Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/198

 190

NOTES AND QUKHIKS.

SKPT. *, 1915.

balances were used a Salter's sprin balance on Saturday, and an Avery's stee] yard to-day.

As for the foundation of the popula belief, if it be such, I can offer no sug gestion. A medical friend tells me tha it is conceivable that a very light meal of a very stimulating character might fail t< increase, or might even diminish, one' weight ; but this is surely hardly con ceivable in regard to an ordinary mea eaten under ordinary circumstances. I hac certainly heard of the belief in question but I did not imagine it was entitled to b called a popular belief. W. A. C.

Cambridge.

J. C. W. will find the matter dealt with b\ Sir Thos. Browne in his ' Vulgar Errors ( 1646), and by me in 'Popular Fallacies '2nd ed., p. 36). Roughly, partaking of lunch (before the war !) added nearly two pounds to the weight of a 13-stone man, while a Turkish bath reduced a man's weight by about the same amount. J. C. W.'s failure to detect the increase must be du3 to his scales not being sufficiently sensitive. With a spring balance and a daughter weigh- ing 55 lb., the 'drinking of a cup of milk is clearly recorded ! A. S. E. ACKEBMANN.

KING OF POLAND, 1719 (11 S. xi. 379). August II., King of Poland from 1697 to 1733, and Elector of Saxony, known as Frederick August, reigned in both countries, but preferred to reside in his favourite Dresden whenever urgent state business did not require his presence in his other country. It is doubtful whether he had a minister or ambassador at the British Court ; at any rate, he had not one at the end of 1718 or the beginning of 1719, while the British envoy to the Court of Saxony, Lieut. - General Francis Palmes, was alive. He died on 15 Jan., 1719, N.S., and the charge d'affaires, Daniel Moore, was recalled some time after his death. The vacancy was evidently not filled. L. L. K.

PAYNE & Foss : NOT " PAINE " (11 S. xii. 139). This was a well-known business carried on in Pall Mall, and probably sur- vived the death of Thomas Payne (1752- 1831), as the late Mr. Edward Marston includes the names in a list of booksellers known to him or to Mr. John Slark from 1837 ('After Work,' p. 328). Mr. Marston notes the firm as being the publishers of Clarendon's * History of the Rebellion,' but I think that could not have been the case,

as this book is the perpetual copyright of the University of Oxford and always bore the imprint of the Clarendon Press. Thomas Payne was the eldest son of the more famous bookseller Thomas Payne " Honest Tom Payne" (1719-99). See ' DJST.B.' and Tim- perley's ' Dictionary of Printers,' 1839, pp. 799, 916 ; also Dobson's ' Eighteenth- Century Vignettes,' Series II. On p. 904 of Timperley will be found a note referring to the unsuccessful action brought by tha British Museum against Payne & Foss with reference to the B.M.'s claim to a copy of ' Flora Grseca,' which was issued to sub- scribers only.

Henry Foss had been Thomas Payne's apprentice. He was taken into partnership in 1813.

The following is from Crabb Robinson's ' Diary,' quoted in Lucas's * Life of Charles Lamb,' vol. ii. p. 129 :

" July 6 (1824). Took tea with Lamb. There were Hessey and Taylor, Clare the shepherd, poet, Bowring, and Elton the translator from the classics. . . Hessey gave an account of De Quincey's description of his own bodily suffer- ings. He should have employed as his publishers, said Lamb, Payne & Fuss (referring to Payne & Foss, booksellers in Pall Mall)."

WM. H. PEET.

A SONNET BY WORDSWORTH (11 S. xii. 100, 146, 166*). Knight gives the sonnet as "ollows :

To Miss SELLON.

The vestal priestess of a sisterhood who knows ^o self, and whom the selfish scorn She seeks a wilderness of weed and thorn, And, undiverted from the blessed mood 3y keen reproach or blind ingratitude, A wreath she twines of blossoms lowly born- An amaranthine crown of flowers forlorn And hangs her garland on the Holy Rood. Sister of Mercy, bravely hast thou won rom men who winnow charity from Faith he Pharisaic sneer that treats as dross he works by faith ordained. Piirsue thy path, ill, at the last, thou hear the voice " Well done, hou good and faithful servant of the Cross ! "

I have very little doubt that the lady to

.vhorn this sonnet was addressed was Pris-

illa Lydia Sellon, 1821-7C, who was the

ounder of the conventual system in the

stablished Church, and largely responsible

or organizing the nursing sisterhoods which

were so useful during the cholera and small -

ox epidemics in London, 1861-71. See

D.N.B.' and Men of the Reign,' edited

>y Thomas Humphry Ward, 1885, p. 799.

WM. H. PEET.

[* The additional matter here given arrived ith the proof of MR. FEET'S reply, ante, p. 160,, ust too late to be inserted.]