Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/28

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.v. JAN., 1919.

"Nicholsons. Ferdinand^Craggs, " guessed " .as the father of Margaret Craggs, died un- married in 1749, and was buried in Wolsing- liaxn Churchyard in this county (Durham). A handsome marble monument to him and othar members of the family was destroyed before 1800.

Margaret Craggs (?) (afterwards Nichol- son) was born in November, 1718, and must lirwe belonged to some other generation, afoc- Ferdinand (b. 1671, d. 1749) and the Rfc. Hon. James (b. 1657, d. 1721) were the only sons. The father of the two latter W;is Anthony. He had four brothers : Thomas, John, George, and William. Thomas , ^ jJ ?

ARISTOTLE ON THE GREEK TEMPERAMENT (12 S. iv. 302). In the ' Politics,' book iv. { = vii. formerly), chap. vii. (vol. iii. p. 46 of W. L. Newman's edition), Aristotle affirms that the races who live in cold -districts, and in particular those in Europe, abound in spirit (#17*05), but are deficient In intellect (Stavota) and skill (f^rf), while those in Asia are Siavor/n/ca fj.lv Kal rfxy-Ka. TTJV ^VXTTJV, aOvpa 8c. The Greeks, he goes on to say, being between the two divisions geographically, share the qualities of both, for they are spirited and intellectual. This Is presumably the place referred to in Jebb's ' Primer of Greek Literature.'

EDWARD BENSLY.

"HEATER-SHAPED" (12 S. iv. 270). In "the Trans. Hist. Soc. Lanes, and Ches. for 1888 (vol. xl.), in a paper on ' Book-Plates, with a Proposed Nomenclature for the 'Shapes of Shields,' Mr. J. P. Rylands, F.S.A., states (p. 13) that it was troublesome to be obliged, when describing the shape of a shield, to sketch it, and it had occurred to "him that by inventing a nomenclature for the forms of shields trouble might be saved. He gives a plate showing various shapes of shields, " and the arbitrary names which I suggest should be assigned to them." Shield 5 is the shape of the heater in a hot iron, and is labelled " heater." In the next volume (xli.), in a paper by George Graze- larpok, F.S.A., on the shapes of heraldic shields, the writer states (p. 11) his intention

of using " the new system of nomenclature devised and introduced by. . . .Mr. J. Paul Rylands," and bears testimony to its great usefulness as a simple alphabet of shapes, so convenient that it will come into general

R. S. B.

use.

In ' Monumental Brasses and Slabs,' by the Rev. Chas. Boutell, 1847, p. 37, the

shield of Sir de Bacon, Gorleston,

Suffolk, is described by this word.

H. K. ST. J. S.

ANCIENT ORDER OF FORESTERS : BLUE EYE (12 S. iv. 300). The all-seeing eye has come down from the Egyptians as a symbol of providence ; and in heraldry it signifies provident government, in which sense it has been appropriated by benefit societies, &c. Somewhat fancifully, blue is said to indicate wisdom ; green, power ; and red, love ; elsewhere the equivalents are given as red, fire ; blue, air ; and green, earth ; but no meaning seems to attach to any colour chosen as tint of an eye. W. B. H.

MERCHANT MARKS AND ANCIENT FINGER - RINGS (12 S. iv. 301). 'Rings for the Finger,' by G. F. Kunz (Lippincott, 1917), may serve your correspondent's purpose. Well-to-do merchants of mediaeval times, not entitled to armorial bearings, often had special individual marks or symbols en- graved upon their signets. This custom obtained 011 the Continent as well as in England, and allusion is made in * Piers Plowman,' a poem of the fourteenth cen- tury, to " merchantes xnerkes ymedeled in glasse." Probably emblems of this kind came to have a certain association with the business, which in many cases descended from father to son through a number of generations. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

MR. SWITHINBANK will find many hundreds of marks figured in the publications of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society (1850), vol. iii. part ii. ; the British Archaeo- logical Association (1893), vol. xliv. part i. ; the Clifton Antiquarian Club, vols. iii. and vii. ; the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science (1891), vol. xxiii. ; and the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (1910), vol. Ixii., where references are given to various British and foreign works on marks. In the Guildhall Library, London (MSS., Nos. 1105 and 1106), there are the large collections of merchants' marks ! formed by the late Dr. J. J. Howard and ' Mr. Frost. J. P. R.