Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/235

 ii s. vi. SEPT. 7, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

191

LIFTING THE BRIDE OVER THE THRESHOLD. Can any one explain to me the meaning of the custom of lifting the bride over the doorstep of her husband's house the first time she enters it ? ZEPHYR.

PLANTS IN POETRY : IDENTIFICATION WANTED. 1. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' tell me the name of the plant described by Longfellow in ' Evangeline ' ?

Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head

from the meadow, See how its leaves all point to the north, as true

as the magnet. It is the compass flower, that the finger of God

has suspended Here on its fragile stalk, to direct the traveller's

journey Over the sealike, pathless, limitless waste of the

desert.

2. To what plant did Browning allude in ' May and Death ' ?

one plant

Woods have in May, that starts up green Save a sole streak which, so to speak,

Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between.

BOTANY.

" YELVER " IN PLACE-NAMES. Can any one explain the meaning of " yelver " in Yelvertoft, Yelverton, &c.? G. B.

' HUSENBETH'S BREVIARY.' This Breviary was printed by Bacon in Norwich in the early part of the last century, and it was, I believe, the first one ever printed in England since the sixteenth century. It is in magnificent type and admirably bound, and certainly reflects the greatest credit on Bacon and his workmen. A Missal was to follow this Breviary, but whether it did or no I have been unable to find out. A copy of the Breviary was sold at a second- hand bookshop during the Catholic Congress held at Norwich the first week in August.

Has any reader of ' N. & Q.' chanced to come across a Missal produced by the same printer ? A work claiming to have been executed here, and entitled 'A Missal for the Altar,' was sold at a second-hand bookseller's in 1890, but I have so far been quite unable to trace it.

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

24, Unthank Road, Norwich.

SIR WALTER RALEGH'S DESCENDANTS. Can any one inform me where I can find particulars of the descendants of Sir Walter Ralegh, especially in the female line ?

S. NOWELL.

LOWNDES'S ' BIBLIOGRAPHER'S MANUAL.'

(11 S. vi. 103.)

MR. ALBERT MATTHEWS "s very interesting note clearly proves that this work was originally issued in numbers, a fact which was certainly not generally known. I presume that the copies on large and thick paper, of which fifty were printed (see ' Catalogue of the Library of J. W. K. Eyton,' p. 118), were also published in the same manner. I have a copy of this issue, which formerly belonged to my father. He was a friend of Mr. Eyton, and my recollection is that prior to his death that gentleman asked my father to select a book from his library as a souvenir. My father chose this fine copy of the ' Manual,' perhaps actuated in doing so by the fact that there was another copy in Mr. Eyton's library, beautifully bound in green morocco by Hayday, which realized 71. 17s. 6d. at his sale. After my father's death, which occurred while I was in India just forty- one years ago, his books were sold en bloc by his executors to the late Bernard Quaritch. On hearing of this, I asked Mr. Quaritch to let me have this book at a fair price, which he at once consented to do. It was then in the original Roxburghe binding, with brown leather back and red sides, but as it was in poor condition I had it strongly bound in half -morocco by Joseph Zaehnsdorf. It makes a handsome set of volumes ; but I was afterwards sorry that I did not have the original Roxburghe binding repaired, as it was more in keeping with the character of the book.

The collation of my copy is identical with that described by MR. MATTHEWS as being in the Boston Public Library that is to say, it is in four volumes, but does not contain the Address. On a careful examina- tion I find that, while the title-page of vol. i. and the Dedication (as well as the title- pages of the three other volumes) are printed on thick paper, the Preface, pp. [v]- xii, is printed on inferior paper. Though in size a royal octavo, the register is in fours, like a quarto, the signatures commen- cing with Bl on p. l,and ending with 11Y4 on p. 2001. There is no signature A, the title-page, dedication, and preface appa- rently not being included in the register. I think that the fact of the pagination being