Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/413

 ]2S.VLJcN*26,:.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

MAJOR JOHN BERNARDI (12 S. vi. 296, 320). A slip in the Index of the Society of 'Genealogists of London refers me to Dr. Johnson's mention of him in his ' Lives of the Poets,' where criticizing Pope's 'Epi- taph on Trumbell,' particularly the lines : Such this mau was ; who now, from earth

removed , .At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd,

remarks :

" Had the epitaph been written on the poor conspirator who died lately in prison, after a confinement of more than forty years, without


 * .any crime proved against him, the sentiment

.had been just and pathetic al."

Bernardi appears to have published his autobiography in 1729.

EVAN W. H. FYERS, Major. 'Wellington Club, Grosvenor Place, S.W.I.

XICHRS IN CHUBCHYABD CROSSES (12 S. vi. .251, 299). I remember often noticing while -I was a boy at Winchester College between

1857-62, niches which had been cut many

years before in the south wall of Meads.

I fancied, perhaps without any justification, that they had been cut by boys inpre-refor-

mation days for burning tapers, as acts of

devotion. I do not remember over hearing -or seeing their existence or use explained. This wall in my time divided Meads from the water meadows beyond. Many years ago these were made into cricket grounds,

-arid the old wall pierced but not destroyed.

It was still standing when last I walked that way to St. Cross.

CECIL DEEDES.

HURBECS (12 S. vi. 271). This equivalent

i to the word "caterpillars" is probably a

Swiss or Roman term which has dropped

out of use. It is to be found in David

Martin's translation of the Bible into

French, which is that most commonly in

use in the Cantons Vaud and Neuchdtel.

It is also retained in the editions (revised)

issued by the British and Foreign Bible

Society, and printed at Brussels.

Some five and twenty years later (1730) appeared Osterwald's revised version of Martin's translation. In it the word " hur- bftck " is preserved. Osterwald's con- nexion with German Switzerland suggests

that possibly the word is a patois rendering of the German Heitschrecke (a grasshopper). The actual rendering of the original Hebrew

-word, according to Dr. Driver, should be the larvae or wingless progeny of the locusts.

L. G. R,

Roquefort's ' Glossaire de la Langue Romane ' (Paris, 1708) gives "Hurebec: Chenille de Vigne ; that is caterpillar of the vine." HERBERT MAXWELL.

FLORENTIUS VASSEL ; VASSALL (12 S. vi. 295). Florentius Vassall, only son of Florentius Vassall of the parish of St. Elizabeth in the Island of Jamaica, was born there in 1709, and married Sept. 16, 1729, Mary, daughter of Col. John Foster of the said Island.

After residing for some years on his extensive plantations in the parish of West- morland, he removed to London, dating his will. Sept. 20, 1777 from Wimpole Street, proved Sept. 14, 1778 [P.C.C. 379 Hay] being described as formerly of Marylebone late of Jamaica deceased. Testator gave to Phenix Felton, a youth on the Foundation of Westminster School, an annuity of 100/. He mentions the family vault he had built in Marylebone in which his wife had been laid. The inscription on the altar tomb is unfortunately partly obliterated, but Richard his only son, father of Lady Holland, was interred there in 1795. An excellent pedi- gree appeared in the last volume of Crisp's ' Visitation of England. '

V. L. OLIVER, F.S.A.

B. 1709 ; d. 1779: Married Mary Foster, dau. of Colonel John Foster of Jamaica and had issue four children :

1. Florentius, junior.

2. Richard, who married Mary, dau. of Thomas Clark of New York, who married as her second husband Sir Gilbert Affleck.

3. Elizabeth, who married General John Barrington, and

4. Anne, who married a Mr. Russell. Henry Richard, .third Lord Holland m.

1797, Miss Elizabeth Vassall, dau. of Richard Vassall.

Lord Ilchester has several portraits of the family at Holland House.

E. E. LEGGATT.

' NORTHANGER ABBEY' (12 S. vi. 273,

315). To understand the point of the single word " Richard " in the anecdo'.e given by MR. WAINEWRIGHT, we must go to Bo swell :

" Demosthenes Taylor, as he was called (that is, the Editor of Demosthenes) was the most silent man, the merest statue of a man that I have ever seen. I once dined in company with him, and all he said during the whole time was no more than ' Richard.' How a man could say o.nly Richard, it is not easy to imagine. But it was thus : Dr. Douglas was talking of Dr. Zachary