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NOTES AND QUERIES, ui s. ra. APKIL 29, 1911.

GRAY'S ' ELEGY ' : TRANSLATIONS ' AND PARODIES (11 S. iii. 62, 144, 204). A Bohemian translation was made by Joseph Jungmann, who translated Milton's ' Para- dise Lost,' Chateaubriand's ' Athalie,' and poems by Goethe, Schiller, and Burger. He was the great lexicographer, and ft leader of the renaissance following the enlightened policy of the Emperor Joseph II.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

Streatham Common.

VESTRY HELD ON LADY DAY (11 S. iii. 288). Before such business was handed over to District and County Councils, vestry meetings were held on Lady Day for the appointment of overseers, road-surveyors, and such like non-ecclesiestical officers.

W. C. B.

"No GREAT SHAKES " (11 S. iii. 129, 173, 257). An allusion to this expression earlier than 1819 will be found in Lord Broughton's recollections (' Recollections of a Long Life,' vol. ii. p. 2). On visiting the Cathe- dral at Malines with some friends, he records in his diary on 2 August, 1816 :

"W. said that a piece of sculpture there was heartily."
 * nullse magnae quassationes,' arid the other laughed

THOMAS LANGTON.

Toronto.

The lines quoted by Mr. R. L. MORETON from James Smith's ' Next-Door Neighbours,' " Who are the comers next to Blakes ? " " At Number Four ? " " Yes." " No great shakes,"

are curiously paralleled by a line in Charles Lever's famous song ' The Man for Galway' appearing in ' Charles O'Malley ' :

They say the Blakes are no great shakes.

The expression " no great shakes " is very common in Ireland. R. J. KELLY.

Dublin.

A COUSIN OF BOSWELL (11 S. iii. 189, 292). The English chapel with which Mr. Riddoch was connected was situated not at Inverness, but at Aberdeen. This is quite clear in Boswell. ]yicreover Boswell elsewhere uses "English chapel" in the sense of " Episcopalian chapel," vi/., in his account of Montrose, under date 21 August. L. R. M. STRACHAN.

Heidelberg.

1 A WHITE HAND AND A BLACK THUMB ' (11 S. iii. 249). This story appeared in All the Year Bound, 1863-4, vol. x. Like most of the contributions in the magazine, it was anonymous, and the authorship, I believe, has never been divulged. If I

may be permitted to hazard a guess, I would venture to assign it either to W 7 ilkie Collins or to Fechter the actor. In 1868 Collins produced a play, in conjunction with Fechter, under the title of ' Black and White.' Is the play based on the tale ' A White Hand and a Black Thumb,' which had appeared. four years previously in All the Year Round? W. S. S.

JOHN THANE, PRINT-SELLER AND EN- GRAVER (11 S. iii. 227). Thane the print- seller was not the first of that name to appear in England. During the century preceding his birth, there was a John Thane, Prebendary of Chester, who published some volumes of sermons.

Perhaps the following note in Lowndes may indicate the direiticn in which informa- tion as to the print-seller's parentage may be obtained :

" The coppers of this work [' British Autography '} were sold in 1838, and the purchaser [Mr. Daniel} reissued the work without altering the date ; and also published ' Twenty-Seven Additional Portraits- with the Autographs, never before published/ London, 1839, 4to, consisting of title, list of 27 por- traits, 3 sheets of facsimiles, portrait of Mr. Thane, and letterpress, 66 pp., of which additions only 100 copies were made up."

S. S.

CANONS, MIDDLESEX : " ESSEX " AS CHRISTIAN NAME (11 S. ii. 328, 374, 304, 437, 534 ; iii. 92, 173, 214, 295). In stating (at p. 214, ante) that Essex Lake married Sir Thomas Drax the pen of G. E. C. appears for once to have betrayed him. The only reference to a person of this Christian name which appears in my MS. collections in regard to the family is to Thomas Shatterden. (Shetterden), who" ultimately changed his surname to Drax, but who married Eliza- beth Ernley (Ernie) ; he was never knighted, so far as I am aware. It would therefore seem that my original statement that Essex Lake married (Sir) James Drax, as in the ' London Marriage Licences,' was the correct one (see US. ii. 535 and iii. 173).

It may be interesting to note of this Essex Drax, who was probably among the first women to bear this strange Christian name, that she lived to attain the great age of 106, according to the register of her burial on 3 July, 1727, thus outliving her husband by a period of oyer sixty years. In entering the record the parish clerk set her down by mistake as Dame Sussex Drax,. ' which brings to our notice another " singular topographical Christian name."

WILLIAM McMuRRAY. St. Anne and St. Agnes, &c., Gresham Street, E.C-