Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/229

 ii s. xii. SEPT. is, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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admitted ; but wiry, and when was it first called the narthex ?

Is it, in reference to this schoolmaster's cane, as the place of discipline and correction ? If so, was it used as a place of instruction, with any allusion to Galatians iii. 25 ?

It seems curious to call a vestibule a cane, or even a box of ointment, to which the term was also applied. Lucis.

" THE PARKE." An entry in the seventh Burial Register of St. Mary's, Newington Butts, runs :

" 167. 3 Feb: Elizabeth. W. to William Lewis buryed in the Parke."

I should like to ask DR. WM. MARTIN if he will assist us to ascertain the locality of " the Parke." This parish adjoins that of St. George, Southwark, so it is, I hope, not too far from his well-studied spots.

GEO. W. WAINE.

" DAIE WORKES " AND " RODDS." In an early seventeenth-century terrier (Surrey) the land is partly measured in " daie workes." If we assume these to be four perches each, and reckon each " rodd " as one rood, the total appears to be incorrect. Required to know the area of a " daie worke " and a " rodd."

GEO. W. WAINE.

PATTERSON FAMILY. Can any correspon- dent give me information as to the descent of this family ? C. PATTERSON.

"BALANCE OF POWER." May it not be timely, and claim a general interest, to find out the history of the political term " balance of power," and, approximately, to ascertain the date when it was first applied to its weighty actual sense ? According to * Cham- bers' s Encyclopaedia' of 1901, "balance of power " is defined as

''an expression used for that state of things in which no one of the European States is permitted to have such a preponderance as to endanger the independence of the others." Cf. I.e., i. 672.

What early authority of a political historian or statesman (English or foreign) can be quoted by whom this term had been at first employed ? I find in the first vol. (p. 631) of the great ' Historical English Dictionary,' the author of which, Sir James Murray, was, alas ! not spared to see the completion of the work, a quotation from Yarranton's * Eng. Impr.,' dated 1677, as the earliest - known instance of this figurative expression :

" Great danger might ensue in breaking the Ballance [-sic] of Europe."

As I gather from the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' ed. Sir Sidney Lee, vol. Ixiii. p. 286 (1900), Andrew Yarranton, who flourished from 1616 to c.!684,was neither a professional politician nor a statesman, but an engineer and agriculturist, and the author of the work referred to : ' England's Improvement by Sea and Land to outdo the Dutch without Fighting,' the first part of which appeared in 1677, the second in 1681. H. KREBS.

' THE INSECT AND THE REPTILE.' - The Town and Country Magazine for Novem- ber, 1788, pp. 487-8, contains ' Histories of the Tete-a-Tete annexed ; or. Memoirs of the Insect, and the Reptile (No. 31, 32).' In the accompanying illustrations the lady is termed "The Reptile," and the gentle- man " The Insect."

" The Insect was born a Jew, and professes the religion of his ancestors ; but as he intends pursuing the honest profession of an attorney, it is probable, like the rest of his kind, he will pre- viously commence Christian, and change his name to that of some respectable f amily . . . . And yet the Insect is by no means destitute of sense. He has good musical abilities, and once in a frolic, for it could not be from necessity, appeared with a share of reputation on the Margate stage." Has "The Insect" been identified ? Perhaps a list of attorneys of the period would help. ISRAEL SOLOMONS.

D'HUXATTIME. Who was this writer ? I cannot find his name in the general biographies or in the B.M. Catalogue. Where can I find the following lines by him ?

Doux Soleil de mon ame,

Centre de mes amouis, En I'Eternelle ardeur d'une si Sainte flamme 1

Je veux finir mes Jours.

ISRAEL SOLOMONS.

"CONVERSATION" COOKE. This once well-known author owed his sobriquet to his poem entitled ' Conversation,' published in 1807. He was also the author of biographies of Macklin and Foote. His real name was William Cooke, and he died on 3 April, 1824. There is a note about him in Birkbeck Hill's edition of Boswell's ' Johnson,' iv. 437. Cooke was twice married. I am anxious to discover the maiden name of his second wife, by whom he is said to have had fifteen children. HORACE BLEACKXEY.

JAMES GRAY, JOURNALIST. James Gray, or Grey, was a partner with James Perry in The Morning Chronicle. I should be glad of particulars about him.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.