Banking 1890. Second

ed., same date. The Great Rest-Giver. [ 1891.]

R. NICHGLLS.

BEARDS (US. xi. 262, 326). Jan Cornells Vermeijei, called "Juan de Mayo" or " Ma jo " and " El Barbudo," was born near Haarlem about 1500. He attended the Emperor Charles V. in many of his expedi- tions a.nd made sketches of sieges, some of which were worked into tapestries. He died at Brussels in 1559. He was famous not only as an artist, but for the length of his beard. Bryan (' Diet, of Painters,' ed. 1889, ii. 658) says that, though he was a tall man, it used to trail on the ground, and the Emperor, when in a playful mood, would condescend to tread upon it !

In the rare series of engravings attributed to Hieronymus Kock under the title ' Pic- torum aliquot Celebrium Germanise Inferioris Effigies,' Anverpige (no date), the fifteenth plate, a very beautiful engraving by Jan Wierix, represents ' Joannes Mains, Pictor,' with ten lines descriptive of his life and work addressed to the Emperor Charles, which end thus :

Nee minus ille sua speotacula prsebuit arte Celso conspicuus vertice grata tibi,

Jussus prolixae detecta volumina barbge Ostentare suos pendula ad usque pecles.

Chichester. C - DEEDE S.

STARLINGS TAUGHT TO SPEAK (11 S. xi. 68, 114, 154, 218, 270). Robert Buchanan's lyric ' The Starling ' should not bo over- looked. An old, misanthropic tailor in city pent Lad bought the bird from a country lad, specially appreciating the accomplish- ment of swearing, which/ it had acquired through associating with various capable instructors. So the two comrades, the tailor on his board and the starling in dusty cage over the door, looked forth enviously towards impossible freedom, arid swore at largo. At length the tailor's clays were numbered, and, when an old Jew, entering into possession of the effects, lowered the cage in the process of his investigations, he unwittingly compassed a tragic issue :

Jack, with heart aching, Felt life past bearing,

And shivering, quaking,

All hope forsaking, Died, swearing.

THOMAS BAYNE.

ENGLISH CHAPLAINS AT ALEPPO : JOHN" UDALL (11 S. xi. 201, 289). I hasten to draw attention to what may appear an error in my list. John Udall, the Protestant martyr (see- MR. JUSTICE UDAL'S learned contribution, ante, p. 251 ), I refer to as "probably the first chaplain " : I ought to have said possibly. My friend Dr. Christie (formerly of Aleppo) examined the Levant Company papers at the Public Record Office some years ago and states that John Udall' s petition to be appointed Chaplain at Aleppo is amongst them. It w r ould be interesting to know if he was so appointed, although he never actually took up the appointment.

The Factory was founded in a regular manner in 1582. Between this date and Udajl's death in 1592, there was time for him to make application either before or after his trial for felony. Can any one furnish details?

The penultimate name on the list should be Foster, not Fosten.

GEO. JEFFERY, F.S.A.

Cyprus.

"WICK" (11 S. xi. 321). Isaac Taylor in his ' Words and Places ' maintains that the primary meaning of " wick " was a. station, tracing the word through the various languages from Sanskrit onwards. With the Anglo-Saxons it was a station or abode- on land, hence a house or village ; with the- Nortbmen it was a station for ships, hence- a small creek or bay. Vikings = creekers* from the anchorage of their ships. The inland "wick" places, he concludes, are mostly Saxon, while the Norse wicks fringe our coasts : note especially the large number in Essex. See ' Words and Places,' ed_ Smythe Palmer, p. 113. S. B. C.

Canterbury.

JOSHUA WEBSTER, M.D., 1777 (3 S. vi. 10 ,~ 11 S. ix. 8 ; x. 156 ; xi. 328). It may prove of interest to some to record here that a. manuscript volume entitled ' Gleanings of Antiquity in Verolam and St. Albans,' com- piled about the year 1740 by Dr. Joshua Webster, has been discovered in the posses- sion of Miss Caroline Williams of Ceine Hill,. Bath, daughter of Thomas Williams, some- time of Bushden Hall, Northants, one of the w T ell -known family of Dorsetshire bankers, whose grandmother, Elizabeth Walter, widow of Thomas Cunningham, B.N., is said to have married Dr. Joshua Webster en secondes noces.

This MS. has been placed in the hands of Mr. W. B. Gerish, Hon. Secretary and editor of the East Herts Archaeological Society,.