Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/111

 12 S. IV. APRIL, 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

105

(London, 1900), the Empress was the daughter of Don Cipriano Guzman Palafox y Porto Carrero, Comte do Teba et Montijo, and Maria Manuel a Kirkpatrick. The Com- tesse de Teba et Montijo was the daughter of William Kirkpatrick and Frangoise de Grivegnee, a lady of Belgian origin. William Kirkpatrick is said to have been born at Dumfries, and as a Jacobite to have emigrated to the U.S.A. at the time of the Declaration of Independence (1776) : he was appointed U.S.A. consul at Malaga by the new Government. Mr. Kirkpatrick seems to have remained at Malaga until after 1800. Debrett (1905) states that the Em- press is descended from a younger brother of the 1st Baronet, Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick (1685), described in a curious manner as the " late Alexander Kirkpatrick, Esq., of Kirkmichael " (one does not usually speak of a person who presumably died two hundred years ago as " the late "). Was this Alexander K. the grandfather of William K. the consul ?

I have not been able to find any published accounts of the more direct ancestors of the Empress on the mother's side than the above very vague references in the English Peerages. Perhaps the ' Almanach de Gotha ' might assist, but I have no opportunity of consulting that work of the period in question.

G. J., F.S.A.

Cyprus.

REV. GRIFFITH HUGHES. Information is eagerly sought on the author of ' Natural History of Barbadoes,' 1750.

ANEURIN WILLIAMS.

Menai View, North Road, Carnarvon.

SHROLL SURNAME. A Welshman tells me that the above surname of his is Welsh. I am a Welshman, and shall be much obliged if anv Welsh reader can explain the surname, as I have in vain searched a Welsh dictionary. Can it be a misspelt form of Shorl ? M.A.OxoN.

MISTLETOE ON OAK TREES.' I am trying to get as complete a list of mistletoe-bearing oak trees as is possible. Of these the following have been verified : Bredwardine, Eastnor Castle, Frampton-oii- Severn, Hack- wood Park, and Dunsfold. Several in- stances reported some years ago exist no longer. I shall be grateful for information as to those which have, at various dates, been reported at the following places : Tedstone Delamere ; Haven in Forest of Deerfold ; Plasiiewydd, Anglesea ; Lee Court, Kent ; Bodlam's Court, Surrey ; Shottesham,

Norfolk ; Alderley, Norfolk. I have heard of a new find by the Avon, near Bristol. Any information sent to me as to* other instances will be gratefully received.

(Rev.) GEORGE SAMPSON. Eamsdell Vicarage, Basingstokc.

SIR THOMAS MORE ON " NEITHER RIME NOR REASON." Most of the books of quotations contain the following foot-note with reference to this quotation : '* ' Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rime ; before it was neither rime nor reason.' Sir Thomas More advised an author, who had sent him his manuscript to read, ' to put it in rime.' " Can any one direct me to the whereabouts of this utter- ance in the works of More ?

ARCHIBALD SPARKE. [See post, p. 107, col. 2.]

FLEARBOTTOM. This is the name of an estate in Lancashire, and the origin of the name is obscure. The only approach to a likely meaning is supplied by the word " fiear-mouse," i.e., a bat, which I have heard used as a contraction of " flitter- mouse. 1 ' If this is correct, then " Flear- bottom " would perhaps mean "Bat- Valley." Am I correct in my theory ?

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

Sm WALTER SCOTT : "As I WALKED BY MYSELF." Can any of your readers tell me by whom the lines,

As I walked by myself I talked to myself,

were written ? They appear in ' Sir Walter Scott's Journal,' and were prefixed by him in the Diary to the year 1828, and under- neath are the words " Old Song."

I have it in my mind (where from I know not) that lines which followed were some- thing like these :

And myself replied unto me,

And the questions- myself put to myself,

The answers I'll give to thee :

" Look well to thyself,

And beware of thyself,

Or it will be worse for thee." In a collection of poems put together by a Mr. Grainger in 1904, there was a refer- ence to them as follows : " As I walked by myself, I talked to myself, Colloquing with myself, by Bernard Barton."

Bernard Barton was known as " the Quaker poet," and lived 1780-1840. Selections of his poem? were made by his daughter and her husband FitzGerald (Omarr Khayyam), and published after his death.

JESSOP H. HULTON. Highfield House, Worsley, Lancashire.