Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/339

 12 S. V. DEC., 1919. ]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

33S

to was at one time devoted to religious purposes, and so analogous to that in the following quotation from Lewis' ' History of Faversham,' p. 86 :

"These altars had all of them lights burning on them, which with the other expenses relating to them were provided in the following manner, viz., to St. Margaret's Light was given one, or as some say, two acres of land, called St. Margaret's Yavel or Gafel, and to this day the Margaret Acre." The grammar is his, not mine.

F. F. LAMBARDE. [MR. A. R. BAYLEY also thanked for reply.]

" GAMP " AS ADJECTIVE (12 S. iv. 102). Dickens, it is true, gives his characters at times redende Namen, such as Mrs. Leo Hunter and Lord Frederick Verisopht, though less frequently than Thackeray, and with less subtlety (there are readers, I believe, who do not rise to the latter' s Wenham and Percy Sibwright). But most people who know Dickens' s books well would probably agree that " Gamp " has no original significance, however appropriate to the person association may seem to have made it. When Mrs. Gamp hands her professional card to Mercy with the words : " Gamp is my name, and Gamp my nater," the absurdity is apparent, and to analyse it might argue an imperviousness to humour. The comparison or antithesis between name and nature, though not illustrated by the 'N.E.D.,' is of long standing, and like most things it comes in Swift's * Polite Conversa- ion ' :

Lord Sparkish. Pray, Madam, does your Lady- ship know Mrs. Nice?

Lady Smart. Perfectly well, my Lord ; she's nice by Name, and nice by Nature. A remark of Mrs. Gamp's which should be compared with that given above is to be found in a later chapter of * Martin Chuzzlewit ' (xxix.) :

"Where's the patient goin'?" asked Sweedle- pipe.

"Into Har'fordshire, which is his native air. But native airs nor native graces neither," Mrs. Clamp observed, 4t won't bring him round."

EDWARD BENSLY.

Ouclle Cottage, Much ELadham, Herts.

DR. STOCKS (12 S. v. 237). According to 5oa:-e's ' Modern English Biography,' Dr. r ohn Ellerton Stocks was the son of B. Stocks, manager of the Hull Branch of the > Bank of England, and was born at Cotting- lam, near Hull, in 1826. He was educated it University College, London, obtained the degree of M.D., and was elected a Fellow )f the Linnaean Society in 1848. From 1844 until his death he w r as an assistant

surgeon in the Bombay Medical Service,, while he also acted as Vaccinator and then. Inspector of Drugs in Scinde, and was Conservator of Forests during Dr. A.. Gibson's absence on furlough. He arrived in England in the winter of 1853, bringing extensive collections of plants, and he deposited in the Kew Museum complete sets of the economic products of the countries visited by him. He died suddenly at Cottingham on Aug. 30? 1854. A memoir of him will be found in The Gentleman's Magazine for October, 1854.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

GEORGE BORROW : LIEUT. PARRY (12 S. v. 95). No replies having appeared, I may perhaps say that I have accidentally come across the following reference to a Lieut. Perry in Irving's ' Annals of Our Time,' under date of June 29, 1854 :

"Quarrel, leading to a Court-martial, between Lieut. Greer and Lieut. Perry, of the 46th Regt., stationed at Windsor Barracks The verdict laid; before the Commander-in-chief recommended that Lieut. Perry be dismissed the service, and Greer severely reprimanded : but this being thought con- trary to evidence. Her Majesty was pleased not to> confirm the sentence. A Horse Guards' Memoran- dum of the 2nd of September explained the course which Lord Hardinge thought proper to take in- bringing the questions relating to the discipline of the 46th to an issue."

Borrow seems to have written declaiming injustice to Parry (or Perry) before non- confirmation of the court-martial sentence ;. and as ' Wild Wales ' did not reach publica- tion for some years after it was written, it would seem that no revision of his original manuscript was attempted by the author.

W. B. H.

GILBERT WHITE: PORTRAIT OF (12 S. v. 264). The portrait mentioned at the above reference represented a young, round- faced man, wearing a grey wig, with a clerical collar and bands. Attached to the frame was a tablet apparently of early nineteenth- century date, bearing the name Gilbert White. Of course the mere lettering of the tablet would prove nothing, but some experts were of opinion that the features bore a very marked family likeness to an authentic portrait of Thomas White, the brother of the author of the ' Natural History,' then in the possession of a member of the family, and that both pictures were the work of the same artist, Thomas Robinson, who towards the end of his life migrated to Ireland and became president of the Dublin Society of Artists. The authenticity of the portrait could not be definitely established because nothing was