Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/192

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

1 12 s. i V.JULY,

be held for the county or place, where such person shall live, are hereby required to tender and administer to such persons as shall offer themselves to take, make, and subscribe the same, and thereof to keep a register."

One question is whether these registers have been preserved, and where they can be found if they still exist.

The 18th section of the Act runs as follows :

" Provided always, that no congregation or assembly for religious worship shall be permitted or allowed by this Act until the place of such meeting shall be certified to the bishop of the diocaso, or to the archdeacon of that archdeaconry, or to the justices of the peace, at the general or quarter sessions of the peace for the county, city, or place, in which such meeting shall be held, and registered in the said bishop's or arch- deacon's court respectively, or recorded at the said general or quarter sessions, the register or clerk of the peace whereof respectively is hereby required to register the same, and to give cer- tificate thereof to such person as shall demand the same, for which there shall be no greater fee or reward taken than the sum of sixpence."

The remaining question is whether these registers have been preserved, and whether they can be inspected. A. D. T.

BRANDRETH FAMILY OF BREADSELL. I should be grateful for any information respecting the family of Richard Brandreth of Breadsell, Derbyshire, 1632. What were their arms and crest ?

LEONARD C. PRICE.

Essex Lodge, Ewell.

THOMAS WALKER, B.D. I should be very grateful if any readers could supply me with information about Thomas Walker, B.D., Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He entered the College as sizar in 1665, having been seven years at Charterhouse. In 1691 he published ' Divine Hymns, or a Paraphrase upon the Te Deum, &c., and the Song of the Three Children, or Canticle, Benedicite Opera Omnia.' Later he re- turned to his old school as head master.

Any information, portraits, notes of other of his works, &c., would be much appreciated by WILFRID B. HAWORTH,

Lieut. Manchester Regt.

" STRAITSMAN," A CLASS OF SHIP. In W. Hickey's ' Memoirs,' vol. ii. p. 8, I read : " All [the shipping], with the exception of one, which was a large Straitsman, were transports bound to America." What manner of ship was a " Straitsman " ? It is, of course, a description not of rig, but of the trade the ship engaged in like East, or West, Indiaman. ERIC R. WATSON.

BoyaJ Societies Club, S.W.

WAX: " MEDE WAX" AND " BOLEN WAX." In the churchwardens' accounts of Wimborne Minster there are frequent entries of sums paid for mede or meade wax, and for bolen, bollen, belleyn, or bulleyn wax. In the earlier part of the sixteenth century the price of mede wax was 8d. a pound, whilst bolen wax cost 6cf. a pound. In the accounts for the year 1508-9 the purchase is recorded of 7 pounds of mede wax, 14 pounds of bolen wax, and an additional 3 pounds of mede wax : " All this wax was bestowed upon y e pascall and y e fonte- taper."

The ' New English Dictionary ' defines the obsolete word " medewax " or " med- wax " as meaning " some kind o wax "^ and suggests its derivation from " mead ' (the honeyed drink made from fermented honey and water, or honey), or else from " mead " (a meadow) in either case, I pre- sume, implying that it was honey wax, or bees' wax.

But what was bolen wax ? Was vegetabl* wax known four centuries ago ? If so, was bolen wax some form of vegetable wax ?

Possibly, though not so probably, the term " mede wax " may have been derived from " mede," meaning price or value, and may have been so called from its being a superior article, whereas " bolen " would be an inferior kind of wax. I shall be glad any of your readers can enlighten me as to the meaning of these words.

JAS. M. J. FLETCHER.

Wimborne Minster Vicarage.

RELIGION : MAX MULLER'S DEFINITION. I think Prof. Max Miiller somewhere defines religion as " such a perception of the infinite as will influence the moral life of man." I shall be grateful if any reader will inform me where this passage can be found.

J. A.

"HELL FOR LEATHER." What is the origin of this expression ? It seems to have been made popular by Kipling in one of his ' Barrack-Room Ballads ' :

When we rode hell for leather Four squadrons together.

The 'English Dialect Dictionary '_ quotes " They be aal quarlun and fighting hell faleero" (Isle of Wight dialect), " We were gooen hett falladerly when his tyre burst " (West Yorks), and " Your train was gooen hell for ladder."

Has " falladerly " any connexion with the* dialect word " fallalderment "=finery ?

N. E. TOKE.