Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/181

 ii s. ix. FEB. 28, ion] NOTES AND QUERIES.

175

"GRAINS ATMS HAY" (11 S. v. 429). After a long interval I am able to answer my own query. The above motto is at- tached to the following coat of arms, taken from a dinner-plate in my possession.

Arms : Per pale, dexter, quarterly, 1 and 4, Sable, a lion rampant; 2 and 3, Or, a fleur-de-lis azure; sinister, Gules, a paile (or pall) ermine. The whole within a bordure gules.

Crest : Out of a ducal coronet or, a demi- lion rampant.

Supporters : Dexter, a lion segreant. Sinister, a greyhound segreant, both re- guardant.

I should be glad to know by whom these arms are borne. F. K. P.

RINGS WITH A DEATH'S HEAD (11 S. viii. 170, 217, 253, 358). If it is not too late to continue this correspondence, it may be well to place on record an earlier instance than any of those previously mentioned. Sir Martin Bowes, Alderman of the City of London, by his will dated 10 Aug., 1565, left to

" Sir Percy vail Harte, Knt., his daughter Cisceley> wife of Henry Harte, and others, a ring of gold 'with two Bowes bente and a deathes lied graven betwene them upon it,' according to a sample left with his executors, with this Scripture about it,

pounds. "'Calendar of Wills, Court of Husting, London,' Part II. pp. xlii, 695.
 * Remember thy ende,' of the value of three

F. W. BEAD.

JULES VERNE (11 S. viii. 168, 489; ix. 74). There are two slight slips in MB. G. WEST'S statement, which I can otherwise confirm as far as 1883. 1. ' The Mysterious Island ' was quite a different work from

book-form in English some years before The Boy's Own Paper was born. The French name of ' Godfrey Morgan ' was ' L'Ecole des Robinsons,' which might have been translated ' The School for Crusoes,' as in France it is the Christian name, instead of the surname, of Defoe's hero which has become a common noun. 2. Instead of ' The Cryptogram ' read ' The Giant Raft,' the former title being that of the sequel only. The French title of 'The Giant Raft ' was ' La Jaugada,' and MR. J. PARSON is correct in his inference that the French and English appearances were practically contemporaneous, for I read the opening chapters of ' La Jaugada ' in a French periodical a very short time before they appeared in The Boy's Own Paper.
 * Godfrey Morgan,' and had appeared in

A. MORLEY DAVIES.

LONDON NURSERY GROUNDS (11 S. ix. 26, 112). I have always heard that there was a nursery famous for its mignonette and stocks on the ground which Hans Crescent now occupies. This must have been in the forties. E. E. COPE.

In my note at the first reference I only had in view the nursery grounds existing in the first half of the eighteenth century. An intentional omission, therefore, was William Curtis' s London Botanic Garden at Lambeth. This was more a show -garden, a place to be visited by " distinguished foreigners and the curious," than any other London nursery ground. The Catalogue (1783) of the plants cultivated there details proposals for its maintenance as a subscrip- tion garden where, at the cost of one guinea annually, " persons are entitled to walk in the garden, use the library, and introduce one person " ; and those subscribing two guineas had the additional privilege of " receiving roots or seeds of such plants as can be spared without diminishing the necessary stock of the said garden."

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

FEAST OF SHELLS (US. ix. 108). Among the ancient Gaels, was not a shell the emblem of peace and hospitality ? I find the following in Ossian :

"Three days they feasted together; on the fourth, Annir heard the name of Oscar. They rejoiced in the shell."' The War of Inis-shona.'

A note says :

" ' To rejoice in the shell ' is a phrase for feasting sumptuously and drinking freely."

" Starno designed their death. He gave the feast of shells." 'Fingal,' bk. iii.

" Where is the fallen Crugal ? He lies forgot on earth ; the hall of shells is silent." Tingal, bk. ii.

A note here is :

"The ancient Scots, as well as the present Highlanders, drunk in shells ; hence it is that we so often meet, in the old poetry, with 'chief of shells ' and ' the halls of shells.' "

I quote from an edition of Ossian pub- lished by Campe & Co. of Niirnberg and New York. It bears no date, but is prob- ably 1840-50. I cannot say if the notes are by Macpherson or not.

WM. H. PEET. [MR. ARCHIBALD SPARKE also thanked for reply.]

" THROP'S WIFE " (11 S. viii. 468 ; ix. 12). The following variant may not be with- out interest : "As thrang as Throp's wife when shoe hang'd hersell in her garter " (' Craven Dialect and Glossary,' London, William Crofts, 1828, s.v. ' Thrang = busy ').