Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/505

 12 S.X.MAY 2 7, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 415 EIGHTEENTH -CENTURY GERMAN PRINCI- PALITIES (12 S. x. 371). In the ' Gazetteer's or Newsman's Interpreter,' by Lawrence Eachard, A.M., of Christ's College, Cambridge (London, 1707), it is said, under the heading of Anhalt-Zerbst, that the reigning Duke, at that time, was Charles William, born 1657, succeeded his father in 1667, and married Sophia, daughter of Augustus, Administrator of Magdeburg, in 1676, by whom he has two sons, John Augustus, born 1677, and Charles Frederick, born 1678, with one daughter, called Magdalen, born 1679, besides three brothers now living. This may interest MR. WULCKO. F. S. E. Much information concerning the above will be found in the early volumes of the ' Almanach de Gotha,' which has been published annually for more than a century and a half. Most of the English contem- porary books of reference are misleading, especially as regards small German States like the Duchy of Anhalt, which was formerly divided into the three smaller Duchies of Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt- Coethen, and Anhalt- Bernburg. Another valuable work dealing wath the subject is Christopher Gustave Koch's ' Tables Genealogiques des Maisons Souveraines' (1782 in 4to and subsequent editions in 8vo). Koch, who was born at BouxWiller (Alsace) 1737 and died 1813, was Professor of Public Law at the Strassburg University, and the author of several notable historical works. He was frequently consulted by Napolean on the genealogy of the princes and nobles of Germany, and had a large share in assisting the great Emperor in forming the soon-exploded Kingdom of Westphalia (for his brother Jerome Bona- parte), w T hich included George III.'s German Electorate of Hanover. ANDREW DE TERNANT. 36, Somerleyton Road, Brixton, S.W. ENGLISH ARMY SLANG (12 S. ix. 538, and references there given ; x. 7, 201, 279, 395). In 1916 I had opportunities of discussing Army slang with the late F. G. Fowler, one of the authors of the * Concise Oxford Dictionary,' and then a private in the 23rd Royal Fusiliers. He was perplexed about the meaning and derivation of the phrase " swinging the lead." He was the first to tell me that it had malingering among its meanings. I had always taken it to mean pitching a tale, exaggerating, romancing, rounding a phrase and so on, and I supposed that it arose from the fine gesture of the sailor who swings the lead when taking soundings. This is an impressive sight and no doubt the troops who had served abroad observed it with interest and remarked upon it. In the Great War the phrase would be used so often for malingering that its other and more innocent meanings would be dropped. Similarly, " getting the wind up " did not at first imply cowardice or fear, but apprehension or a fluttering emotion. When the phrase became common it lost its fine signification and meant frightened. . J. J. FREEMAN. SWEENEY TODD (12 S. x. 330, 378). Mr. W. E. Church (see ante, p. 372) always insisted that George Macfarren (born 1788, died 1843) wrote the first half of ' Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street/ and that it was completed by Thomas Peskett Prest. The task was abandoned by Macfarren owing to blindness and being ordered complete rest previous to an opera- tion for cataract. Mr. Church said Macfarren and Prest were certainly indebted to a French story, but there was a Fleet Street tavern traolition that such an individual as Sweeney Todd really existed long before Edward Lloyd's publication in weekly numbers. In fact Mr. Church said he remembered, when a boy, the old watchman outside the gate of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, who gravely informed people that " his father was murdered by Sweeney Todd." ANDREW DE TERNANT. 36, Somerleyton Road, Brixton, S.W. GILLMAN (OR GUILLIM) FAMILY (12 S. x. 370). 1. In ' The Heraldry of Herefordshire,' adapted to form a supplement to Dun- cumb's ' County History,' by John Strong, Esq., of The Chase, Herefordshire, M.D., 1848, are the following entries : Guillim, of Langston Court, Llangarren. Of this family was John Guillim, Pursuivant at Arms, author of the ' Display of Heraldry,' first- published in fol. in 1610. He died in 1621. Sa., a horse's head erased or, betw. three gauntlets Gwillym, William, of Wellington and of Trip- penkennet, Sheriff in 1692. Arg., a lion ramp, ermines, collared or. In Guillim's ''Display of Heraldry' I have a note that Guillim himself says his coat is the latter of these two. I have also a note against the first that " this coat is borne " by Gillman according to Harleian MS. in the British Museum. Fawley Chapel is next to Fownhope ; it used to be included in that parish. Faley,