Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/492

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vn. JUNE 21, 1913.

at Netting Hill in 1830, so without reference to the Rate Books it is difficult to identify that occupying this fine old house, now known as 50 and 52, Notting Hill Gate. Although not of the same date, the houses Nos. 50 to 62 are all eighteenth - century buildings, and therefore of some interest.

Before me is a long gossipy letter addressed to Edmond Malone from H. Boyd, dated a 'The Gravel Pits, Kensington, 26 Feb., 1805." After expressing regret that he cannot dine with Malone because he has already accepted another invitation, he proceeds

44 for I shall not meet an Individual there that I care a straw for, not that they are men of straw, for there I believe will be Opie, Nollekens, Copley, and several other Chromatics and Lithentrop- tics [sic], and there will be a man who has written a Magnetic Atlas ; my needle, alas ! points another way. There is also a museum, like the vision in Milton, containing ghastly shapes, Gorgons
 * and Hydras or chimeras dire, intestine, stone, and

.nicer, moonstruck madness, pining atrophy, . marasmus, and wide - wasting pestilence. You will easily guess this must be a surgeon's, it is at . a Mr. Heavysides', who has Concerts and Con- versaziones, the latter in this horrible apartment."

J. Symmons, the antiquary, long resident at Chiswick, also addresses some of his earlier letters from " The Gravel Pits, Ken- sington." Some years ago I was shown an excellent landscape by Wilson said to repre- sent this place, but there was neither house,
 * road, nor tree stump to support its topo-

graphical interest.

If it has not already been done, perhaps .some capable amateur will photograph the picturesque exterior and interior of these .Jiouses before they are demolished.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

" RUMMAGE." In a composite " headed " roll (dated by the compiler of the official list t. Edw. II.) among the * Exchequer Accounts, K. R.,' is part of a statement of expenses incurred before the fifteenth year of the King's reign. The name of the accountant and title of the account are missing : -

" Idem computat in rollagio dictorurn .xl. doleorum. vini in eadem villa de lostwithiel de Cilario dictorum mercatorum vsque ad aquam ,x.s....Et in towage eorundem per aquam videlicet per .iiij. leucas de lostwithiel vsque Fawe ad nauem .xiij.s. iiij.d. Et in Gyndage eorundem in Naui .y.s....Bt in rumagio eorun- dem .xl. doleorum vini in Naui .xxvj.s. viij.d. . . . Et in vino empto pro eisdem .xl. doleis vini oillandis in Naui, videlicet in .xlj. galonis vini . ,xiij.s. viij.d." ' Ace. Exch. K. R.,' 17/34, m. 3.

Q.V.

HESBA STRETTON. It is worth while recording that this popular writer, whose real name was Sarah Smith, derived her pseudonym " Hesba " from the initials of her brother and sisters' Christian names, and " Stretton " from Church Stretton in Shropshire, where she went to reside. Her father was Benjamin Smith, a book- seller, printer, and stationer (as he is vari- ously described in Wellington Parish Regis- ters), who resided at 14, New Street, Wel- lington, where he also kept the post office. His children were all baptized at Wellington, and in the Register they are all described as the children of " Benj. and Ann Smith, New St." Their names are as follows :

H anna, baptized in 1828.

E lizabeth, baptized in 1830.

S arah, baptized in 1832 (the writer).

B enjamin, baptized in 1834.

A nn, baptized in 1837.

For this information I am indebted to the courtesy of the present Vicar of Wellington. A notice of Sarah Smith will be found in the latest Supplement to the ' Dictionary of National Biography.' W. G. D. F.

FANE : VANE : VAUGHAN. In " The Victoria County History " series, on p. 84 of * Northamptonshire Families,' we read :

' ' Had we not such good authority as picturesque legend on illuminated parchment for the story of Sir Henry Vane's battlings, we should have traced the use of the three gauntlets to a play upon the word glove, which in the old French is ' faun,' ' waun.' or ' vaun,' the last form giving a sound near enough to Vane to satisfy the easily satisfied punster in armory."

I fancy the last sound was not only " near enough," but was exactly it ; for examples of the broadness of the a in Kent see Archceologia Cantiana, vol. i ;. p. 232. In an early seventeenth - century MS of coats of arms of Kentish gentlemen at Bradbourne Hall, Sevenoaks, there are four separate.; records of the arms of the Fane family. In each case the name is spelt Fawne. I would suggest that the names Fane, Vane, and Vaughan are all the same ; and that the name " a Vane," discussed in the article from which the above extract is taken, is possibly the equivalent of " ap Vaughan." F. LAMBABDE

LINES UNDER A CRUCIFIX. At 11 S. iv. 28, over the well-known signature J. T. F., appeared a query as to the source of the following, on a stained window at Honington, Warwickshire :

Effigiem Christi dum transis pronus honora, Non tamen effigiem sed quern designat adora.