Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/371

 ii s. ix. MAY 9, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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HOOD MEMORIAL COLUMN AT BUTLEIGH, SOMERSET. In the 'D.N.B.' it is stated in the account of Admiral Sir Samuel Hood that there is at Butleigh a column to his memory, and also a monument in the church with a long; inscription by Southey. In 'Somerset,' by G. W. Wade, D.D., and J. H. Wade, M.A. ("The Little Guides" series, published by Methuen & Co.), we are told of the " monument to the three brothers Hood " i.e., Sir Samuel and his two naval brothers, Arthur and Alexander, sons of Samuel Hood of Kingsland, Dorset -and further that " the tall column which is so conspicuous from the Glastonbury Plain was erected to the memory of Sir Samuel Hood."

But in ' Highways and Byways in Somer- set,' by Edward Button, we read not only the long epitaph upon the monument to the brothers Hood in Butleigh Church, but also that " the proper interest of Butleigh lies in the fact that it was the birthplace of Admiral Viscount Hood, the eldest son of Samuel Hood, Vicar of Butleigh, whose monument in the woods upon the ridge above Butleigh is a landmark hereabout."

Which of these two conflicting statements as to the memorial column is correct ? I should imagine that Mr. Hutton is right, and the ' D.N.B.' and the authors of " The Little Guide " wrong, misled by the fact that Lord Hood was also called Samuel Hood ; for, as he and not his kinsman was born at Butleigh, it is more likely that the column would be erected there to his memory than to that of Sir Samuel Hood, who had no immediate connexion with the place, though his nephew, son of the above-men- tioned Alexander, chose Butleigh Church as a fitting place for another Hood monument.

PENRY LEWIS.

LAST CRIMINALS BEHEADED IN GREAT BRITAIN. In the April number of Black- wood's Magazine there is an .interesting article on ' One of our Traitors Arthur Thistlewood.' In this the author states :

" The form of execution was one never seen before or after in England. They were hung till they were dead, and their corpses were then decapitated."

And again :

" They were the last criminals on whom the ancient ritual of decapitation was carried out."

The date of the execution of Thistlewood and his accomplices was, according to the ' D.N.B.,' 1 May, 1820.

A later instance of a similar punishment occurred in the autumn of the same year,

when James Wilson, a weaver in Strathaven, Lanarkshire, was hanged and beheaded at Glasgow on 30 Aug., 1820, for " high treason." See McGregor's * History of Glasgow,' p. 410 (London, Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1881).

T. L. D.

ROPING THE BRIDE. It may be of interest to note that an illustration of this custom (referred to at 11 S. viii. 219, in the notice of No. 1 of vol. xxiv. of Folk-Lore) appeared in The Daily Graphic of 5 March last. The custom was observed at a wedding at Minehead, Somerset, in the first week of that month. CHAS. HALL CROUCH.

62, Nelson Road, Stroud Green, N.

CHAUCER'S PRIORESS, *C. T.,' PROL. 136:

" FUL SEMELY AFTER HIR METE SHE

RAUGHTE." Has any one else noticed Prof. Legouis's translation of this line ('Chaucer,' p. 226)? " Elle rota.it tout bas par politesse." I have always felt that raughte here represented modern English " retched," and not, as all the com- mentators that I know of have it, reached. If this is so, then it is connected with Old English hrcecan, to spit, and not with rcecan, to reach. " Retch " at the present day has the by-form " reach." Unless there is good evidence to the contrary against this interpretation, one would be inclined to think that this little Rabelaisian touch has more of the true Chaucerian ring than the tame anticlimax of " She reached for her meat in seemly wise." C. M. DRENNAN. University College, Galway.

HlGGINBOTHAM IN CARLYLE'S ' CROM- WELL.' Editors of Carlyle's ' Cromwell * have been puzzled by this passage which occurs within Speech II. as parenthetical comment :

"0 Higginbotham, there is a Selbsttodtung, killing of Self, as my friend Novalis calls it, which is, was, and forever will be, ' the beginning of all morality,' of all real work and worth for man under this Sun."

No one has told who Higginbotham was, and why this name was selected.

Apparently the suggestion came from ' A Tale of Drury Lane,' by Horace Smith, an imitation of Walter Scott's style, and one of the best known of the ' Rejected Addresses.* These are the closing lines :

" Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps,

You Cluttertfuck, come stir your stumps,

Why are you in such doleful dumps ?

A fireman, and afraid of bumps !

What are they feared on ? fools, 'od rot 'em ! "

Were the last words of Higginbottom.

Brooklyn, New York. THOMAS FLINT.