Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/155

 12 s. ii. AUG. 19, WIG.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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He seems to have left Elmfield about 1765, when the larger house, with land, was sold to the Norman family. How long did he retain Elmfield ? Did lie marry and have descendants, and are any of them still living, or has the family died out ? Perhaps some reader of this query will be able to supply information on the subject.

Bromley Common was enclosed in 1822-6. KENTISH MAN.

WILLIAM THORNHILL, SURGEON. The ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' (Ivi. 297) states that he was " a member of one of the younger branches of the great Dorset family of Thornhill of Woolland, a nephew of Sir James Thornhill." I should be glad to obtain particulars of his parentage, and to learn the place and date of his birth. Where in Yorkshire did he retire, and when did he die in 1755 ? G. F. B. B.

v MARY ANNE CLARKE. Did the Duke of York have any sons by this notorious person ? If so, I should be glad to know any particulars of them. The ' Diet. Nat. Biog.,' x. 436, only mentions her daughters, " who all married well." G. F. R. B.

EMMA ROBINSON, AUTHOR OF ' WHITE- FRIARS.' Is there a biography of Miss Emma Robinson, the author of ' White- friars ' and other works ? I cannot find any account of her in the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' and other authorities. She was granted a pension on the Civil List of 151. per annum in 1862, but I cannot discover any reference to her life, death, or place of burial. ARTHUR E. STEDMAN.

St. Edmunds, Sunningfields Road, Hendon, N.W.

[Some particulars about the author of ' White- friars ' were supplied by MB. RALPH THOMAS at 10 S. iv. 535.]

' SABRING COROLLA.' Who were the editors of this well-known collection of Greek and Latin verses by old boys of Shrewsbury School ? The title-page and the preface speak of them as " tres viri " ; but their names are not given. B. B.

' THE LONDON MAGAZINE.' Is anything known of this long-forgotten periodical ? I have the first volume without title-page and index ; it contains six monthly numbers dated February to July, 1840. The full caption title reads The London Magazine, CJuirivari, and Courrier des Dames ; it is not in the British Museum Catalogue of Periodical Publications. The unfinished serial story is entitled ' The Diurnal Revolutions of Da vie Diddledoft,' written under the nom de guerre

of Sir Tickelem Tender, Bart., and illustrated by Phiz and John Leech ; one of the latter's pictures is signed with a tiny drawing of a leech in a bottle (p. 359). Other illustrations are by Gillray the Younger (sometimes signed with one I). One of the political portraits is of Disraeli, with some spiteful observations on him.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

ST. SEBASTIAN. How was St. Sebastian put to death ?

ALFRED S. E. ACKERMANN.

ROME AND Moscow. 1. Is it still per- missible to believe that Nero sang and played on his lyre on the tower of Maecenas while Rome was burning ?

2. Has it ever been definitely settled (and, if so, when and by whom ?) whether the Russians, or the French under Napoleon, set light to Moscow ?

ALFRED S. E. ACKERMANN.

JOHN EVANS, ASTROLOGER OF WALES. I possess an early portrait plate taken from Lord Cardiff's drawing of this character. Particulars about the man, his home and antecedents, will oblige.

ANEURIN WILLIAMS.

BRITISH CRESTS. Some fourteen years ago your contributor MR. H. R. LEIGHTON informed me through ' N. & Q-' (9 x. 374), in answer to a query of mine, that he was then engaged upon, and contemplated publishing one day, an ' Ordinary of British Crests.' Four years later I ventured to ask him through ' N. & Q.' if it had yet been published, and he replied (10 S. v. 436) that the work of indexing was still in progress, but that no arrangement so far had been made for its publication. Now, after ten years, I venture to put my query again (10 S. v. 308). CROSS-CROSSLET.

GIBBON'S DIARY. " Gibbon," says Mr. J. C. Morison in his volume on the great historian, 1880, p. 75, " was such an inde- fatigable diarist that it is unlikely that he neglected to keep a journal in this crisis of his studies. But it has not been published, and it may have been destroyed." By the crisis alluded to is meant the elaboration of the first volume of the ' Decline and Fall during the first period of its author's sojourn in London, 1772-6. Is it too premature or too late to ask, after the lapse of thirty-six years, whether any such journal ever existed, and, if so, what has been its fate ?

J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.