Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/180

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. m. MAR. 4, 1911.

originally belonging to some of the larger houses common to this neighbourhood. There could be no occasion for William III. to stable his horses here underground when the King's Mews at Charing Cross were more convenient for Whitehall or St. James's Palace, and infinitely more suitable.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

PYRRHUS'S TOE (11 S. iii. 89, 131). This query has already been fully and satisfactorily answered by PROF. BENSLEY and other correspondents, but I wish to raise & side-issue with regard to textual readings. In the first edition of ' Hydriotaphia,' published in 1658, Sir Thomas Browne says : bones and ashes from fiery admixture, hath found no historical solution. Though they seemed to make a distinct collection, and overlooked not Pyrrhus his toe." In the " Came lot Classics " edition of Browne's London, 1886, the concluding words ot Browne's sentence are expanded into '*. . . .overlooked not Pyrrhus his toe which could not be burnt."
 * ' How they made distinct separation of
 * Hydriotaphia,' edited by Mr. J. A. Symonds,

Where did Mr. Symonds obtain his reading? Or are the words, " which could not be burnt," meant to be an interpolation inserted in the text for the purpose of explaining the allusion to Pyrrhus's toe ? Surely Mr. Symonds would never have done that.

S. W. S.

THE STAIR DIVORCE, 1820 (US. ii. 489; iii. 74). The new ' Scots Peerage,' iii. 414, states, under " Dysart " (Laura, youngest daughter of Louisa, Countess of Dysart, and John Manners), that the marriage 'referred to "was annulled in June, 1820, by the Lords of Session in Edinburgh." Has MR. J. M. BULLOCH, in making his research, kept in mind the facts that in June, 1820, the sixth Earl of Stair was alive, and that his successor bore no courtesy title, but was simply John William Henry Dalrymple ?

B. B.

Manila.

' DEATH OF CAPT. COOK '(US. iii. 87, 132). John Darley, born at Birmingham in 1765, his parents' only child, emigrated with his father to America about 1790, and first appeared on the stage there in 1794. He subsequently joined the United States Navy, and rose to be lieutenant of Marines. In 1800 he retired from the Navy, married Eleonora Westry, an actress, and returned to the stage, appearing at the Park Theatre,

New York, on 20 July, 1801. He was a good singer, and played Frenchmen and walking gentlemen well. He died at Phila- delphia, U.S.A., in 1853. His youngest son, Felix Octavius Carr Darley, born 1822, died 1888, was an eminent artist and engraver ; the emblematic figures for Ameri- can bank notes were designed by him, and his illustrations of numerous American authors were much admired.

The Gentleman's Magazine contains the following records :

1794, November 1, the marriage of Mr- Darley to Miss Sadler, both of the Lincoln coin" paiiy of comedians.

1809, June IB, the death at age of 58 of Mr. Darley, formerly well known as a vocal per- former at Vauxhall and Covent Garden theatre.

Doubtless this was the Darley who appeared at Covent Garden in the ' Death of Capt. Cook ' in March, 1789. MB. WM. DOUGLAS in his reply (11 S. iii. 132) states he was a native of Birmingham, and went to America in 1799. Is there not some con- fusion between this individual and John Darley the actor who died at Philadelphia in 1853 ?

Was there any connexion between Darley the actor of Covent Garden and Vauxhall and James and Mathew Darly of 39, Strand, the well-known publishers of carica- tures between 1766 and 1773 ?

H. S. GUINNESS.

Stillorgan, co. Dublin.

SPIDER'S WEB AND FEVER (US. ii. 109, 194 ; iii. 96). Of the spider Paracelsus says (I quote from a " faithfully Englished " version of his ' Dispensatory,' by W. D., published 1656) :

" The Spider is a hateful creature, yet it is of great vertue against Quotidian feavers : put the spider in a nut-shell, and shut it up close in it, and let the diseased person carry it about him, but he must not know what it is ; let him carry it four dayes, and he shall be well."

The spider never had a place in our official materia medica, but it seems to have been more esteemed in France. Lemery, in his ' Traite Universal des Drogues Simples,' says it is esteemed " pour les fievres interminantes & particuliere- ment pour la fievre quarte, tant ecrasee & appliquee au poignet, ou etant enfermee vivante dans une coquille de noix & attached au cou & 1' entree de 1'acces."

The web he describes as " vulneraire, astringente, consolidante," and recommends it for stopping blood and other purposes. I quote from the edition of 1723.

C. C. B.