Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/313

 12 s. VIIL MARCH 26, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 255 unmarried in 1837. The second son Alan Brooksby married and left two sons. Of these Ralph Alan, who was in the K.O.S.B., died unmarried in 1907 ; the other Charles Augustus married in 1896. The second family of John Cobbold were half-brothers id sisters to the first family. Their descendants are half-cousins of various PENNY. COL. OWEN HOWE (12 S. viii. 109, 156). The following may be of. interest to TRIUMVIR : 'The Colonel was originally a mercer in -London. He was made lieutenant-colonel <by Cromwell, and a full colonel by the Rump Parliament with a grant of 5,OOOZ. "for purchase of arms, " which I think," says Antony a Wood, " was never after ac- compted for." He had influence enough with Oliver to eject the lawful vciar of Stotfold, in order to make way for his son Samuel, who was evidently ancestor of another Samuel Roe who was vicar of the same parish from 1754 to 1780, and was, I take it, the Rev. Samuel Roe, vicar of Stotfold, Beds^who proposed a remedy for dissent which, though it was not tested, deserves to be recorded : " I humbly propose, "he says, " to the Legisla- tive powers, when it shall seem meet, to make an example of tabernacle preachers, by enacting a law to cut out their tongues, as well as the tongues of all field preachers, and others who preach in houses, barns, or elsewhere, without apostolic ordination or legal authority." It is strange how such a doughty cham- pion of orthodoxy should have sprung from so tainted a stock. This branch of the Roe or Rowe family seems to have taken root at 'Stotfold, and flourished. Probably there ^are descendants of the Rev. Samuel still to be found there ; one of them, in the last century was, by his will, a great benefactor ito the parish. J. F. F. "DEATH AS FRIEND" (12 S. viii. 191, 234). This picture is one of a pair exhibited in the Academy at Dresden. The one, ' Der Tod als Freund,' was engraved by J. Jung- tow ; the other, ' Der Tod als Erwiirger,' by tSteinbrecher in 1851 and published by .Ed. Schulte at J. Budden's Printshop in Diisseldorf. The engravings carry the monogram of the artist, A. R. The com- panion picture ' Death as a Destroyer ' (literally a strangler) represents the first ilbal masque in Paris. In the centre, Death in a cowl with mask hanging from the left arm is in the attitude of dancing, producing his own. musical accompaniment with a human femur as violin and fibula as bow. In the foreground lie three of the dancers dead, the remainder flee in terror from the hall as also do the musicians from their gallery. On some steps sits Cholera, a draped figure with set face, holding in her hand a scourge. RORY FLETCHER. THE COFFIN-MOUSE (12 S. viii. 212). The passage of Plutarch ( ' Vit. Marcelli,' cap. 5 sub fin. Teubner ed.) is : " M.LVOVJJLIOV 8e StKOLTOpOS iTTTTap^OV O,TTo8f.i- ai/TOS Fai'ov ^Aajutvtoi', cVet Tptayxos r)Kov<r6rj JJLVOS,- ov (ropiKa KaAoucrii'. TOVTQVS CtvOlS TpO [Didot Edition, vol. i.. p. 358, has MLVVKLOV. . . . " And when Minucius as dictator had appointed C. Flaminius Master of the Horse, when the squeaking of a mouse, which they call sorex, was heard, they deposed these men and forthwith appointed others. " Sorex is the Latin word for a shrew- mouse. Plutarch is simply transliterating this into Greek ; there is no allusion to cro/oo? a coffin, and L. and Sc. (1883) do not recog- nize a word O-O/CHKOS or (ropt at all. That the squeak of a mouse was of ill omen is shown by Plin. ' Nat. Hist.' 8, 57, 82, 223 : " Soricum occentu dirimi auspicia annales refertos habemus." Val. Max. 1, 1, 5 : " occentus soricis auditus Fabio Maximo dictaturam, C. Flaminio magis- terium equitum deponendi causam praebuit '* refers to Plutarch's instance. Ter Eun, 5, 6, 23 has " egomet meo indicio miser quasi sorex hodie perii." Why Langhorne should translate " the squeaking of a rat " (omitting Pliny's parenthesis), I do not know. The Greek word vpa (Nicander, ' Alexipharrriaca, 37) is evidently equivalent to sorex, and is rendered " shrew-mouse " by L. and Sc. H. K. ST. J. S. MR. HUTCHISON does not tell us from what translation of Plutarch he quotes, but any- how the coffin-mouse never had any ex- istence. Plutarch wrote (ut supta). Now o-opig is a word not recognized by Liddell and Scott. It is in fact a trans- literation into Greek characters of the Latin sorex, a shrew-mouse, whose noise was of ill omen as is noted in many places by Pliny and also by Valerius Maximus. The word sorex is akin to the Greek fy> a meaning the same things, both words being
 * appearance of the cholera in 1831 at a