Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/91

 IS S. IV. MARCH, 1918.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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whole of Beethoven's sonata in B." Now of ail the twelve keys, B is the only one in which Beethoven did not write a sonata ! Still stranger are the blunders about Gounod's ' Faust ' in Reade's ' Woman-Hater,' and, more recently, about Wagner's ' Tristan ' in ' Ann Veronica.' H. DAVEY.

89 Montpelier Road, Brighton.

The words " Miserere, Domine," evi- dently refer to Beethoven's ' Missa Solemnis,' his last opus magnum, composed between 1819 and 1822, and performed for the first time, as a whole, in 1827. Cf. 4 L. van Beethoven's Leberi und Schaffen,' von A. B. Marx, fiinfte Auflage, ed. Behncke (in 2 Teilen, Berlin, 1901), Teil ii. pp. 859 and 537. H. K.

ST. PETER'S FINGER (12 S. iii. 449, 518 ; iv. 60). ST. S WITHIN' s original query was, Iunderstand, what was the meaning of the term ; and I referred to the two numbers of The Treasury magazine as throwing some light on it. I cannot find that either the July or November number refers to Bishop Hall's lines. J. DE BERNIERE SMITH.

Peters Finger is a sign of a public -house in a village (I think Lytchett) about 5 miles N.E. from Wareham in Dorsetshire.

H. C. StTRTEES.

LINDIS RIVER (12 S. iv. 45). I should like to remind COL. WELBY of the admirable tise made of " Lindis " for Witham by Jean Ingelow in her pathetic poem ' The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire (1571).' " Lindis " is frequent in the lines, and is the protagonist :

Along the river's bed A mighty eygre raised his crest,

And uppe the Lindis raging sped ; It swept with thunderous voices loud. Shaped iike a curling snow-white cloud Or like a, demon in a shroud.

ST. SWITHIN.

PEERAGES : THEIR SALE (12 S. iii. 479 ; iv. 27). There is, I think, an error in Prof. C. H. Firth's biography of John Holies in the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' quoted at the second reference.

According 'to ' The Complete Peerage ' by G. E. C[okayne], edited by the Hon. Vicary Gibbs, vol. iii., 1913, p. 247, a.v. Clare, Earldom, John Holies, of Haughton, Notts, was (JxUy 9, 1616) created Baron Houghton [Haughton] of Houghton, co. Nottingham (not Baron Holies of Haughton), and later (Nov. 2, 1624) Earl of Clare, co. Suffolk. Both peerages were obtained by the in-

fluence of the Duke of Buckingham, the then Court favourite, to whom Holies paid 10,OOOZ. for the barony, and 5,000?. in addition for the earldom. His seoond son, Denzill [sic] Holies, was in 1661 created Baron Holies of Ifield (p. 248).

See also Nicolas's ' Synopsis of the Peerage of England,' 1825, vol. i. pp. 130, 329.

ROBERT PTERPOINT.

The historical examples already given can be reinforced by one taken from the stage. Berinthia in ' The Relapse ' explains who Lord Foppington is : " 'Tis Sir Novelty ; he has bought a barony, in order to many a great fortune " (Act II. sc. i.) ; and in an earlier scene (I. iii.) the new-made peer exclaims, " Sure, whilst I was but a knight, I was a very nauseous fellow. Well, 'tis ten thousand pawnd well given, stap my vitals ! "

As Vanbrugh's play was produced in 1697, we see that, if the decline in the purchasing power of money is taken into* account, the traditional value of a peerage in the reign of William III. was less than under James I. EDWARD BENSLY.

ISABELLA S. STEPHENSON (12 S. iii. 70, 153, 344). The following account of this lady appeared in Thei Tewkesbury Parochial Magazine some time during 1915, signed E. W. Leachman, and, as stated at the last reference above, was reprinted in The Gloucester Diocesan Magazine for December, 1915.

As many of our chaplains and troops are desirous of knowing more about the writer of the hymn which has become such a favourite, I hope that room may be found for these particulars in ' N. & Q.' :

" The verses were written by Miss Isabel Stevenson in 1869 at Cheltenham, where her family then lived. In that year Miss Stevenson's favourite brother, who was delicate, was advised to go to South Africa. She herself was an invalid* and this parting with her brother was a greafc blow to her. Being fond of hymns, she felt the want of one for absent friends, and, not being able to find one, she wrote this hymn herself on the day that her brother sailed. She sent a copy of the verses to him, and at his death in South Africa, some four or five years later, this copy, well worn, was found in his blotting-book : he had evidently used it himself as a prayer for those across the sea in the homeland.

" Miss Stevenson also sent a copy of the hymn to her great friend Miss Caustbn, and from this copy another friend had the hymn printed on leaflets by Messrs. Mowbray, and at different times she sent 600 copies or so to the various ships in which her son served as a naval officer. This officer as a lad was on H.M.S. Bacchante, as a midshipman, with our present King George and