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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. FEB. 12, me. —Some years ago Dean Church published an article in one of the magazines on Browning's 'Sordello.' Can the reference to it be given?

DR. ARCHIBALD VINCENT SMITH'S ASCENT OF MONT BLANC, 1847. I should be very glad to receive any information about this. Please reply direct.

HON. SECRETARY, ALPINE CLUB. 23 Savile Ro\v, W.

—I shall be glad if any reader can give me any information relating to the ancestors of Timothy Constable, who married on Jan. 13, 1736/7, at St. James's Church, Westminster, Elizabeth Hunting, and who was buried at Melford, Suffolk, in March, 1750. The marriage certificate reads as follows: "Timothy Constable of Bradfield Combust in ye County of Suffolk and Elizabeth Hunting of this p. L.A.B.C. 1736/7."

(See 11 S. xi. 150.)

DORTON-BY-BRILL. The earlier history

of this village is known to me, but I wish to

ascertain its present condition and at what

date its local vogue as a health resort ceased.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

51 Rutland Park Mansions, X.W.

ANOMALIES IN THE PEERAGE. Are there any instances other than that of Lord Scarsdale and Lord Curzon of a father and son both being peers, but the son enjoying a higher degree of nobility than the father, and in the latter's lifetime ?

DANIEL HIPWELL.

JOSHUA STANFERY. ARTIST. Is anything known of an artist of this name ? I possess a portrait group in oils by him of Sir Charles Price, second baronet, \vith his son Sir Charles Price, third baronet, signed and dated 1851. LEONARD C. PRICE.

Ewell, Surrey.

' THE TOMMIAD.' Who were the author and subject of this poem, which is described on the title-page as "A Biographical Fancy written about the year 1842 " ? Whose portrait forms the frontispiece ? The poem was printed for private circulation in 1882 (London, Marcus Ward & Co.).

A. ALBERT CAMPBELL.

4 Waring Street, Belfast.

SCOTT'S ' EVE OF ST. JOHN.' The editor's preface to Sir W. Scott's ' Eve of St. John r states as follows : " The catastrophe of the tale is founded upon a well-known Irish tradition." Could any of your readers explain what this well-known tradition is. and its approximate antiquity ?

NORTON POWLETT, CoL

RICHARDSON, c. 1783. Could any one please inform me if there were any descen- dants of James and Charles Richardson, or their married sister Elizabeth, all living in 1783, the three children of James Richard- son and his wife Sarah (who was a daughter of Charles Johnston, M.D.), who were living in 1732 in the city of York ?

R, D. GARDNER.

CLEOPATRA AND THE PEARL. We have all heard the tale of how Cleopatra dissolved a pearl in vinegar and drank it to the health of Mark Antonjr. But will a pearl dissolve

in vinegar

A. S. E. ACKERMANN.

JOANNA LA LOCA. Mrs. Ady, in her ' Life ' of Christina of Mila.n, states that Joanna la Loca was buried at Bruges. Is this a fact ?

J. D.

MRS. PLUNKETT AND ARTHUR MURPHY. A Mrs. Plunkett, said to have been a cousin of Arthur Murphy, the dramatist, is said to have made him "an allowance in his later years. A Mrs. Arthur Plunkett, who was his aunt, also befriended him when he was a boy. Can some one tell me the exact relationship of the second Mrs. Plunkett and Murphy, and also the date of her death ? The family was Irish.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

WALKER FAMILIES OF MIDDLESEX. (See- 11 S. xii. 481 ; 12 S. i. 55.) It would oblige me if (in association with recent correspond- ence in your columns as to Walker families of Straff ord-le-Bow, Finchley, &c.) any of your contributors could inform me who were the parents of Andrew W r alker, who carried on business in London as a colour or lead merchant between 1757 and 1785, and was,. I have reason to believe, connected with Finchley.

He appears for the first time in the 'London Directory' for 1757, and then resided in Cold Bath Fields. In 1769 his name is entered as of Little Warner Street.,. Cold Bath Fields, and so continues till 1786 r when it disappears from the Directory. In his wife's will, made June 1, 1786, and proved on June 14, she is described as.