Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/159

 12 S. V. JUNE, 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

153

SIR CHARLES WILLIAM TAYLOR, BT. According to Burke' s ' Peerage and Baronet- age,' 1829, he was M.P., and was created a baronet Jan. 21, 1828. Can any one tell me what was his constituency, and on what occasion or for what services he received his baronetcy ? C. A. C.

RIDDLE BY GEORGE SELWYN. That pro- lific letter-writer Horace Walpole, in an epistle to the Rev. Wm. Mason, dated July 29, 1773, says :

" I will enliven the conclusion of a heavy letter with a riddle by George Selwyn, the only verses I believe he ever made, and marked with all his wit :

The first thing is that thing without which we hold No very good bargain can ever be sold. The next is a soft white prim delicate thing Which a parson has got 'twixt his knees and his

chin.

Then what at the playhouse we all strive to get, Or else are content to go in the pit. Then all this together will make an odd mess Of something in something and that you must

guess.

So you will ; therefore I need not tell you the subject, nay, nor who writes this letter."

Presumably Mr. Mason sent a solution of some sort to this conundrum, for on the 17th of the following September, Walpole writes to him :

" I have so totally forgotten what the riddle was I sent you that I do not know whether your solu- tion with all its humour is right; you may judge with what rubbish my mind is hlled. I have learned so many new things of late that I have lost my memory."

Does any one know what is the correct solution of this riddle, or whether Mr. Mason discovered it ?

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE GARDEN. I should like to know if there has been compiled and published a Shakespeare anthology of the garden. JAS. A. PATON.

Dalrymple, Ayrshire.

OLD CLOCKMAKERS. Any information about the following, who are not in the late Mr. F. J. Britten's list, would be welcome :

Danl. Keele, Sarum.

Thackwell, Bristol.

Wm. Ide, Tunbridge Wells.

Is anything known of Michell of Launces- ton, a clockmaker of the eighteenth centurjt, and of John Mureh of Honiton, who in 1817 made the clock which is now inside Sidburv Church ?

H. C.'s query as to John Farnham (12 S. i. 172) is not in the index to that volume. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

JACK STRAW AND WAT TYLER. In ' Links with the Past,' by Mrs. Charles Bagot, 1901, p. 219, is the following :

" Sept. 4, 1823. North Court [in the Isle of Wight]. I copied the following inscription froin a curious old painting over the chimney-piece in the dining-room at North Court : ' This . is. the Pictor . of . Sqr : Willyam . Walworth . Knight . that . Kyled . Jake . Stran . in . Kynge . Richard's . sight.' "

This is an extract from forty volumes of unpublished journals written by Miss Mary Bagot. Some histories have it that Jack Straw and others were hanged in chains in 1381, the time Wat Tyler was killed in Smithfield by the Lord Mayor of London ; but I have never before read that he (and not Tyler) was Sir William Walworth' s victim. Is there any known tradition to the latter effect ? W. B. H.

BARR FAMILY : THEIR ARMS. Wanted instances of the use of the following arms by any Barr family, especially in Ireland, at or before 1800 : Azure, an eagle displayed gules. Crest, a lion's head erased gules, collared or. Motto, " Fortitudine."

H. R. P. BAKER.

77 Accrington Road, Blackburn.

MASTER GUNNER. In the REV. A. G. KEALY'S interesting quotation about burial at sea (ante, p. 106) it is stated that a salute was fired for a captain, master gunner, or other proper officer. What was the exact status of a master gunner ? Some years ago I tried to trace a man calling himself " Master Gunner at Gillingham Fort " in 1804, but could not discover whether he belonged to the army or navy. He was married at Lubeek in 1762. L. E. MORIARTY.

35 Manor Park, Lee, S.E.

[The quotations in the ' New English Dictionary | under " Gunner " show that ' Master Gunner " (1, c), marked as obsolete, was used both in the army and the navy. The quotations range from 1548 to 1688.]

SOMERSET INCUMBENTS. Thanks to some kindly reader of ' N. & Q.' (see 12 S. iv. 273), the Clerical Index Society has come into possession of a copy of the rare issue of the Rev. F. W. Weaver's ' Somerset Incum- bents,' 1889. Unfortunately, this work only brings the succession of the clergy down to about 1730. I have ascertained that more than one copy has been brought down to date in MS. entries. Has any reader of ' N. & Q.' such a copy ? or does any reader know where there is a copy ? We want lists of the later clergy, 1730-1600, or so, for index purposes, and should be grateful for