Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/349

 ii s. xii. OCT. so, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

341

' PRIVATE AMUSEMENT.' A print wa published 1 Jan., 1786, by S. W. Fores, a the Caricature Warehouse, ISo. 3, Piccadilly under the above title. It represents i

rup of gentlemen round an E. O. table it known who was the artist ? I hav the original picture, which is of great merit and suffers very much in the reproduction by the anonymous engraver.

F. JESSEL. 52, Park Mansions, Knightsbridge, S.W.

REV. GEORGE KNIPE. I shall be gratefu for information regarding the family anc ancestry of this gentleman. He was mur dered in June, 1797, at Castle Richard Ireland, by a mob, the ringleader of which was one John Taite, alias Capt. Dreadnought on the ground that he had threatened to take an army from Dublin Castle to put th country down.

The Rev. George Knipe was married to Alicia ( ? Desmond or Hill). She and her four children were pensioned by a specia Act of the Irish Parliament. A Thomas Knipe and another were trustees anc guardians.

Was there any relationship to the Knipes of Erne Hill, Belturbet, co. Cavan ?

QUIEN SABE.

AUTHORS WANTED. Can any reader tel me where the following lines are to be found ? They refer to the postman :

He whistles as he goes,

Light-hearted wretch ! The messenger of grief, Perhaps, to thousands, and of joy to some.

READER.

Who wrote the following ? Call him not old whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul.

C. A. B.

[Oliver Wendell Holmes, ' The Old Player.']

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION WANTED. I should be glad of any information about the parentage and career of the following Old Westminsters: (1) John Laborde, admitted April, 1731, aged 12. (2) Michael Lacaux, admitted September, 1728, aged 16. (3) Peter Lacaux, admitted September, 1728, aged 10. (4) Haddon Ladyman, admitted July, 1734, aged It. (5) Alexander Lafarelle, admitted November, 1723, aged 13. (6) Brewster Lambe, admitted May, 1715, aged 11. (7) Richard Lambourne, admitted January, 1720/21, aged 8.

G. F. R. B.

HERCULES HASTINGS, CLOCKMAKER. I have an eight-day tlo.k with decorated brass dial showing the calendar. It is in- scribed as follows :

Hercules Hastings at Burford.

As Bt^rford is only six miles from Chur. h Hill, where Warren Hastings was born in 1732, it occurs to me that there may have been some family connexion. I shall be glad if any one familiar with the Hastings pedigree can give me information on this point. The courteous VLar of Burford, Oxon, informs me that the clo kmaker died in 1731. Was he a member of the Clo ( k- makers' Company, and are there any other clocks by him known ? JOHN LANE.

The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.

" KHAKI." This, the all-dominating word of the day, is an adoption of the Hindustani khaki, dusty, dust-coloured. Can any Oriental scholar tell me whether it is ulti- mately derived from the Greek X<HKO of a similar meaning ? A. SMYTHE PALMER.

CHAPTER AND VERSE WANTED. I should be glad if any reader could assist me with regard to the following queries :

1. When, and under what circumstances, did Napoleon say that the Russian Emperor Alexander was " Faux, fin, et fourbe, comme un Grec du Bas Empire " ?

2. Where does Seneca use the phrase : ' Initium caecitas, progressio labor, error

omnia " ?

3. In which of his dialogues does Landor say that there are many critics in hell, or something of the kind ?

4. Where and when did W 7 ilkes (a) speak of himself as " a burnt-out volcano " ; (b) say that an old man's dotage was anecdotage ?

J. A. L. F.

[4 (I). The earliest quotation in the ' N.E.D.' for ion from Mortimer Collins in 1880 speaks of 'anecdotage" as "a pun which Disraeli the younger has conveyed from Wilkes." Ihe Dic- ionary cites this use from 'Lothair' (1870). Can -,ny of our contributors verify Mortimer Collins's assertion, and so carry back the history ot the vord ?]
 * his sense of " auecdotage" is of 1835, but a quota-

THE COLLIE. Are collie dogs as a fact more treacherous than the generality of

OgS ? A. S. E. ACKERMANN.

CORAL AND ITS OWNER. Is there any ruth in the statement that a coral necklace' ades with the failing health of the wearer ? If so, what is the explanation ? If not, what is the origin of the idea ?

A. S. E. ACKERMANN.