Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/435

 128. I. MAY 27, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

429

BRIGGS COLLECTION OF PICTURES. Can any of your readers tell me anything of a Mr. Briggs who lived at Cheltenham some time between 1830 and 1850, and owned a collection of pictures that were described as among the " lions " of tbe town ? He is said to have been connected in some way with a daughter of Gainsborough. When did he die ? And what became of his pictures, some of which are said to have been very fine ? CHELTONIAN.

SONG IN GOLDSMITH'S ' SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.' At the end of Act II. Tony Lumpkin exit, singing :

We are the boys That fears no noise Where the thundering cannons roar.

From what song is this an excerpt ?

J. H. LESLIE, Major. 31 Kenwood Park Road, Sheffield.

" GALOCHE": " COTTE." What is the game of galoche which is mentioned in * L' Enfant Espion,' one of Alphonse Daudet's ' Contes de Lundi,' p. 29 ?

" Mais le plus amusant de tout c'e"tait encore les parties de bouchon, ce fameux jeu de galoche que les mobiles bretons avaient mis a la mode pendant

le sidge Lui ne jouait pas, bien entendu ; il faut

trop d'argent; il se contentait de regarder les joueurs avec des yeux !

" Un surtout, un grand en cotte bleue, qui ne misait que des pieces de cent sous, excitait son admiration. Quarid il courait, celui-la. on enten- dait les e"cus sonner au fond de sa cotte."

What was the form of the garment that the big lad wore ? A cotte is suggestive of a skirt, otherwise I might have pictured the player in a blouse. ST. SWITHIN.

["Cotte" is a regular word for a workman's or peasant's overall.]

THELMA : CHRISTIAN NAME. Can any reader give me particulars of the Christian name Thelma ? It does not appear in Miss Yonge's classic upon ' Christian Names.'

CHARLES PLATT.

60 Stapleton Road, S.W.

AUTHOR WANTED. In the ' Eton Latin Grammar,' ed. 1855-60, there is a rule: " Exosus, perosus, &c., accusativum exigunt "; and the example is : " Astronomus exosus ad unam mulieres." Who was the astrono- mer, and whence is the quotation ?

H. MOORE.

64 Curzon Street, W.

JOHN MILLER, M.P. FOR EDINBURGH FROM 1868 TO 1874. Biographical information desired ; year of death specially asked for.

T. P. G.

JULIUS CJESAR ON " SUDDEN DEATH." Julius Caesar is said to have remarked that " to die suddenly and unexpectedly would be most preferable to him." It may be worth while to ascertain from Caesar's writings his ipsissima verba confirming this statement.

H. KREBS.

ENGLISH CARVINGS OF ST. PATRICK. One of the medallions on the stone vaulting of the Benedictine Abbey of Milton, in Dorset, represents St. Patrick surrounded by sprigs of shamrock. The carving is of the' fourteenth century. Another medallion in the same line represents St. Dunstan, who visited Dorset. Is any earlier sculptured image of St. Patrick to be found as forming an original part of an ecclesiastical building in Great Britain ? EDWARD S. DODGSON.

Oxford Union Society.

SHAKESPEARE'S FALCON CREST. Is there any reason why Shakespeare should have had a falcon for his crest ? It is curious that he should twice casually refer in ' Love's Labour's Lost,' II. i., and again in ' The Merchant of Venice,' I. ii. to the name Falconbridge. There was a William Fawconbrygg, Fawconbrugge, in Coventry in the fifteenth century (Coventry Leet Book, 249, 319, 352). M. D. H.

Coventry.

CATHOLICS UNDER ELIZABETH. Is there any evidence of those concerned in the Marian burnings, especially of the burning of the bishops, being tried for murder under Queen Elizabeth ? G. B. VAUX.

Carshalton Rectory, Surrey.

CHARLES LAMB AND JOHN LOCKE. In his essay ' Imperfect Sympathies ' Lamb speaks of " three male Quakers, buttoned up in the straitest non-conformity of their sect." Had he in mind a phrase of John Locke's (' Conduct of the Understanding,' ed. T. Fowler, p. 11) : " Here is one muffled up in the zeal and infallibility of his sect " ? L. P. IBBOTSON, Private.

Athlone.

" AGNOSTIC " AND " AGNOSCO." Shortly after the decease of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, of South African fame, appeared a statement, by some collector of his obiter dicta, that, on being asked what his religious views were, he replied : " Agnosco, / do not know." I should be grateful if any one possessing first-hand information on this matter would say if this statement is founded on fact, or not. I have always hoped that it is not, because such lapsus Latinitatis seems im- probable in one who founded scholarships