Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/457

 ii s. xii. DEC. 4, i9i5. 1 NOTES AND QUERIES.

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men of the parish used to drive nails. What their object in doing so was he could not say. He did not know whether it was with , definite intention or merely from traditional custom. The tree may have been a kind -of village-tree, like " the Cross-tree," which formerly stood at Messingham in Lincoln- shire at a point where the " town-street " Tunning north and south was joined by an old road from the west. This tree when it died was replaced bv the present " Cross- tree." Q. N.

WILLIAM LETHETJILIER (ante, p. 400, sub admitted to Westminster School January, 1721/2, aged 10.
 * Biographical Information Wanted,' 4)

Could he have been a son of William Lethieullier of Clapham, who died 17 Sept., 1728, and of Mary his wife, daughter of Henry Powell, both of whom are buried in the family vault in St. Paul's Churchyard, Larkhall Rise, Clapham? The monumental inscription also mentions the Rev. Nicholas Brady of Clapham, who married Martha, youngest daughter of William Lethieullier. and was son of the Rev. Nicholas Brady of Richmond, joint author of Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms.

I think a Lethieullier was Recorder of London in the eighteenth century.

ALFRED MOLONY.

THE VIRTUES OF ONIONS (US. xii. 101, 149, 167, 209, 245, 286, 367, 406). When at Constantinople about twelve years ago I was taken to visit old Riza Pasha, at that time Minister of War to Abdul Hamid. The room in which we talked reflected the mind of the semi-Europeanized Turk, many beautiful works of Oriental art forming a background to a medley of Swiss clocks and French mechanical toys. But I particularly noticed a string of large onions hanging at the side of the mantelpiece, as a defence, I was told at the time, against the Evil Eye.

J. M.

Linnell Close, Hampstead.

The folk-lore of dreams about onions is curiously illustrated by a Greek writer of the second century A.D., Artemidorus. In book i. chap. Ixix. of his ' Oneirocritica ' he says that to dream of vegetables that produce .a strong smell when eaten, such as radishes and leeks, means the discovery of secrets. This is parallel to

Secrets found out or else betrayed in the lines that L. G. R. quotes.

From chap. Ixxix. we learn that to dream of wearing a garland of onions betokens

advantage to the dreamer, but harm to those about him ; while in book iv. chap. Ivii. we are told with respect to a sick man's dreaming of eating onions that if he dreams that he eats many he will recover himself, but mourn the loss of some one else. If he dreams that he eats a few, he will die. The explanation is that people cry who eat onions and cry h they die. But their own death costs them few tears, whereas mourners weep a long time. EDWARD BENSLY.

INSCRIPTIONS AT ST. MARY'S, LAMBETH (US. xii. 396). Larkson Stanfield (No. 144) should this not be Clarkson ? The ' D.N.B.' states that Mary, the first wife of James Field Stanfield, d. 1801.

James Field Stanfield, an Irish actor and

author, was father of Clarkson Stanfield,

the celebrated marine artist, and d. 1824 ;

his first wife was Mary Hoad of Cheltenham.

R. J. FYNMORE.

I have to thank MR. J. T. PAGE for pointing out an error in inscription No. 97. The date of the death of the first John Tradescant should be 1638, not 1608. He also refers me for further information to 6 S. iii. 147, 512. For No. 99, the Bligh monument, he gives references at 7 S. vii 128, 216 ; 9 S. iii. 427 ; iv. 33, 97, 150, 217, 253, where portions of the inscription now missing may be found.

G. S. PARRY, Lieut.-Col.

CANTILLON FAMILY OF BALLYHEIGTJE, co. KERRY (see ante, p. 383). I beg to say that half a century ago, when I was a schoolboy in North Kerry, there were several families of this name residing in the parishes of Ballyheigue and Causeway, which adjoin. The National School, which I attended, was conducted by a Mr. John Church, who had as assistant his son, Thomas Church.

Mr. Church, jun., was a voluminous con- tributor, both in prose and verse, to the county paper, The Tralee Chronicle, under the nom de guerre of De Cantillon. The maiden name of his mother, who was dead some years before I came under his tutelage, was Cantillon, and we boys understood that the prefix used by the " Bard of Clan- maurice " (the name of the barony), as he was called, was originally attached to the name, but had been dropped in progress of time.

A half-sister of the bard's, Miss H, Church, is, I am told, still living in the village of Causeway, and holds a large collection of her brother's manuscripts. If your corre- spondent were to write to her, perhaps