Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/503

 118. XL JUNE 26, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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T. Jefferson Hogg of Norton House, Stock- ton-on-Tees. Did he leave any issue by either wife, or to whom did his property pass on his decease ? I am told his effects were sold by auction on his or his widow's decease, probably in Folkestone or Sandgate. Can any one say the exact date and the name of the auctioneer ? I am anxious to trace certain portraits by his father, James Lonr dale, which were then sold.

T. CANN HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A. Lancaster.

HYDE. One Hyde was a Justice of the Peace for the Tower Hamlets in 1787. Where can I find particulars of him ?

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

SIR JOHN AND LADY OLDMIXON. Sir John Morella Oldmixon was the son of a musician named Morella by the daughter of John Oldmixon (1673-1742), the historian. He was a lieutenant of Dragoons, and one of the gentlemen-in-waiting to the Duke of Portland during that nobleman's Lord- Lieutenancy. John Morella took the name of Oldmixon, and was knighted on 8 Sept., 1782 ('The Knights of England,' W. A. Shaw, ii. 297 ; cf. John Taylor's ' Records of my Life '). He was well known as a man of fashion, and was nicknamed " The Bath Beau " (v. John Bernard's ' Retrospections of the Stage,' ii. 31). He married Miss George, who was an actress at the Haymarket, 1783-9, and went with his wife to America, where he died in 1818 (Gent. Mag., Ixxxviii. part ii. 478).

Lady Oldmixon survived him, and is said to have kept a girls' school at Philadelphia after his death (' N. & Q.,' 3 S. xii. 76). What was her Christian name, and when did she die ? HORACE BLEACKLEY.

SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY THESES. Writing in The Aberdeen University Library Bulletin for June (ii. 739), Mr. Kellas Johnstone says :

" In the history of the evolution of university education in Scotland from archaic forms and methods, there are no objects of greater interest than the prints of the Theses annually contested by the candidates for graduation in Arts. . . .They were prepared by the regent towards the close of the four years' curriculum, and it was doubtless an important part of his business to ensure that his magistrands were well instructed how to defend them successfully in public. In its most usual form the little book begins with a title-page announcing in general terms the character of the propositions to be propugned, the name of the college and of the prseses, the date fixed for the public contest, and the imprint. Upon succeed- ing pages there follows a dedicatory and superla- tively flattering address to some influential patron

of the college, signed by the preeses and candi- dates Then come the Theses This kind

of Arts Graduation Theses seems to have been peculiar to Scotland. In the universities of the Continent of Europe each student attaining the degree contested and published his own individual

Theses How this Scottish practice began, or

when, or where, remains to be discovered. The earliest print with which I am acquainted is of the Theses propugned under William Craig, praeses, at the then recently founded University of Edinburgh, in 1599, and issued from the press of Henry Charteris. But it is certain that it was not the first of its kind, and very improbable that the system was invented there. It more likely arose in the earlier foundations of St. Andrews or Glasgow, necessitated by the desirability of following Continental custom as nearly as possible, while avoiding the difficulties and serious cost which so much printing involved."

Can any reader of * N. & Q.' cite proof that Mr. Johnstone is wrong in his assertion that the system of collective theses, with a class of candidates as respondents under a single praeses, is unknown outside of Scotland ; and that he is right in his conjecture that the Scottish system prevailed at St. Andrews or Glasgow prior to 1599 ?

P. J. ANDERSON.

University Library, Aberdeen.

" HERE WE COME GATHERING NUTS AND MAY." A child's game, played in the sixties, with singing and measured movements. The words run :

Here we come gathering nuts and may, nuts and

may, nuts and may, Here we come gathering nuts and may on a cold

and frosty morning.

Here come four dukes all dressed in blue [repeat

last four words], Here come four dukes all dressed in blue to court

your lovely daughter Sue. My daughter Sue she is too young, Ac., To understand your Spanish tongue.

Let her be old or let her be young, Ac., It is her duty, it must be done.

Stand back, stand back, your Graces three, A*.,

And take the fairest that "you see.

The fairest one that I can see

[s Mabel Mischief [or Tommy Tipcat] ; come to me.

The real name is given, and a tug-of-war ensues between the child named and the fourth duke, represented by another child.

Does any one know the author or date ? Had the words any reference to the Spanish marriage of Mary Tudor or the " Spanish Match " of the days of James I. ? Has the suggestion that nuts and may should be gathered together " on a cold and frosty morning " any reference to the vagaries of our famous weather ? B. C. S.

[See 88. v. 426; vi. 58; vii. 231; 9 S. xi. 344, 437.]