Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/293

 12 S. IV. OCT., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

287

and others of the last-named place in 1751 andU776.

The name does not occur in the calendar of Lancashire wills proved in the Arch- deaconry of Richmond, which indicates that the name had not travelled north of the river Ribble before 1812, the last date of the calendar. As Dwarrihouse this name is still found in Lancashire.

W. H. CHIPPINDAIX, Col.

Kirkby Lonsdale.

The surname occurs forty-one times in the registers of Bebington (a parish between Chester and Birkenhead). The first two entries refer to Agnes Dwarihouse, buried 1560, and Agnes -Dwarisse, married 1562. The latter entry evidently gives the local pronunciation, the Cheshireman being ex- tremely fond of condensing long surnames. In 1617 we have the burial of " Filius Johis Sparke alfiujs Dwarihouse " ; and the last entry is in 1622 : " Johis Dwarihouse de Bebington." JOSEPH C. BBIDGE.

Christ Church Vicarage, Chester.

Bardsley says that this name comes from " dwyer-house," a residence. He quotes two instances from wills at Chester, and another man who lived at St. George's, Hanover Square. There are seven such names in the current ' Liverpool Directory,' one a watch- and clock-maker. Harrison says the name comes from " dwarf -house." ARCHIBALD SPARSE.

[G. and W. B. S. also refer to Liverpool.]

PAE.CY REED OF TKOUGHEND (12 S. iv. 47, 88). Parcy, Percy, or Percival Reed of Troughend, by Elsdon, Northumberland, was living in the time of the Rev. Isaac Marrow, who was Rector of Elsdon from 1624 to 1650, for he had a dispute with him regarding the performance of some penance which had been enjoined upon him. This furnishes an approximate date for the querist.

J. W. FAWCETT.

AUTHORS OP QUOTATIONS WANTED (12 8. iii. 510 ;iv. 32, 62).

1. Quinque sumus fratres, uno de stipite nati.

About 50 years ago Prof. John Hutton Balfour, the father of. the present distinguished professor of Edinburgh University, gave me the following riddle on one of our delightful botanical ex- cursions in Scotland :

" Quinque sumus fratres, unus barbatus et alter imberbisque duo, sum semi berberbis ego."

I could not remember the riddle, although I had hundreds of times verified it by examining the sepals of the wild rose for years afterwards ; so some months ago my friend Prof. Bayley Balfour obtained for me from the present Pro-

fessor of Clinical Surgery, Prof. Caird, who was in our day the class assistant of Prof. John Hutton Balfour, the exact wording of the " riddle " and his own English rendering of it, which is indeed very beautiful : *

Five brothers take their stand,

Born to the same command :

Two darkly bearded frown,

Two without beards are known.

And one sustains with equal pride

His sad appendage on one side.

G. S. STEPHENSON, M.D.

(12 S. iv. 246.) 1. But the waiting time, my brothers,

Is the hardest time of all,

will be found in'some lines entitled 'TLe Hardest Time of All,' on p. 91 of ' Psalms of Life,' by Sarah Doudney (Houlston & Sons, 65 Pater- noster Bow, 1871).

MARY TERESA FOP.TESCUE. Grove House, Winchester.

0tt

From ihe Old South-Sea House : he~ : ng Thomas

Rumncy's Letter-Book, 1796-8. -Edited by his

great-great-nephew A. W. Bumney. Kew

Edition. (John Murray, 2s. 6d. net.)

MR. MURRAY deserves thanks for a good as well

as cheap edition of a book that will delight many

readers of ' N. & Q.' Thomas Bumney belonged

to an old Cumberland family of " statesmen," or

yeomen, but when he wrote the majority of these

letters he was filling a situation in the Old South-

Sea House. On the death of his elder brother

he inherited the family estate and returned to

Cumberland.

Fortunately for us, he loved letter-writing, and we are privileged to watch events as they unrolled themselves day by day at a critical p'eriod of British history. Thus we have the Bank of England suspending cash payments in 1797 and issuing pound notes, Pitt's efforts to finance the war with France by loans, and increased rates of postage to help to defray war expenditure. But the minor things of life naturally occupy con- siderable space in the letters, and Bumney affords many interesting glimpses into manners and customs a century ago. On one page he records how he gave a shilling to schoolboys for " barring out " their master ; on another he tells how when " old Mary Hodgson " was buried 70 people were expected at the funeral, and 73 Ib. of beef and 41 Ib. of mutton were provided for them ; and on a third how, when he was about to be married, he bought presents of gloves for the guests expected. The great Oxford Dictionary has the earliest mention of a spencer as a man's coat in 1796, and Bumney informs his brother Anthony on Jan. 25, 1797, that he wears " a half greatcoat, or what is called a Spencer." On the other hand, the Dictionary does not record tea as a transitive verb before 18i2, and as an intransitive verb till 1823 ; but Bumney notes on Jan. 11, 1805, that he " tea'd, suppered, and slept at Mr. Mounsey's," and on Sept. 7, 1806, that "Mrs. E. and I tra'd at Mellfell," his Cumberland house. He had married on New Year's Dax, 1806, and dined at the house of his bride's father. That he was a