Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/213

12 s. i. MAR. 11, i9i6.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

207 has given him the wrong name, his right name being Nicholas Johnson Visscher in English.

As regards the date, according to Mr. Ordish the view was published "Amstelodami ex officina Judoci Hondii sub signo Canis Vigilis Anno 1616." There is no difficulty about this date, even if the 'D.N.B.' is right in stating that Jodocus Hondius died on Feb. 10, 1611, because the firm was carried on by the younger Jodocus.

Further, Hondius is the Latinized form of Hondt (a dog), and the shop sign of the Watchful Dog was a pun on the proprietor's name. The younger Visscher had for his shop sign in the Kalverstraat a fisherman, another punning sign.

So far it is all plain sailing, but the name "Ludovicus Hondius [or Bondius on some copies] Lvsit." in one of the panels on the view still remains a riddle. "Lusit." may stand for "Lusitanus," but the individual has not yet been identified.

—Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Croker's edition of Boswell's 'Johnson,' ridicules Croker's words, "The 'History of Prince Titi' was said to be the autobiography of Frederick, Prince of Wales," by saying that that composition "was certainly never published." It is worth recording, however, that the British Museum contains a copy of Macaulay (the American edition) which belonged to the Hon. Thomas Grenville. He has annotated Macaulay's denial with these marginal words: "It was [published]; and I have it. T. G."

—A large circle of scholars will feel profound regret at the death at Montreux of Count Lützow, D.Litt.Oxon., the historian of Prague and Bohemia, and biographer of John Hus. He gave the Ilchester Lectures on the Bohemian historians at Oxford, and was a frequent contributor to English and Bohemian reviews on the life, literature, and politics of his country. A few years ago he made a wide lecturing tour of the American universities. The Count possessed the freedom of Prague, the silver medal of that city, and many other distinctions. He was a prominent figure in the London season.

A number of English visitors have been welcomed at the Château de Zampach, in North-East Bohemia, where the Emperor Charles IV. in person hanged a robber baron. The Count and Countess delighted to point out memorials of past days, including a whipping-post for captured Hussites, and to amuse guests with the story of the ghost—a youthful monk immured alive—who haunted the corridor. Bohemia is vastly poorer by the loss of a distinguished son.

must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

—I wish one of your readers could explain the following passage in Swinburne's 'Chastelard,' I i.:—

You praise her in too lover-like a wise For women that praise women…
 * Mary Seytan.You think too much in French.

My first idea was that Swinburne alluded to something in Brantôme; but, as Brantôme expressly states that the "loving praise" was an Italian custom only recently introduced in France—a statement which the study of literature fully justifies—the "thinking too much in French" remains a riddle. There are many more riddles in Swinburne, at least for the non-English reader; but I would like to know if that particular one has been discussed and found a solution.

STATUS OF THE TENANT FARMER. To what social class does the farmer, the man who rents land, in Great Britain belong ? A definite idea cannot be gained from varying authors, who mention the individual or the class.

This is peculiarly so in the case of the Scotch farmer. For instance, Robert Burns is almost always referred to as a peasant ; yet in ' Genealogical Memoirs of the Family of Robert Burns,' by Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D. (1877), it is stated in the Preface: " his immediate ancestors were yeomen."

Conn., U.S.A.

CHANELHOUSE : ION : ORMONDY : TWISA- DAY. These unusual surnames occur in the Account Book of Sarah Fell of Swarthmoor in Furness, which I am editing for the Cam- bridge University Press. Are the names common in the Furness district or elsewhere in the British Isles ? NORMAN PENNEY.

Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, E.G.