Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/40

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 S. I. JAN. 8, 1916.

Redemption.' This was a publication by Thomas Deloney, the first edition appar- ently being in 1596. Lowndes describes the book as a collection of local tales and his- torical ditties in verse, which has run through numerous editions, and was till very lately printed as a chapbook.

Mr. Sedding appears to have brought out several sets of carols recovered from ancient times during the years 1862, 1863, and 1864.

A. H. ABKLE.

Elmhurst, Oxton, Birkenhead.

KENNETT, M.P. (US. xii. 481). In the Blue-book of Members of Parliament, part i. 12131702, the name Kennett does not appear in the index. This does not prove the negative, as the early returns are not always complete.

In the Parliament of 1383 Johannes Kent, mercer, was one of the two members for Reading. The name occurs again, without description, in that of 1389/90, and again in that of 1403.

Later, Reading had, as one of its two members, Simon Kent in the three Parlia- ments of 1446/7, 1448/9, 1449. In the last he is described as mercer, and his colleague Thomas Clerk as draper.

ROBERT PIEBPOINT.

NAPOLEON'S BEQUEST TO CANTILLON (US. xii. 139, 188, 324, 383, 430, 449). The late George Augustus Sala, in his ' Echoes of the Year Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-Three,' published in 1884, p. 48, says :

" The legacy was not paid until the establish- ment of the Second Empire, when ' the sub- officer, Cantillon,' was found keeping (I believe) a chandler's shop at Brussels."

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

VANISHING LONDON : BAKER'S CHOP- HOUSE (US. xii. 500). It is a pleasure to be able to supplement MR. REGINALD JACOBS' s interesting note, and assure lovers of old London that the demolition of this house has been postponed, and there is every proba- bility of its being preserved and continued in its present uses for many years. It is doubtful if any of the coffee-houses of 'Change Alley can claim association with the early seventeenth century ; Garraway's probably dates from the Restoration, but to Baker's there is no reference earlier than the advertisement cited by MR. JACOBS. See ' The Grasshopper in Lombard Street,' by J. Biddulph Martin, 1892, p., &c. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

THE OBSERVANT BABE (US. xii. 439, 505). W. W. Rouse Ball in his ' Primer of the History of Mathematics ' records of the well-known mathematician Poisson (1781- 1840) :

" His father had been a common soldier. . . .The boy was pat out to nurse, and he used to tell how one day his father, coming to see him, found that the nurse had gone out on pleasure bent, while she had left him suspended by a small cord to a nail fixed in the wall. This, she ex- plained, was a necessary precaution to prevent him from perishing under the teeth of the various animals and insects that roamed on the floor. Poisson used to add that his gymnastic efforts carried him incessantly from one side to the other, and it was thus in his tenderest infancy that he commenced those studies on the pendulum that were to occupy so large a part of his mature age."

This may be of some interest to your readers. F. M. R.

NELSON MEMORIAL RINGS (11 S. xii. 233, 361, 402, 469). The letter of MR. GEO. W. G. BARNARD of Norwich (11 S. xii. 469) is one of the most interesting of the series on this subject. It not only reveals the fact that there are memorial rings to Admiral Lord Nelson in existence other than those provided for his funeral, but also shows that these have receptacles for his hair. The sixty memorial rings made by John Salter for the executors are black enamel with gilt letters side by side. MR. BARNARD describes his ring as oval,

" with the letters N. B., above which is a viscount's coronet with the cap, and below a ducal coronet without the cap, all in blue enamel."

He adds that there is no inscription nor hall-mark, and (apparently) there is no hair in the " locket " at the back of the oval. In the list that MR. PAGE gives of rings lent to the Royal Naval Exhibition at Chelsea in 1891 there are no fewer than three with hair one with an inscription, lent by Messrs. Lambert & Co., and another by Miss A. J. Grindall. The question therefore is, For whom and by whom were the memorial rings with hair made, and are they all similar ? It is well known that Sir Thomas Hardy cut off and brought to England the Admiral's hair, and that it was somewhat lavishly distributed by Lady Hamilton. But did she cause it to be put into rings for presentation, or did the recipients of the relics themselves have the rings made ? Un- fortunately John Salter' s successors in the Strand cannot answer the former question, for they say that the present firm (Messrs. Widdows & Veal) do not possess Salter' s books of that period ; but they state that, they have themselves repaired Salter's