Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/525

 12 S. III. DEC., 1917-]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

519

3. Still later and earlier, it appeared evident that the difference in direction was allied to the kinds of Swastika cross : women preferred the one pointing to the left (widdershins, female, unlucky so called now), while men chose the masculine, diesal, lucky cross, and the respective directions were followed in many things, including clothing.

4. Evidence that the difference is phy- siological, and not due to feminine whimsies, is that of a Neolithic burial-ground, where, of the many afflicted with rheumatism, those showing lesions on the right were male on the left, female.

5. Infinitely earlier evidence is typified in the human embryo of to-day. Em- bryo! ogists are investigating why most of mankind are born right -handed, incidentally finding out why left is female, but right male. Till they have reached their con- elusions and reports, we are left in an unlimited field for conjecture.

CHARLES EDWARD AAB. Boston, Mass.

Perhaps " the right hand " is a slip of the pen for " the left hand " in MR. FARRER'S reply. Most men button their clothes with the left hand, and most women with the right. B. C.

FlREBACKS AND STOVE IRONWORK : BIBLIO- GRAPHY (12 S. iii. 270). To this list should be added the following articles in The Connoisseur .- vol. xx. 67 ; xxx. 192 ; xxxiii. 119; xxxv. 28; xxxix. 32; xli. 218. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

COL. BUNCOMBE (12 S. iii. 358). Masson' quotation (was it at second-hand ?) from Aubrey's MS. is singularly inaccurate, and he entirely missed the point of the story I set out the two versions :

" ' Dr. Gill, the father, ' says Aubrey in one oi his MSS., ' was a very ingeniose person, as may appear by his writings : notwithstanding, he hac his moods and humours, as particularly his whipping fits. Often Dr. Gill whipped Duncombe who was afterwards a colonel of dragoons at Edgehill fight.' Duncombe may have been his greatest dunce. " ' The Life of John Milton,' vol. i (1881), p 82.

" This Dr. Gill whipped Duncomb, who

was not long after a colonel of dragoons at Kdgehill-

fight, taken against the wall. He hadhissworc

by his side, but the boyes surprized him : somebody had throwen a stone in at the windowe ; and they seised on the first man they lighted on. I thinke his name was Sir John D. (Sir John Denham tolc methestorie.)" Aubrey, ' Brief Lives,' ed. Andrew Clark (Oxford, 1898), vol. i. p. 263.

Masson calls this Duncombe in his index " scholar of St. Paul's," a description basec

apparently on the misquotation and? mis- understanding of Aubrey. It looks at first as though Aubrey was referring to the elder Alexander Gill, but the whipping reputation

s more in keeping with the younger, who succeeded his father as High Master in 1635. Sir Sidney Lee in the ' D. N. B.' applies Aubrey's description to the son. There is only one Sir John Duncombe mentioned by

Dr. W. A. Shaw in his list of Knights, the year given being 1646.

Although Masson has occasion to mention op. cit., vi. (1880), p. 264 the Sir John

Duncombe, " a country gentleman known

litherto only as M.P. for St. Edmundsbury," who was made one of the five Commissioners of the Treasury in 1667, and Treasurer of the Household and Chancellor of the Ex- chequer in 1672, he does not seem to have identified him with Dr. Gill's victim. Aubrey adds that Duncombe

would have cutt the doctor, but he never went abroad but to church, and then his army went with him. He complained to the councill, but it became ridicule, and so his revenge sank."

EDWARD BENSLY.

" HAB " AS A NICKNAME (12 S. iii. 476). I do not believe that this has any recog- nized relationship with Edward. A child of the name may have called himself Hab from inability to catch or to pronounce what others called him, and the sobriquet may have been kept up in the family for ever. I know a John whose boyish Johnnie became " Ovvie " on the lips of a younger brother. If one spoke of Owie now, T ' fancy his kindred would know who was referred to. ST. S WITHIN.

Low FORD : ITS LOCALITY (12 S. iii. 479). I should say, from the description, that the mug is Sunderland ware ; Low Ford is on the river Wear a little above the town. I have a butterdish with the typical purply coloured scrolls, having on one side a shield bearing an anchor, and as supporters two sailors holding flags (one of them the. red ensign), and above the shield a full-rigged ship. On the other side is the inscription (surrounded by coloured flowers with a small barque at the top) :

Thou noble bark of brightest fame,

That bear'st proud England's honour'd name,

Right welcome home once more !

Welcome then gallant little sail

In England's name 1 bid the [sic] hail !

And welcome to her shore.

The ship and flags are crudely painted red. .

R. B R. South Shields.