Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/495

 12 s. ii. DEC. IB, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

489

AN OLD REGIMENTAL SPIRIT DECANTER. When I was at Foochow in 1914 I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. John Fowler, the Consul for the United States of America at that port. He there showed me a bottle, which I photographed. It is about 16 in. in height, about 7 in. in diameter at the widest part, and shaped like a wine decanter. It is divided into four parts inside, with four necks in one, and four stoppers. The four portions have engraved on them respec- tively : " Brandy," " Gin," " Rhum," " Wiskey."

Mr. Fowler told me that that bottle is one of a pair, which have been in the family for about 135 years. The two bottles were found at the Black Horse Tavern, South Woburn, now called Winchester, and in Colonial days called Charleston, a district of Boston. Mr. Fowler's family have lived in Bostor. and Winchester since the days of the Revolution. These bottles, he says, must have been left behind by some British regi- ment after the fight at Bunker's Hill, and he is quite prepared to give up his bottle to the regiment which can prove a claim to it.

I sent these facts to The United Service Journal for August, 1914, but every one was too busy, and no notice was taken of the letter. I wonder if any military historian cm throw a light on the subject. Perhaps if may be claimed by some unit of the Royal .Artillery, of which regiment I am a member.

Though there is no crest or other indication to give a clue, the place where it was found may help. ROY GARART.

SARTTM MISSAL : MORIN, ROUEN : COPY SOUGHT. I have a Sarum Missal issued from thepressof Martin Morin, Rouen, 1514, small 4to. My book has neither title-page nor colophon leaf, otherwise it is a perfect and clean copy. There is an indifferent copy with a title-page in the British Museum, but I am wishful to secure a facsimile of the colophon leaf, and I wondered if any reader of your journal could tell me where it is possible to see another copy of this particular edition ?

I have searched the libraries of the United Kingdom and can learn nothing ; also on the Continent. So it resolves itself into meeting with a copy in a private collection. AMAXECON.

THE DEPOSITORY OF ROYAL WILLS. May I inquire if any of the companionship of ' N. & Q.' know where Royal wills are deposited ? Every one knows that they are not placed in the P.P.R. at Somerset House. Is any record of them kept ? Is there a

private registry for them ? If so, where ? I wanted to find the will of the Duchess of York some time ago, but utterly failed, although The Times reported some details after her death. I inquired of several firms of solicitors who are known to act or to have acted, for members of the Royal family, but failed to obtain any satisfactory result. I may add that my inquiry was purely literary. WILLIAM BULL.

House of Commons.

AUTHORS WANTED. In his recently pub- lished volume of reminiscences, ' Forty Years at the Bar,' Mr. Balfour Browne, in his account of Sir Edmond Beckett, after- wards Lord Grimthorpe, compares him to Achilles, as described by Horace :

Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, a lina which, he says, has been " excellently translated into Scotch by Allan Ramsay :

A fiery ettercap, a fractious chiel,

As het as ginger, and as stieve as steel."

Chap, iv, p. 54.

In ' Waverley ' the Baron of Bradwardine applies the same description to Fergus Maclvor, adding " which has been thus rendered (vernacularly) by Straan Robert- son " (see vol. ii. chap. xxxv.). Which is right as to the name of the translator Sir Walter or the K.C. ? T. F. D.

Where do the following lines occur ?

There shall be no more snow No weary noontide heat, So we lift our trusting eyes From the hills our Fathers trod : To the quiet of the skies : To the Sabbath of our God.

UNIQUA.

[At 10 S. iv. 96 MR. THOMAS BAYNE, replying to a similar query, said that these lines are from Mrs. Hemans's 'Evening Song of the Tyrolese Peasants.']

There is a saying to the effect that " a lie. travels round the world while Truth is putting on her boots," and it has been stated that it appears somewhere or other in Bacon. I have not come across it in the course of my reading of his works and should be glad to know where it can be found. F. R. CAVE.

GOVANE OF STIRLINGSHIRE. Could any reader of ' N. & Q.' let me have particulars regarding this family of Western Stirling- shire ? One of them (Catherine) is men- tioned as the mother of the first Graham Moir, Laird of Leckie (died 1819). They were a prominent family in the district from about 1600 onwards. Is their pedigree to be found in any book ? C. G. C.