Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/33

 ii s. ix. JAN. 10, 19H.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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.and (2) Francis Johonnot, about 1752 ; and was buried in Boston, 15 March, 1797. George Steuart practised medicine, and was sometimes called " Dr. Steuart." In July, 1740, he was commissioned a Captain, and sailed on the expedition against Carthagena. 'The following appeared in The New England Weekly Journal of 17 March, 1741 :

" An Extract of a Letter from an Officer in "Capt. Stewart's Company at Jamaica, dated

Jan. 8. 1740. by Capt. Jarvis Capt. Stewart

has done a great deal of Service in the Fleet, .among the sick, being sent for all over the Fleet. He gives them Medicines Advice without Fee -or Reward, which gives him a good Name among our Country-Men ; and if he should ever want to raise Recruits, he would meet with little or no Difficulty."

In the same paper of 30 June, 1741, we read : " We have an Account of the Death of Capt. Stuart of this Town/'

In her will (dated 5 March, proved 5 May, 1752) Ruth Steuart mentions " my Son 'Sir John Stuart Baronet now in England " ind " his Children by his second Wife " (name not given). On 13 Feb., 1756, John Viscount Steuart, " Son of Sir John Stewart of London, in Great Britain," made Benja- min Faneuil (who married Mary Cutler, a niece of Sir John's mother) his guardian. In his will (dated 16 Aug., 1760, proved 2 Oct., 1761) Dr. John Cutler, a brother of Sir John Steuart 's mother, bequeathed " the Remaining half part of my Estate " to various nephews and nieces, among them " the Children of my deceased Sister Ruth Stewart,"

J>i Each Child to have an equal share of said Remaining half of my Estate, excepting my Nephew John Stewart to whom I give five shillings only."

This is all the information I have been able to obtain about Sir John Steuart, Bart. It will be observed that in 1752 his mother called him " Sir John Stuart Baronet," that in 1756 his son called him " Sir John Stew- art," and that in 1760 his uncle called him plain " John Stewart." Can some one on your side of the water clear up the mystery surrounding his title, give the name of his second wife, and the date of his death ? Was he, in fact, a baronet ? If so, how did he obtain the baronetcy ? Or was he merely a claimant for some baronetcy ? and if so, what baronetcy ? Burke, G. E. C.'s ' Complete Baronetage,' and the usual au- thorities apparently do not mention him. It need scarcely be added that the name occurs in various forms Steuart, Steward, Stewart, and Stuart.

ALBEKT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

"TROD," "TRODE," PAST TENSE. OF " TREAD." This is rare before the sixteenth century. The earliest instance of the singular trode. that I have is from Coverdale (1535), 2 Kings xiv. 9, " A wylde beest. .ran ouer y* 3 hawthorne and trode it down." The plural troden, trode, appears earlier, e.g., in the B text of ' Piers Plowman,' xi. 847, " Some [birdes] troden hir makes." I should be glad to get earlier instances than these of both singular and plural ; also examples of trod before 1700. The original past tense trad, with its plural trede(n), trdde(n), was usual down to 1500. The past participle troden began to supplant the original treden before 1350, and was already shortened to trode before 1400, and later to trod. Ex- amples of the past participle are not asked only of the past tense.

In the chronology of English verb-forms there is still room for much research. For example, when did spoke and bore begin to supplant spake and bare, and are the earliest instances singular or plural ? The * Dic- tionary ' cites bore first in the plural boren. J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.

TRILBY. Alfred de Musset wrote his ' Reponse a Monsieur Charles Nodier ' in 1843. To whom and to what does he refer in the following lines ?

Non pas cette belle insomnie

Du genie

Ou Trilby vient, pret a chanter T'ecouter.

Trilby would appear to be masculine here, if " pret " belongs to Trilby, and not to " genie," which would be an awkward inversion.

We know the Trilby of 1894 ; who is the Trilby of 1843 ? W. ROBERTS CROW.

MICAH, ADMONITION, ARGENT, AS FEMALE NAMES. These names were borne by members of my father's family in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. Are they uncommon in Cornwall ? I was told that the first (Micah) was not unusual in the neigh- bourhood of St. Germans.

A. STEPHENS DYER.

207, Kingston Road, Teddington.

KING'S LYNN AS A SPA. Is it true that this place was, for a very short time, a spa ? There is usually a certain amount of truth in Sir Walter Besant's novels, and I should like to know whether what I believe was very nearly his last work ' The Lady of Lynn ' is founded on at least some fact. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

23, Unthank Road, Norwich.