Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/61

 12 S. I. JAN. 15, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

55

what was my authority for saying that Meres was brother-in-law to Florio. I told him that I was ill, forbidden to use my eyes at work, yet nevertheless was cruelly over- worked in bringing out a book in a hurry, my ' Shakespeare' s Industry,' a Commemora- tion volume. Therefore I could not spare time and eyesight to go through my old notes at present. I had always thought that Florio was the brother-in-law of Daniell, until I was told otherwise. The reference has slipped out of my memory through the years, but I remember that I thought the
 * authoritv sufficient at the time I wrote it.

C. C. STOPES.

" SPINET" (11 S. viii. 428). Though the 4 N.E.D.' does not positively discard the hitherto accepted derivation of this word .as given by various authorities from Scaliger to Skeat, viz. from Ital. spinetta, diminutive of spina, a thorn or spine (pointed crow- quills being sometimes used in the con- struction of the keyboard of the instrument), this theory can now, I think, be dismissed as conjectural and obsolete. That is the Idea one gets, at any rate, from a perusal of the article on the spinet in Grove's ' Dic- tionary of Music and Musicians.' It is there pointed out that in 1876 a musical work was discovered in Italy called ' Conclusioni nel suono dell' Organo,' by D. Adriano Banchieri, published at Bologna in 1608, an which the following statement occurs :

" Spinetto riceve tal nome dall' inventore di tal forma longa quadrata, il quale fu un maestro '(Tiovanni Spinetti, Venetiano, ed mio di tali stro- nienti ho veduto io alle mani di Francesco Stivori, organista della magnifica community di Montagnana dentrovi questa inscrizione : Joannes Smnetus venetus fecit A.D. 1503."

From this it has been concluded that the >clavichord,which had been invented about the -end of the fourteenth century, was improved upon by Spinetti's addition to it of an oblong case, an addition which ultimately led to the instrument developing into the square piano. As the oblong instead of the earlier trapeze form of the case, and the crow-quill plectra, are known to have been in use in Italy about 1500, and soon afterwards made their appearance in Germany and Flanders, it is assumed that Spinetti's period of activity would fall within the second half of the fifteenth century, though until the discovery of Banchieri's work no record of his existence was known. Two early references to the spinet are mentioned in Van der Straeten's 'Musique aux Pays Bas,' from the years 1522 and 1526, as occurring in the household accounts of

Margaret of Austria, who was Regent of the Netherlands from 1507 to 1530 : " Deux jeunes enfans ont jouhes sur une espinette," and " un instrument dit 1'espinette," which facts go far to prove that the instrument in question was quite a novelty at that parti- cular date. *N. W. HILL.

WALKER FAMILY, STBATFOBD-LE-BOW (11 S. xii. 481). James Walker, Mrs. Walker, three boys, two girls, and 39 slaves were entered in the census of the island of Nevis in 1677. He became a wealthy sugar- planter, and no doubt retired in his old age to England.

Dorothy, his wife, made her will Aug. 7, 1704, but it was never proved. She had three sons and two daus., viz. : I. Thomas Walker, eldest s. and h. of Stratford-by-Bow in 1725, and of Hatton Garden in 1739, when he sold his plantations ; m. Mary, dau. of Nicholas and Anne Crisp of Chiswick. II. Anthony Walker, made his will Nov. 30, 1713, and devised his estate to his brother Pecock. III. Pecock Walker of Nevis, Esq., made his will March 19, 1724, and left his estate to his two sisters. IV. Mary Walker, m. Richard Lytcott of Springfield, co. Essex, and was of Ormond Street, widow, in 1734. V. Rechord Walker, m. Henry Hatsell of Stratford-by-Bow, gent.

In 1727 Thomas Walker, the eldest son, accepted 1,700Z., and released all claims against the plantations of his brothers and sisters.

Richard Lytcott, by Mary Walker, left an only s. and h. Richard Lytcott the younger, who made his will June 19, 1754, and d. in Nevis Dec. 5, 1755, leaving his sister fearah his h. at law. She m. Thompson Hicks who was of Epsom in 1750, later of Nevis, then of London in 1760, when he joined his wife in the sale of her moiety of the planta- tions.

Richard Lytcott Hicks of Nevis who d. April, 1786, was no doubt their son.

Another Richard Lytcott Hicks d. m Nevis Jan. 10, 1836, aged 26, mid bis wife Georgiana Eliza on Aug. 5, 1835, aged 21, M.I. in St. George's.

The above notes are proved by various indentures in Nevis and the Close Rolls, also by a lengthy deed in my own posses- sion. It does not appear whether Thomas Walker by Mary Crisp left issue ; it he die not, then the family is extinct in the male line. A pedigree of Pecock may be seen m Middlesex Pedigrees,' Harl. Soc. Pub., p. 52. V. L. OLIVER.

Sunninghill.