Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/277

 12 s. in. APRIL 14, 1917-] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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THE FIGURE OF MINERVA (OR HIBERNIA), by Edward Smyth, which occupied a niche over the entrance of the old Dublin Theatre Royal (destroyed by fire on Feb. 9, 1880), was rescued and placed over the old gateway of Leinster House, demolished 1889 (Museum Bulletin, vol. i. Plate IX. ; Irish Times, June 8, 1909 ; ' History of the Royal Dublin Society,' H. F. Berry). It is now in the colonnade outside the Society's Lecture Theatre, Kildare Street. J. ARDAGH.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of ohly private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

THE ALPHABET IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Was there any mystic signification attached to the use of the complete alphabet in the Christian Church ? Four varied instances occur to me :

1. On the exterior of the north wall of the fifteenth-century flint -built church of Stratford St. Mary, Suffolk, is the alphabet let in in stone.

2. In the church at Rushton, Northants, the upper side of the rim of the font has the alphabet.

3. Some church bells have it. H. B. Walters in his book on ' Church Bells ' says it has been supposed that the founder wished to use his old stamps, but was afraid of giving offence after the Reformation by adhering to the old style of inscription, and so he arranged the letters in a style to which none could object ! That seems an unsatisfactory explanation ; they might have been used in the form of an inoffensive inscription.

4. In the consecration of churches it was ordered, in oome forms, that ashes and sand should be sprinkled on the floor, and the alphabet was traced thereon.

A. G. KEAI.Y, Chaplain, R.X., retired. Bedford.

Go VANE. I wonder if any reader can put me on the right track regarding an old Scots family of the name of Govane, who from about 1650 to 1900 were resident at the Park of Drumquastle, a large estate in Western Stirlingshire. They married into the best families of that quarter, the Humes of Argaty and the Grahams of Leckie. Is there any book in which I could find references to them, or any book giving a pedigree ?

WM. B. AITKEN.

MARIA JANE JEWSBTJRY. This lady married, on Aug. 1, 1832, the Rev. W. K. Fletcher, Bombay Chaplain, and left with him for India in September. They landed at Bombay in March, 1833. She died Oct. 4, 1833* at Poonah. Either on the way out (though it does not appear why they should have travelled such a round- about way, unless specially in order to make this visit), or between March and October, 1833, they paid a visit to the Rev. Benja- min Bailey, Colonial Chaplain of Colombo, and his wife, who was daughter of Bishop Gleig of Brechin, and sister of the Rev. G. R. Gleig, author of ' The Subaltern, 1 and later Chaplain General. Mrs. Fletcher was in a small way a poetess, and the Rev. B. Bailey in a smaller way a poet, having pub- lished in 1831 a volume of ' Poetical Sketches of the South of France,' which he followed up ten years later by ' Poetical Sketches of the Interior of the Island of Ceylon.' He had also, as Sir Herbert Warren discovered some two or three years ago, been an in- timate friend of Keats. The Baileys had been only a year or two in Ceylon when the Fletchers paid them this visit.

There is a biography of Mrs. Fletcher in ' Lancashire Worthies,' by Francis Espi- nasse, published in 1877, and in this book the author gives some extracts from Mrs. Fletchers diary in India, to which, he states, he had been given access. If Mrs. Fletcher kept a diary in India, no doubt she kept one too while staying at Colombo, and as this diary was in existence in the seventies, it may be in existence still. The Ceylon passages, written by a lady of the distinction that Maria Jewobury achieved in her day, and possibly containing references to people like the Baileys, would be of interest to students of Ceylon history. I am writing in the hope that the diary may be in the possession of some member of the family of Fletcher or Jewsbury who would be kind enough to allow it, or the Ceylon portion of it, to be read by one such student.

There is a poem containing references to Ceylon, Aladdin, and Sindbad the Sailor, also to that common object of the Ceylon seashore, the coco-nut tree, which is felici- tously described as " a column, and its crown a star." It must, I think, have been written by Mrs. Fletcher during or just after her Ceylon visit. The diary may show.

PENRY LEWIS.

HERALDRY. A silver snuff-box engraved with crest a dexter arm in armour em- bowed, the hand grasping a sword ppr. -