Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/96

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis.xn. JULY 31, 1915.

but in Dr. Macray's life of Lady Dorothy Pakington in the same Dictionary the evi- dence is summarized which proves almost beyond a doubt that Allestree was the author. The Rev. Francis Barham in The Journal of Sacred Literature for July, 1864, and Mr. C. E. Doble in three articles in The Academy for November, 1884, had gone over the evi- dence and agreed in this result. Fell probably edited, and to a certain extent revised, them all. The question was discussed in the First and Third Series of ' N. & Q.'

JOHN R. MAGRATH. Queen's College, Oxford.

It has not been authoritatively settled who wrote the ' Duty,' and it has been re- marked that the authorship has been as much disputed as that of the ' Icon Basilike ' and the Letters of Junius. Dr. Johnson thought that there might be different reasons assigned why the author should conceal himsel f, and he gave three. To the names suggested in Brewer's * Dictionary ' those of Bishops Mor- ley, Henchman, Hammond, and Chappell, and Obadiah Walker, the ejected Master of University College, Oxford, may be added. In most books about Worcestershire worthies Lady Dorothy Pakington (called the good Lady Pakington) has the authorship attri- buted to her. She was buried in Hampton Lovett Church, where, on the tomb of her grandson, is a record of her name, to which are appended these words : " She was justly reputed the authoress of ' The Whole Duty of Man,' who was exemplary for her great piety and goodness."

The writer of her biography in the * D.N.B.' suggests that she was probably only a copyist of the ' Duty,' and he inclines to the belief that the author was Richard Allestree, the Royalist divine, to whom it is ascribed in the Oxford Bodleian Library. STAPLETON MARTIN. The Firs, Norton, Worcester.

See ' The Secrets of our National Litera- ture,' by W. Prideaux Courtney, 1908, pp. 140-41. After enumerating the various names of those to whom ' The Whole Duty of Man ' has been attributed, Mr. Courtney says :

" Now, however, current opinion attributes its composition to Richard Allestree, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and the Provost of Eton, assisted by the supervising care of Bishop Fell. This was the view put forward by Mr. C. E. Doble in three articles in The Academy during November, 1884."

WM. H. PEET.

[PROF. BENSLY and MB. ROBERT PIERPOINT also thanked for replies.]

JOHN PERRIN (US. xii. 49). Possibly he may be the same as Jean Baptiste Perrin, a teacher of French circa 1786, who was born in Paris, whence he migrated to Dublin and published a number of textbooks. See ' D.iS.B.,' vol. xlv. p. 14.

WlLLOTJGHBY MAYCOCK.

MEUX'S HORSESHOE BREWERY (11 S. xii. 47). It was at Messrs. Henry Meux & Co.'s premises in Banbury Street, St. Giles's, that the great vat burst on 17 Oct., 1814, whereby nine persons lost their lives, and the base- ments of all the neighbouring houses were inundated. There is a detailed account of this extraordinary occurrence in ' The Annual Register ' of that year.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

REPUDIATION OF PUBLIC LOAN (11 S. xi. 452 ; xii. 14). Another metrical allusion to the repudiation of its bonds by the State of Pennsylvania is to be found in the Bon Gaultier ' Book of Ballads.' When Philip Slingsby (" Slingsby of the manly chest ") came to claim the reward for slaying the Snapping Turtle, the answer he received from the sagacious Tyler was :

Since- you dragged the 'tarnal crittur

From the bottom of the ponds, Here 's the hundred dollars due you, All in Pennsylvanian Bonds !

T. F. D. [MR. A. H. VV. FYNMORE thanked for reply.]

" SYMPATHIES " AND " ANTIPATHIES " OF PLANTS. (See ' Botany,' 1 1 S. vii. 72, 231, 516). Recently I came across a Chinese passage telling that the coriander would much thrive if its planter vituperates at others during the act, but now I am unable to recollect the title of the book which contains it.

In this part the hitomoji a small form of the cibol, much used as condiment is held to have a strong " sympathy " with money, though in a different mood from Xanthoxylum piperitum and Colocasia indica (for which two plants see 11 S. vii. 73). Whenever a portion of its cluster is stolen or given away gratis, all the rest, it is said, will fade away irretrievably. Also some folks here maintain that the plantain (Plantago major], as well as the broom wort (Kochia scoparia), would never grow anew should its owner happen to revile its exuber- ance as a nuisance.

In Ratzel's ' History of Mankind,' trans. Butler, 1897, vol. ii. p. 508, the Manganja villages in Eastern Africa are said to be " fenced with pillar-like euphorbias, a plant under which no grass will grow, and which will not burn "