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NOTES AN D QUERIES. [12 s. n. DEC. so, me.

remember rightly, residents of Hackney. Besides his artistic proclivities, and his pen- chant for astrology, which made him an object of admiration to the mystic poet, John Varley was a pugilist! Did he ever give public exhibitions of the " noble science," like my countrymen, Dutch Sam and Mendoza? M. L. R. BRESLAR.

FIRE PUTTING our FERE. In ' Romeo and Juliet,' I. ii. 45, we read : " One fire burns out another's burning." This seems to refer to the practice of holding, say, a burnt finger to a fire " to draw out the inflammation " homoeopathy carried to an extreme! I saw this done only a few months ago, and that by a man of military age. Can it also refer to the common idea that the " sun puts the fire out "? If the former, how did the idea arise? Is there any other meaning to the quotation?

ALFRED S. E. ACKERMANN.

' THE REGAL RAMBLER ' : THOMAS HAST- INGS. I have before me an octavo volume of 103 pp., with the following title :

" The Regal Rambler; or, Eccentrical Adven- tures of The Devil in London : with The Manoeuvres of his Ministers, towards the close of the Eigh- teenth Century. Translated from the Syriack MS. of Rabbi Solomon, recently found in the Foundation

of the Hebrew Synagogue London : Printed for

H. D. Symonds, No. 20. Pater- Noster- Row; and Owen, Piccadilly. M.DCC.XCIII."

On the title-page of this copy a former owner has in pencil inscribed " By Thos. Hastings." Who was this author? 1 cannot trace a copy in the B.M. library. Parts of the work are of Anglo-Jewish interest. The editor refers to David Levi (' D.N.B.') in the preliminary leaves, and in the concluding chapter gives a description of the last trial of Lord George Gordon when he appeared before the judges attired as a Jew.

ISRAEL SOLOMONS.

TOD FAMILY. I shall feel obliged for in- formation as to the name and address of the gentleman who now represents the family of Col. James Tod, the author of the ' Annals of Rajasthan ' and ' Travels in Western India.' The information is required solely for literary purposes. EMERITUS.

PETERBOROUGH QUARTER SESSIONS. The Times of Nov. 7 last contained a report of a divorce case, in the course of which counsel stated that one of the parties had been in 1913 convicted at Peterborough Quarter Sessions of a long series of frauds on women, and sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude, afterwards reduced to ten years'. It seems startling, in these days of

light and lenient punishments, to find that it is within the competency of any inferior court to pass such a sentence; though I have heard, or read, that Quarter Sessions for the Liberty (not the City) of Peterborough could, within at least living memory, try murder cases, and order the death penalty. There may still be some exceptional jurisdiction, as to the nature and extent of which infor- mation would be of interest. W. B. H.

FITZGERALD. Can any one inform me as to the parentage of Lieut.-Colonel James Fitzgerald, who commanded the 1st Madras Native Infantry as a captain in the attack on Madura on June 26, 1764? His daughter Frances married Capt. Steven Swain, H.E.I.C.S., at Trichinopoly on Feb. 13, 1777, and, after the latter' s death in 1790,. married secondly Capt. Stewart, H.E.I.C.S H. E. RUDKIN, Major.

The Wynd, Woking.

PRONUNCIATION OF "EA." Pope invari- ably, I believe, rimes " sea " with " obey," " day," &c., and never with words such as " flee " and " be " thus showing that the derivative pronunciation from the Dutch " Zee " and German " See " was current in his time. We are all familiar with the Georgian " tay " for " tea," and this, with "teach," " creature," " each," &c., is current in the Sister Isle to this day. A look in a good dictionary will tell one that, with few exceptions, there is strong derivative war- rant for the ea being pronounced a whether at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. I think this a subject of some interest, and should be very glad to know of any work or treatise bearing on these and other "progressive" changes in pronunciation.

Conservative Club. FRASER BADDELEY.

PEACOCK LORE. " E. V. B." in her work ' The Peacock's Pleasaunce ' mentions, in sketch headed ' The Peacock's Prologue,' an extraordinary occurrence connected with the reoccupation of a country mansion un- tenanted for years somewhere in Wales. While joyous glee attended the event, a lady's grey horse brought on the scene capered and careered, fell down, and suddenly died. The newly resident tenant wrote to the owner, attributing the terrifying in- cident to the dazzling brilliance of an over- mantel decorated with a design of peacocks above the fireplace in one of the rooms of the house, and, fearful of any further ominous happenings, craved the removal of the glittering, gorgeous, and variegated hang- ings a present from India. The landlord assented. He ordered his aged head gardener