Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/386

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.vn. OCT. 16,1020.

the grave in York Cemetery, and whilst at the graveside Mrs. Walton approached. My chum and I were about to respectfully withdraw, but she stopped us, and finding we were two of her late son's schoolmates entered into conversation with us. This was the first time we had either of us met Mrs. Walton, and I remember we came away thinking what a charming lady she was.

B. C.

CHARLES LAMB'S PEDIGREE (12 S. vii. 209) I gather from Mr. E. V. LUCAS'S important 'Life of Lamb,' that nothing is known of the essayist's ancestry beyond his grand- parents, and even they are only conjec- turally identified with the Lincolnshire man (and his wife) in the story of Susan Yates which Lamb wrote for 'Mrs. Leicester's School.' This is made plausible by Lamb's jesting letter to Manning in which mention is made of "Baron Lamb of Stamford, where my family came from." The edition of the ' Life ' from which I quote is the fourth, published in 1907. C. C. B.

AMBER (12 S. vi. 271, 297, 318, 339). In the Chinese ' System of Materia Medica,' 1578, torn, xxxvii. amber is said to have powerful properties of tranquilizing the five viscera (the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the lungs, and the spleen), making the soul sound, killing the demons and spirits, cleansing the lungs, invigorating the heart, improving the sight by the removal of films, and effectually curing strangury and dolores postpartum, add to which, it is reputed as a styptic and vulnerary.

KUMAGUSA MlNAKATA.

THE " 'UMBLE COMMONS " : REVENUE (12 S. vii. 170, 195, 236, 277). I am much interested in the replies of correspondents who are, like myself, of the older generation. Is it possible to find a date after which the "official " pronunciation was settled on the current lines ? We have no Academic anglaise to tell us such things : have " My Lords " of the Committee of Council on Education any mouthpiece ? Q. V.

STATURE OF PEPYS (12 S. vi. 110, 216; vii- 155, 212). A good idea of Pepys in the flesh may be gleaned by a glance at the 1688 miniature of him, in Williamson's 'How to identify Portrait Miniatures, 1909,' 8vo, p. 26. That likeness gives the impression of a thick-set short-necked man, of powerful physique, and of over average height to-day

in industrial cities like Birmingham and' Manchester. Dark brown or hazel eyes, good forehead, and strong will-power, are obvious points of this portrait.

Other portraits wil" be found in Wheatley's Library edition of Pepys's 'Diary.'

W JAGGARP, Capt. Memorial Library Stratford on Avon.

BEATSTER (12 S. vii. 267). It is, I think, not unlikely that a beatster was in the first instance a woman who drew up the broken meshes of a net and otherwise repaired it. In Lincolnshire as may be seen from Pea- cock's ' Glossary ' of words used in Manley and Corringham, they have "baste, to run together with long stitches, " and that on the tongue of Suffolk would perhaps become beast, and beatster be an outcome.

ST. SWITHIN.

CULLIDGE -ENDED (12 S. vii. 208, 277). Of course I looked for this term in ' N.E.D.,' but as it is there mentioned only in a quota- tion under " Cullis," I failed to find it. I no longer have access to ' E.D.D.' I suppose that the cullidge ends and cullidge windows of houses are so called because they require special spouts arid gutters, and that in the case of stacks the application of the term has arisen from their resemblance to cullidge- erided houses. J. T. F.

Winterton, Lines.

" YOU BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR " (12 S.

vii. 211). Mr. R. H. Thornton's 'American Glossary ' explains " bottom dollar " to mean "one's last dollar," and gives three examples of the phrase dated respectively 1882, 1888, and 1904. I have frequently heard it in recent years.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

In answer to the inquiry of MR. CLARKE, "this Americanism still obtains," though perhaps less frequently heard than a few years ago.

" 1861-7 " (ante, 214) should be 1861-5, CHARLES E. STRATTON.

Boston, Mass.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. (12 S. vii. 271.)

The four lines beginning "Bis duo sunt homines '* are to be seen in Kaspar von Earth's 'Adversaria,' lib. lii., chap, i., col. 2423, in the 1648 edition of this vast work. They are not far from the " Hujus* Nympha loci " epigram, the reference for which was given on Sept- 25, p. 256. Earth printed lh& lines from a MS. collection of inscriptions osten- sibly from ancient monuments made by a priest of Speier, one Jacobus BeyelMus (not k< Bergellius ") r