Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/599

 12 s. vii. DEC. is, 1920] NOTES AND QUERIES.

495

and greatest memory that ever was scene with such a wounde, and truly, Mad [am], so disposed to God, and made so divine a confession of his faith, as all Divines in either of yr. Mate. [i.e. your Majesty's] realmes could not have passed, yf matched, yt."

Richard Bingham writing to Ralph Lane

{Cotton MSS. Titus A. xii. 313-317), says :

"This day in the forenoon about nine or ten of

the clock Mr. Cheeke was struck from the fort being

on the height of the trenche."

According to Froude John Cheke died "a few hours after " he was struck. This, however, is inaccurate, as he was still alive on Nov. 12, the date of Lord Grey's letter to the Queen. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

AUTHOR I WANTED : GENEALOGY (12 S. vii. 311, 359, 397). My source was quite correct. See p. 80 of Hamilton's 'Memoirs of Count Grammont,' translated by Horace WaJpole, 1904, octavo, where this passage stands :

" Senantes, who was a great genealogist, as all fools are who have good memories, imme- diately began by tracing out her family, by an endless confused string of lineage."

The humorous sally upon heraldry (which Planche may have had in mind) comes from a very different and later source, to wit, Lord Chancellor Westbury, that master of telling epigrams, referring to a witness from the Heralds' College: "A silly old man, who did not understand even his silly old trade. " This saying has also been attributed to Lord Chesterfield, while Mr. Bernard Shaw quotes it as coming from Whately.

But one can never be sure how far a trite saying is original. For instance Grammont may have read Seneca, where in Epistle 44, he would find this buried with other gems of satire :

" Philosophy pays no attention to pedigree. If origin be in question, all are from the gods."

W. JAGGARD, Capt.

NEWS OF NAPOLEON'S DEATH (12 S. vii. 409). I have extracted the follow- ing particulars from the Annual Register for 1821. The news of the death of Napoleon reached London on July 4 and was communicated by telegraph to Paris. Capt. Crokat of the 20th Regiment arrived that day from St, Helena, with a despatch, addressed to the Earl Bathurst by Lieut. - General Sir Hudson Lowe, K.C..B. This despatch is dated from St. Helena on May 6th, and informs his Lordship that Napoleon Buonaparte expired at about 10 minutes before six o'clock in the evening of the

5th inst., after an illness which had confined him to his apartments since Mar. 17 last. The letter gives a lengthy account of the illness ; the doctor's services and the names of those with Napoleon when he died, and other particualrs relative to the autopsy which occurred the day after death and closes with the following paragraph :

"I have entrusted this dispatch to Captai Crokat of His Majesty's 20th Regiment, who was Orderly Officer in attendance upon the person of Napoleon Buonaparte at the time of his death. He embarks on board His Majesty's Sloop Heron, which Rear- Admiral Lambert has dispatched from the Squadron under his command with the in- telligence. "

The account in the Annual Register con- cludes with a ' Report of Appearances on Dissection of the Body,' dated May 6, and signed by the Medical Officer and four

surgeons.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

ARMORIAL BEARINGS UPON TOMBS (12 S. vii. 450). MR. OUGHTRED may rest assured that there never was a tomb " emblazoned " with arms. The primary meaning of the verb "to blazon" is to proclaim; used technically in heraldry it means, not to pourtray, but to describe, armorial bearings. A " blazon of arms " is the written or spoken description of them in the correct terms of the craft. "To blazon," says Guillim, "is to express what the shapes, kinds and colours of things borne in Armes are, together with their apt significations." A shield of arms painted in colours is tech- nically said to be " displayed "or " limned "; if drawn without colour it is "tricked." It is not from mere pedantry that I venture this observation. If heraldry be deemed worthy of attention, precision of termino- logy is essential.

Howbeit, if MR. OUGHTRED has gone astray in this matter, he is in good company. Ruskin missed the true meaning of the term when he wrote in ' Modern Painters ' : " Their effect is often deeper when the lines are dim than when they are blazoned in crimson and pale gold." It is seldom that one may catch the late Prof. Skeat tripping, but he has been strangely misled in assign- ing an Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian origin to- "(1) Blazon, a proclamation, to pro- claim," and a French one to (2) "Blazon, to pourtray armorial bearings." He makes two words out of what is undoubtedly one. It may be held that general literature has no concern with the technical expressions of a craft. If that be so these, as calculated