Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/316

 310

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. II.LOCT. u, igie.

furnish me with a list of the names of those boarders and day scholars who attended at this school during this period, giving some particulars of each, and the families to which they belonged ? Any references or inform a- t ion, even of a scanty nature, will be grat efully received. E. THIRKELL-PEARCE.

York Road, Edgbaston.

[Some information about the school will be found atlOS. vii. 68, 116.]

SIR HERBERT CROFT AND LOWTH. Charles Nodier became the secretary to Sir Herbert Croft, a very interesting personage, a fine classical scholar, and a disciple of Lowth, who wrote a celebrated ' Essay on Hebrew Poetry.' In some mysterious way Lowth is associated by Sainte-Beuv.e in his foreword to Nodier' s writings, with Johnson. I should like to know more of these two men, and if any reader possesses a copy of the ' Essay on Hebrew Poetry ; ' I should be extremely indebted to him for the loan of it for a few days. M. L. R. BRESLAR.

Percy House, South Hackney, N.E.

PLUMSTEAD LLOYD. Charles Lloyd (1748- 1828) of Bingley, had a numerous family, of whom Charles and Robert are well known through their friendship with Charles Lamb. There was also a son called Plumstead. Was he by any chance a brewer, or employed in a brewery ? Is there a genealogical table of the Lloyds to be found anywhere ?

G. A. ANDERSON.

BADGES : IDENTIFICATION SOUGHT. Can any one help me to identify the following badges, which occur with others in a church in North Wales, or tell me whether they are to be found elsewhere ?

A fool's head ; an interlaced pattern resembling two " B "s back to back ; a peacock's head pecking at a pomegranate ; a goat's head ; two dolphins crossed.

LEWIS PRYCE.

Vicarage, Colwyn Bay.

EAR TINGLING : CHARM TO " Cur THE SCANDAL." It is, I believe, common to all parts of the country for people to affirm that when their ears tingle some one is talking about them. If the right ear is affected, they are being "bragged about" ; if the left ear, they are being " ragged." But, until within the past day or two, I was not aware that there was any ceremony by which an end could be put to the bragging or the ragging. Shakespeare, in ' Much Ado about Nothing,' says : " What fire is in mine ears ? " but does not instruct us how to remove the irritation.

Brand tells us a good deal about tingling ears. He, too, is silent on the point. My wife has a domestic sen-ant who is a native of Whipton, near Exeter. A few days ago she saw the maid tying a knot in the corner of her apron, and asked her the reason. " To cut the scandal ! " she replied. On an explanation being requested, the maid said her ear was tingling and somebody was talking about her, and the way to put an end to the conversation was by tying a knot in her apron. This is quite new to me either in Devonshire or Somerset, where such pictu- resque forms of superstition abound, and where the most delightfully interesting "folk- lore is to be met with. May it never disappear ! But I wonder if any other reader of ' N. & Q.' has met with a similar charm " to cut the scandal." Perhaps I have made a discovery.

W. G. WILLIS WATSON. 38 Park Road, Exeter.

[At 7 S. x. 7 MR. S. ILLIXGWOKTH BUTLEK said = to pinch it, and the person who is speaking spite- fully of me will immediately bite his or her tongue."]
 * ' In the case of the right ear I have been advised

MADAME DE STAEL : Louis ALPHONSE ROCCA. In M. Pierre Ivohler's volume on this lady which has just been published (Lausanne, Payot ) will be found the results of the author's careful research, which upset the assumptions of previous biographers. In the archives of the tribunal of Aubonne (Vaud) he discovered the entry of the baptism of the son of " Theodore Giles" of Boston (Mass.) and " Henriette (nee Preston) son epouse," born 7 April, 1812." This child M. Kohler identifies as Louis Alphonse Rocca, son of John Rocca and Madame de Stael, for whom fictitious parents had to be found, as according to the same archives Rocca and Madame de Stael were not married (secretly at Coppelt) until Oct. 10, 1816. What be- came of Louis Rocca ? L. G. B.

EIGHTEENTH - CENTURY RATE - BOOKS, FLEET STREET. Can any one say whether the Rate-Books of the Fleet Street parishes during the years from 1768 to 1800 are still in existence, and if they are so, where they are deposited, and whether they can be seen ? F. DE H. L.

" SEPTEM SINE HORIS." I have been asked for the meaning of these three words, alleged to have been the complete motto on a sundial.

Can any reader give me a translation of the motto as it stands, or supply the missing word or words ? (Rev.) F. j. ODELL.

Lapford, Morchard Bishop, N. Devon.