Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/225

 12 S. III. MARCH 17, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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which I can find no name until Herbert Taylor held the position from 1805 to 1812 ; in the latter year the same person, John McMahon, was appointed both Keeper of the Privy Purse and Private Secretary. Since 1830, however, the two appointments have generally been kept distinct.

W. R. W.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (12 S. iii. 49, 97). Your correspondent at the first reference has omitted in his list two books written by the same author, namely : ' Britannia's Calendar of Heroes,' compiled by Kate Stanway, with an intro- duction by the Rev. the Hon. E. Lyttelton, late Head Master of Eton ; and the other ' Sons of Valour,' by Kate Stanway. In the first mentioned there are over one hundred and sixty signatures of heroes of the Victoria Cross. The other work contains the names of 522 men who have been awarded the bronze cross, and is published at one shilling. H. T. BEDDOWS.

Shrewsbury.

The subjoined will find a suitable place in these lists :

' How one of the McGovern or McGauran Clan won the Victoria Cross in the Indian Mutiny.' By J. H. McGovern, F.L.A.S. Liverpool, 1889.

J. B. MCGOVERN.

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

ST. BURCHARD (12 S. iii. 127). It is stated that St. Burchard's Day is Feb. 2. What is the authority for this ? On refer- ence to Sir H. Nicolas's ' Chronology of History : Alphabetical Calendar of Saints' Days,' I find :

Jurkard or Burchard,

bishop. ^ day ftfter si

Note that St. Denis is Oct. 9. St. Burchard is not given in the Roman Calendar nor in the Prayer Book Calendar. J. DE C. L.

FOUNTAINS ABBEY ACCOUNTS (12 S. iii. 129). Pulvis pestilencice will probably be the powder against pestilence afterwards included in our old London pharmacopoeias, which consisted of the powders of sanders wood (white, red, and yellow), basil seeds, Armenian bole, cinnamon, dittany, gentian, and tormentil roots, the seeds of citron and sorrel, pearls, sapphires, and the bone of a stag's heart. Pulvis vitalis would, in all likelihood, be a somewhat similar com- position, one of the uses of the above, says Culpeper, being to " cheer the vital spirits and strengthen the heart." C. C. B.

BOWTELL : BEAUCLERK (12 S. iii. 110). Henry I. was traditionally nicknamed Beau- clerk, or fine scholar, as Camden notes in his ' Remains concerning Britain.' It was, then, not altogether unnatural that his descendant and remote successor, Charles II., should give this as a surname to one of his bastard sons. He had already made use of FitzCharles and FitzRoy.

A. R. BAYLEY.

There is a pedigree of Bout ell alias Bowtell in Add. MS. (B.M.) No. 19119. See the G.E.C. Peerage for Beauclerk.

A. L. HUMPHREYS.

187 Piccadilly, W.

PRONUNCIATION OF " EA " (12 S. ii. 530;: iii. 58,77,97). Hereabouts and in Northamp- tonshir6 one constantly finds the labonring: classes pronounce " peas " as pays, " beans ' as banes, "meat" as mate, "tea" as tay f " seal " as sale, and " steal " as stale. OTL the other hand, many pronounce "break" as breek. JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

" Tay " for tea, " teach," " creature," " each," are still prevalent in Devonshire ; in fact, any other pronunciation of ea is quite the exception. It applies to almost every word I can think of, including place-names like South Zeal, formerly written Sele.

W. CURZON YEO. Richmond, Surrey.

0n

Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (Mythology). Col- lected and translated from the Hawaiian by W. D. Westervelt. (Boston, U.S.A., Ellis Press ; London, Constable & Co., 6s. net.)

THE Hawaiian mythological imagination has the luxuriance and the violence of the land of its birth, with something of that weirdness of ever- changing outline which also is characteristic of a country actively volcanic. The gods and semi- gods of the traditions which Mr. Westervelt has here set before us are both as clearly denned as such are usually found to be at a corresponding degree of culture, and subject to confusions and changes more abrupt even than most mythologies of this degree offer. The exceptions are Pele the flre goddess and her youngest sister Hiiaka. Pele, if the reports of Western interpreters may- be taken as substantially correct, is a remarkable example of force, beauty, and comprehension in an invention of popular imagination. She will easily stand comparison so far as poetic or artistic value goes with any similar figure of any mythology. Hiiaka, her little sister, was born in an egg. This Pele carried in her bosom, and out of it presently came a lovely and gentle goddess whose half-filial relation to Pele con- stitutes the only touch of morality in the legends