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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vm. OCT. i. 1913.

HERALDIC (US. viii. 232). The arms are those of the Fitzgerald family. David Fitz- gerald, Bishop of St. Davids 1147-76, bore " Argent, a saltire gules charged with another saltire humetty of the field." The ends of the saltire humetty being cut off would account for their being taken for batons crossed. WILFRED DRAKE.

KHOJA HUSSEIN (11 S. viii. 232). Both your correspondents should read ' A Persian Passion Play ' in Matthew Arnold's ' Essays in Criticism,' First Series. The story seems to form the subject of a Persian religious drama resembling the Oberammergau Pas- sion Play. ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.R.S.L.

Central Reference Library, Bolton.

[The querist might consult the September number of The CornhUl Magazine.]

OLD LONDON DIRECTORIES (11 S. viii. 188). The first Street Directory giving the occupiers in all the principal thoroughfares t" Streetification ") is Johnstone's 'London Commercial Guide,' 1816. Boyle's 'Court Guide ' deals in the same manner with the principal residential streets. The excellent Library of London Books at the Bishopsgate Institute has a valuable collection of old Directories. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

STATUES AND MEMORIALS IN THE BRITISH ISLES: SAILORS BLAKE (11 S. viii. 183). In the inner vestibule of the Shire Hall, Taunton, there is a marble bust of Robert Blake, erected in 1860 through the exertions of the late Robert Arthur Kinglake. On the pedestal, which is of Sicilian marble, is the following inscription :

" Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea. Born at Bridgwater 1598. Died off Plymouth 1657.

Lyme

Taunton

The Downs

Portland

Tunis Santo Cruz."

The entire height of this monument is 7 ft.

A. J. M.

THE SURNAME LAROM (11 S. viii. 188). The Rev. Charles Larom was born in London in August, 1793. He went to Sheffield as a boy, and was apprenticed to Bowman, a pawnbroker in Queen Street. He entered Horton College, Bradford, Yorks, 27 Aug., 1816. He began to preach at Townhead Street Chapel, Sheffield. 16 May, 1821. He married 15 Oct., 1825, Harriet Gouldthorp. She died 1836. He remained a widower for fourteen years, and then remarried, but the

name of his second wife I do not know. He- resigned his pastorate at Townhead Street ,.. 1865. He died at Sheffield, 18 May. 1881. and was buried 23 May in the General Cemetery, Sheffield. He left five children. See Baptist newspaper. 27 May, 1881, p. 330. Mr. A. M. Stalker issued privately., in 1882, a brief memoir of Charles Larom. A. L. HUMPHREYS. 187, Piccadilly, W.

" MISTER " AS A SURNAME (11 S. viii. 209). Bardsley's ' Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames ' (1901) gives :

" Mister. Nickname ' the master,' r. Master. It seems to be merely spelt as ' master ' is collo- quially pronounced. Possibly, however, an ab- breviation of Minister, q.v.

" London 2. New York 1."

W. B. GERISH.

The name Mixter is common at Langtoft> near Driffield, in the East Riding.

F. H. WlLHELMSOHN.

Recollections and Impressions of the Rev. John Smith, M.A., for Tiventy-Five Years Assistant Master at Harrow School. By Edward L>. Rendall and Gerald H. Kendall. (Smith, Elder & Co.)

A SHORT notice of this book may well find a place in ' N. & Q.,' despite the fact that it deals with matters which we touch relatively seldonu Its subject was not a great scholar, nor the repre- sentative of an historic family, and the interest of its pages is primarily personal rather intimately personal. Yet there are reasons which should commend the book to the attention of our readers- First, it forms a singular, and for that reason im- portant, contribution to the history of public school* in general, and of Harrow in particular. It throws a new and curious light upon possibilities of response in boys, upon possibilities in the influ- ence of masters, such as has, perhaps, rarely been so clearly and fully thrown before. Secondly, we may take it to be one. of the worthiest functions of ' N. & Q.' to rescue from oblivion the lives of men who, while by no means in the first rank as regards station or genius, yet left their mark upon their contemporaries, did some service that was individual and original, witnessed to some good thing that people had not thought of. Such a life was that of John Smith ; as such, in years to come, its memory may be disinterred, and then this little volume will be the one authority to turn to. Thirdly, as a biographical study requiring somewhat more than ordinary tact, it deserves quite unqualified praise. It might easily have slipped into sentimentality or tedious- ness, or even into facetiousness ; it might have taken on, unawares, a patronizing or an apolo- getic tone. Nothing of this: both writers say what they have to say with admirable simplicity.