Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/283

 12 s. i. APRIL i, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

277

Ancient game peculiar to the city of Florence, after the manner of a regulated combat, which is played with an inflated ball (palla a vento), and resembles the " sferomachia," Lat. harpastum, harpasti Indus, Gr. <rccupo/xaY/a,- The same dictionary gives, s.v. ' Palla ' :

" Batter la palla, nel giuoco del calcio, vale Dar principio al giuoco, con buttar la palla tra la

Palla means a ball, while pallone means a large kind of palla, made of leather, and filled with air. Then there is palloncino, "which means a small pallone.

ROBERT PIEBPOINT.

QUEEN ANNE'S " THREE REALMS " (12 S. i. 91, 152, 217). I thank your correspondents ior their answers to my query. The answers were the subject of a small wager which your correspondence was to decide. The answers contained in your issue of Feb. 19 last were fairly well divided as to whether the ex- pression means Great Britain, France, and Ireland, or England, Scotland, and Ireland, but the additional answers appearing in your issue of March 11 convince me that I am wrong in thinking that the poet alluded to Queen Anne according to her style and dignity as Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. I concur personally in the view expressed by B. B. that Queen Anne's reign over France was meant satirically. I think I have PROF. EDWARD BENSLY'S support in this view, but his satire is almost as obscure as that of Pope.

TRIN. COLL. CAMB.

With regard to ST. S WITHIN' s reply at the last reference, it was Dr. John Rad- cliffe (1650-1714), the great Oxford bene- factor, who at the end of 1699, after seeing William III.'s swollen ankles, said he would not have the king's two legs for his three kingdoms. This gave such offence that William never saw him again. Radcliffe had already offended Princess Anne by neglecting to visit her when sent for, and saying that her distemper was nothing but the vapours. See 'D.N.B.,' xlvii. 130. A. R. BAYLEY.

ST. SWITHIN, at the last reference, refers to the " uncourtier-like remark of gouty George III.'s physician : ' I would not have your Majesty's two legs for all your three kingdoms.' ' : The monarch to whom this remark was made was not gouty George III., but dropsical William III. The physician who made it, and who, as a consequence, lost his place at Court, was Dr. John Radcliffe. As William III. reigned before Queen Anne, the .use of this expression by Dr. Radcliffe

shows that the idea of the three realms or three kingdoms was in vogue prior to the reign of the latter sovereign*

S. D. CLIPPINGDALE, M.D.

Was not Queen Anne the sovereign to whom the uncourtly answer was made, not George III., as said at the last reference ; and the physician Dr. John Radcliffe, who by his wonted rough speech lost his Court patronage ? W. D. MACRAY.

RICHARD WILSON (12 S. i. 90, 158, 213). Was the Richard Wilson, Esq., late a member of the British Parliament and a magistrate of the county of Tyrone (see second reference), the son of the Honourable Mrs. Wilson, who was the only daughter of the Right Hon. Charles Townshend, Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, and Lady Green- wich ?

Miss Townshend certainly married Mr. Wilson of Tyrone. JAMES DURHAM, formerly Attache in

H.M. Diplomatic Service.

Cromer Grange, Norfolk.

STUART, COUNT D'ALBANIE (12 S. i. 110, 156, 190). " Claimants " periodically turn up in every land throughout the centuries, and since mankind is inclined to credulity, and loves nothing better than tales of the marvellous, we find a long procession of these shadowy potentates caressed and welcomed as genuine articles by wide circles of admirers and believers.

In the case of Perkin Warbeck, for in- stance, it is evident that many of our Tudor forefathers were cast in the same mould as their Victorian descendants, when the latter opened their purses and their hearts to that " unfortunate nobleman," Sir Roger Tich- borne, or as those most respectable persons who at a recent date firmly held the doctrine of the re-incarnation of the last Duke of Portland in the shape of a worthy citizen of Baker Street.

Across the water more than one spurious Louis XVII., despite the awkwardness of clashing claims, was loyally received and reverenced by many of the Legitimist Party. The history of Russia in the eighteenth century describes with what enthusiasm multitudes greeted sham Tsars Ivan and Peter.

Readers of ' N. & Q.' need no reminder of Olive, " Princess of Cumberland," the Great Jennens Case, the " Countess of Derwent- water," and many another picturesque figure ; and so long as we find committed to paper dogmatic assertions such as : " The