Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/235

 12 8. IV. AUG., 1918.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

229

corners are the symbols of the Evangelists. In the centre is the representation of God the Father ; in front of whom, and apparently resting on His arms, the hands being uplifted, is the Crucifix.

JAS. M. J. FLETCHER. Wimbome Minster Vicarage.

"TROUNCER" (12 S. iv. 101, 198). This word was in common use among the carmen of farmers and market-gardeners when, going from the country to a London market, they required some assistance in town connected with their duties there, such as unloading their goods or loading up material to bring back. Such a man was spoken of always as "my trouncer " ; it Was easier thus to hire an odd man than to take a helper from home. The trouncer was generally a man who preferred short jobs to regular work. W. W. GLENNY.

Barking.

Sm THOMAS MORE ON " NEITHER RIME NOR REASON" (12 S. iv. 105). This witty saying and the occasion of it may probably be found in a book entitled ' Witty Apoph- thegms delivered at Several Times and on Various Occasions by Sir Thomas More and Others,' published in 1658. It is one of them that Sir Nicholas Bacon found amusement in versifying, as follows :

In wanton rhyme a great grave matter

A glorious man showed to his friend one time, Who said straightway, being loth to flatter, The body grave was marred with too fond

rhyme.

This man then, all his labour loth to lose, Mad metre turoeth straight into sad prose, And, to be glorified above the stars, Again to his friend's judgment he refers.

" Oh," quoth his friend, " thou seemest at this

season

Out of good rhyme t' have made nor rhyme nor reason."

It appears therefore that More's dislike of pomp and parade in any form as well as his wit and humour are shown in this satire upon his " glorious " friend's pompous poetry. M. H. MARSDEN.

THE OAK AND THE ASH (12 S. iv. 161). The following paragraph was published in The Daily Mail of May 20, 1901 :

" In the years 1816, 1817, 1821, 1823, 1828, 1829, 1830, 1838, 1840, 1845, 1850, and 1859, the ash was in leaf a full month before the oak, and the autumns were unfavourable. In 1831, 1833, 1839, 1853, and 1860 the two species of trees came into leaf about the same time, and the years were not remarkable either for plenty or the reverse. In 1818. 1819, 1820, 1822, 1824, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1833, 1834, 1885, 1836, 1837, 1842, 1846, 1854,

1868, and 1869 the oak displayed its foliage several weeks before the ash, and the summers of those years were dry and warm and the harvests abundant."

In. The Daily Mail of May 9, 1907, ap- oeared a short descriptive article on ' Spring's Range of Colour ' wherein the writer states : ' The extraordinary thing about this old omen is that the ash never does precede the oak." He somewhat modifies this explicit dictum by finishing thus :

" It would be interesting to know if any observers can remember the ash anticipating the oak. The district makes some difference, and in soil suitable for one and not the other the normal relation of dates might be altered."

JOHN T. PAGE. Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

FREDERIC THACKERAY (12 S. iv. 130) was a physician at Cambridge (born 1774, died 1852). His father, Thomas Thackeray (born 1736, died 1802), was a surgeon at Cambridge and had fifteen children, of whom Frederic was the eighth. Frederic's cousin, Richmond Thackeray, was the father of the famous novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.

T. W. B. [MB. J. T. PAGE thanked for reply.]

SALAMANCA DOCTOR (12 S. iv. 159). Titus Oates of Popish Plot notoriety. He was so called as pretending to have the degree of D.D. of the University of Salamanca. Oates spent some time in Spain in the Jesuit College at Valladolid in 1)677, and was expelled from it for " scan- dalous behaviour." He had no degree from the University of Salamanca. In Tom Brown's " Widow's Wedding, or a true account of Dr. Gates' s marriage with a Muggletonian widow in Bread Street, London, August the 18th, 1693. In a letter to a gentleman in the country," the widow (Margaret Wells), after her marriage with Oates, is described as " Madam Salamanca (for so we must now call her) " 'Works of Thomas Brown,' 9th ed., Lond., 1760, vol. iv. pp. 142-6. L. A. W.

Dublin.

Titus Oates is referred to by this title. MR. RATCLIFFE will find a sketch of his life in ' Twelve Bad Men.' Other notes are to be found in Anthony a Wood's ' Life and Times ' in the Oxford Historical Society's publications (vol. ii. p. 417) ; Pollock's ' Popish Plot ' ; English Historical Review, January, 1910 ; and American Hist. Rev., April and July, 1909. W. H.

[PROF. BENSLY also thanked for reply.]