Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/354

 290

.NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. v. A, is, 1012.

"MIZPAH" EPITAPH. From a tombstone in Cheriton Churchyard (Kent) I copied the following :

" Mizpah. | In Loving Memory | of | Richard Rawson ! Army Scripture Reader, | Born Decem- ber 15th, 1825 | Fell Asleep December 13th, 1899. with the Lord."
 * " To wake up and find it Glory." " For ever

Is this use of the word " Mizpah " justified ? It is rarely seen on tombstones, if, indeed, this example is not absolutely unique. As used in Genesis, it was an alternative name for Galeed, both names being given in com- memoration of the covenant made there between Jacob and Laban, its meaning being " a beacon, or watch-tower." Modern cus- tom, however, appears to regard the words with which Laban drove home the lesson of the covenant as the proper meaning. When Jacob and his brethren had built the com- memorative cairn,

" Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed ; and Mizpah ; for he said, The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another."

E. K.

LEYSON FAMILY. I clipped the following paragraph from The Morning Post of 20 Dec., 1911, and shall be glad to know where a pedigree of the Leyson family may be consulted :

" Mr. William Leyson, of Neath. has died a^ the age of eighty-six. He traced his descent from a Welsh Prince. It was a Leyson who was the last Abbot of Neath."

Was the Rev. Thomas Leyson, Vicar of Bassaleg, co. Monmouth, a member of this family ? He bore for arms Gules, three chevrons argent. CURIOUS.

CARLYLE : EXPLANATION OF REFERENCES WANTED, To whom does Carlylo refer in the following quotations from ' Sartor Resartus ' ?

1. "As our Humorist expresses it,

By geometric scale Doth take the size of pots of ale."

2. " Wise man was he who counselled that Speculation should have free course and look fearlessly towards all the 32 points of the Com pass."

3. " ' Whose seedfield,' in the sublime words of the poet,' is Time.' "

A. M. W. [1. Butler's ' Hudibras,' Pt. I. C. i. 121.]

JEAN PAUL : NOVALIS : JACOB BEHMEN. I am desirous of obtaining a complete list of English translations of these authors. Can any of your reader ? give me information ?

T. P.

LOGAN, LAUGHAN. Are Laughane Laughan, and Logan different forms of the ame name ?

I believe Laughan was the name of one of the principal families in Ireland in the seventeenth century. Is it of Celtic origin ?

R. H. J.

Ross OF BALNAGOWAN. On 27 Feb. 1721/2, William, Lord Ross, brother of Charles Ross of Balnagowan, wrote to Admiral Thomas Gordon, Governor of Kron- stadt ( ' Home - Drummond - Moray Papers,' Hist. MSS. Com., p. 198):

" I had yours of the 8 of Januar, with the melancoly account of my dear sister's death, which I doe with great sorrow condol with you. We ar al much oblidged to his Imperial Majesty of Russia's great honor done my sister in ordering her corps to be buried near to his own favorit ister."

Was she the wife of Gordon, who by 1707 married Margaret Ross, the widow of William Monypenny (d. 1700), of the Pitmillie family (facts noted in no peerage) ? Can any Russian reader help ? Who was the Czar's "favorit sister," and where was she buried ?

J. M. BULLOCH. 123, Pall Mall, S.W.

NON-PAROCHIAL REGISTERS. Have these been published ? I am specially interested in those of the counties of Lincoln and Essex, with, possibly, some border parishes.

E. F. W.

[See 5 S. vi. 484 ; vii. 9, 89, 131, 239, 290, 429, 459 ; viii. 53, 152 ; x. 470, 498, 516 ; xi. 38, 326, 377 ; 6 S. i. 372, 460 ; ii. 9, 238 ; v. 141, 211, 233, 248, 273, 291, 310, 329, 409, 435, 449, 492 ; vi. 69, 91, 130, 192, 231.]

HENRY GILBERT, 1695-1785. He was an ancestor of the late W. S. Gilbert. Any clue to his baptism in Hants, Wilts, or Devon will oblige. How did W. S. Gilbert derive his name Schwenck ?

A. C. H.

SIBBERING. Can any correspondent tell me the origin or derivation of the surname Sibbering, and where the family of that name, believed to have been Quakers, lived about the middle of the eighteenth century ? G. T. SIBBERING.

Alteryn House, ^Newport, Mon.

THE DEVIL AND THE LAWYER. Amongst the many queer tales which children used to hear from their elders was one in which a lawyer, going at night either from Derby