Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/220

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. n. SEPT. 9, im.

from his wife and allowing him to marry his mistress, he vented his feelings in pamphlets. In two of them those printed in 1808 and 1813 he stated that he had formerly been a member of the British Parliament. See the communications (at the third and seventh references) from EDITOR " IRISH BOOK LOVER ' and MR. A. ALBERT CAMPBELL.

(iv.) With these facts to hand, is it not tolerably certain that Richard Wilson of Tyrone was the M.P. for Barnstaple ?

5. MR. HORACE BLEACKLEY mentioned (at the third reference) that there was a Richard Wilson who was " a proprietor of Drury Lane Theatre." The theatre was burnt down on Feb. 24, 1809, and on that evening

" Mr. Richard Wilson gave a dinner to the prin- cipal actors and officers of Drurv Lane Theatre, At his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. All was mirth and glee; it >vaa about 11 o'clock when Mr. Wilson rose and drank ' Prosperity and Sue- cess to Drury Lane Theatre.' We filled a bumper to the toast ; and at the very moment when we were raising the glasses to our lips, repeating 'Success to Drury Lane Theatre,' in rushed the younger Miss Wilson, and screamed out, ' Drury Lane Theatre is in flames ! ' We ran into the square and saw the dreadful sight The fire raged with such fury that it perfectly illuminated Lincoln's Inn Fields with the brightness of day."

I copy the above quotation, not from its original source, ' Reminiscences of Michael Kelly ' (ii. 281), but from Mr. A. M. W. Stirling's ' Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer Stanhope' (i. 173). It ^appears to give us an anecdote about the attorney.

6. His interests were not limited to law, politics, and the drama. MR. J. C. HODGSON said of him (at the ninth reference) that " he made some name for himself as a breeder of blood horses." Was he then the " Mr. Wilson " who is enshrined in ' Ruff's Guide ' as owner of " Champion (out of PotSos)," the horse which won the Derby and the St. Leger in 1800 ? H. C.

MACKENZIE FAMILY (12 S. ii. 171). There was undoubtedly a near connexion in 1745 between the Earls of Cromartie and the Mackenzies of Langwell (Lochbroom). ' The INew Statist. Ace. of Scotland ' (1845) tells the story (vol. xiv. p. 82) of the raid of English soldiers, soon after the Battle of Culloden, on the house of Mr. McKenzie of Langwell, " who was married to a near relative of Earl George of Cromarty [the third Earl]." I cannot trace the exact connexion, for the Langwell family is not included in Mac- kenzie's great ' History of the Mackenzies '

(1894), as far as I can ascertain. In 1794 four out of the five landowners in Loch- broom parish were Mackenzies, viz., Mac- kenzie of Cromartie, of Dundonnell (the only resident proprietor), of Coul, and of Achitly. D. O. HUNTER BLAIR.

Fort Augustus.

HOUSE AND GARDEN SUPERSTITIONS (12 S. ii. 89, 138, 159). 2. In Tyndall's ' Lectures on Sound,' viii. 332 (1867)," it was said :

"If two clocks with pendulums of the same

period of vibration be placed against the same wall, and if one of the clocks be set going and the other not, the ticks of the moving clock, transmitted through the wall, will start its neighbour. The pendulum, moved by a single tick, swings through an extremely minute arc, but it returns to the limit of its swing just in time to receive another impulse. By the continuance of this process, the impulses so add themselves together as finally to set the clock a-going."

I think one of the Brownings makes poetry out of this fact.

5. The topsy-turvy primrose was long ago a theme in ' N. & Q.' ST. SwrrnrN.

MUNDY : ALSTONFIELD (12 S. ii. 129). Vincent Mundy was the Lord of the Manor of Alstonfield. It was forfeited by attainder for his murder (Duchy of Lancaster Calendar of Pleadings, temp. Elizabeth.)

Vincent Mundy of Islington, in the county of Middlesex, esquire, " sicke of bodie but of whole mynde, all praise therefore be vnto God, and of p'fitt remembraunce," made his testament and last will May 30, 1571. After the payment of debts and legacies, his daugh- ter, Dorothy Mundy, was to enjoy all the tithes of corn of Market on, Mackworth, and Alestrie, in the county of Derby, towards her preferment in marriage and come to the age of 19 years. The rest of his goods and chattels he gave to his son Edward Mundy, sole executor. And he desired the worship- ful and his very true friend Richard Harpur, esquire, one of the Queen's Justices of Common Pleas, to be the supervisor of his will, and gave him 101.

This will was proved in London, Oct. 23, 1573. Where does any suggestion of his having been murdered by his youngest son, Henry, come in ? (See Nichols's ' History of Leicestershire.') Yet in the year 19 of Elizabeth (Pleas of Duchy of Lancaster) reference is made, in connexion with Alston- field, to the attainder of Henry Mundy. In the year 1527 a Robert Mundi of Ashby-de- la-Zouch gave property there for the per- petual sustenance of an obit in the church of St. Helen, which was afterwards appro- priated to the founding of the Free Grammar