Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/255

11 S. VII. Mae. 29,1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 247 (Holy Cross), Pershore (St. Andrew), Wyre Piddle, Powick, Queenhill, Rous Lench, Sedgeberrow, Shipstone-on-Stour, Spetchley, Stoulton, Stourport (part only), Tibberton, Tidington, Tredington, Warndon, Whittington, Wickhamford, Worcester (Cathedral, St. Michael, St. John in Bedwardine, St. Andrew, St. Swithin, St. Martin), and Wribbenhall. Those in italics are completed to the present day. The Worcestershire inscriptions are in my possession.

I am preparing a Bibliography of the county of Warwick, and should be glad of notes of any scarce pamphlets, articles in magazines or Transactions of learned societies.

—Lately, while consulting 'N.E.D.,' I chanced to catch sight of the word ampersand, and I noted that, while the sign has been in use for centuries, the earliest mention of the use of the word is a reference dated 1837. I then bethought me of Sir Pertinax MacSycophant's description (vide Macklin's 'Man of the World') of the lady whom he sought in marriage as "a piece of deformity in the shape of an izzard or an empersi-and." Macklin's play was written prior to 1764.

I suppose it is generally known that the ampersand sign "&" is a corruption of the Latin word et. In an oral collation of documents it is always sounded as et, and not and.

—This word is generally synonymous with "ill," though often simply denoting nausea; e.g., sea-sickness and infantile distress. A colloquial usage implies mental satiety or disgust—"to be sick of" anything. Another usage has grown up of late—"to be sick about" something, i.e., to be annoyed at. A vicar lately told me that the wardens were "sick about" something appearing in print which they wished suppressed.

—In his recently published Painters and Painting' Sir Frederick Wedmore has a reference to Wilkie's last illness which may prove somewhat misleading. He says that

This statement leaves out of consideration the important facts that the painter had been in poor health for sixteen years previously, that his visit to Palestine was partly for the sake of recuperation, and that the logbook of the Oriental contained the entry:—

The "only," therefore, of Sir Frederick Wedmore's account is hardly justified. The vaguely defined "imprudent feeding " was Wilkie's partaking of iced lemonade and fruit.

—It must be noted with regret that pickaxe and shovel are about to invade another quiet City nook. The attack this time is to be made upon the old rectory house of St. Michael's, Cornhill, situate just behind the church in its tiny square. The adjoining property has been razed, and is now in process of rebuilding. A similar fate awaits this picturesque neighbour, from which the well-known firm of lawyers, Messrs. Parker, have already temporarily migrated. What with the erection of huge insurance premises, bank annexes, and so forth, this part of the City is fast becoming entirely effaced, which, to many folk, is a fact to grieve over.

—He married the divorced wife of Charles Gerard, second Earl of Macclesfield, and the reputed mother, by Earl Rivers, of Richard Savage, the unfortunate poet. I am not aware that his parentage has ever been precisely stated. 'D.N.B.' says that he was eldest son of Henry Brett of Cowley, co. Glouc, the descendant of an old Warwickshire family, Brett of Brett Hall. Foster's 'Alum. Oxon.,' in giving his matric. at Balliol College, 3 Jan., 1692/3, aged 15, describes him as son of Henry Brett of Euston, Oxon, gentleman. Usually he is stated to have been either son or grandson of Henry Brett, M.P. for Gloucester in the Long Parliament, who suffered sequestration and fine for his loyalty to the King. Now, according to 'The Visitation of Gloucester, 1683,' the last-named M.P. died in 1674, aged 87, his eldest son, Henry, having predeceased him some three years, being buried in St. Mary's Church, Oxford, 29 March, 1671 (Le Neve's 'Mon. Ang.'). But George Brett, second son of the M.P., who also predeceased his father, dying in 1667 at the age of 47, had a son Henry, who was seated at Dowdeswell, Glouc, and was 25 years old at the Visitation of 1683. By his wife Hester, daughter of Richard Eyam