Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/215

 12 s. ix. AUG. 27, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 173 For the reputation of the chaplain, per- haps it is just as well that he does explain that the text is not to be taken seriously. I should think there must be some naval officers still in existence who could give your correspondent the words of the song. H. X. B. THE GREAT RAIN (12 S. ix. 127). Thej following contemporary references to the i continued wet which prevailed from mid- j June, 1763, to mid-February, 1764, will fur- nish COLONEL SOUTHAM with the confirma | t'on for which he asks : July 23, 1763, Stamford. " It has rained per- petually till to-day." H. Walpole to G. Montagu. July 26, London. " I found Mr. Johnson alone. It was a very wet day, and I again complained of the disagreeable effects of such weather. John- son : ' Sir, this is all imagination.' " Boswell. August 10, Strawberry Hill. " It has rained . such deluges, that I had some thoughts of turning my gallery into an ark." rH. Walpole to the Earl i of Strafford. August 15, Strawberry Hill. " We are in per- fection of beauty ; verdure itself was never green j till this summer, thanks to the deluges of rain." H. Walpole to G. Montagu. September 12, Boulogne. "I used to have] great pleasure in driving between the fields of wheat, oats and barley ; but the crop has been entirely ruined by the rain, and nothing is now to be seen on the ground but the tarnished straw, and the rotten spoils of the husbandmen's labour." I Tobias Smollett. October 10, Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. " Is, this the fine autumn you promised me ? Oh ! I I hear you (not curse, you must not, but) . . . this untoward climate." T. Gray to the Rev. W. Robinson. November 6, Montpellier, France. " It began : to rain with a southerly wind, and continued ] without ceasing the best part of a week, leaving j the air so loaded with vapours, that there was no walking after sunset, without being wetted by the dew almost to the skin." Tobias Smollett. December 20, Essex. " I have had great deliver- ance- from the general calamity so many poor creatures are involved in by the late dreadful storm." Robert Biddulph to the Earl of Dart- mouth. January 6, 1764, Aston, near Sheffield. " The ! bad weather has confined me a fortnight longer in j this place than I intended." H. Walpole to the Rev. W. Mason. January 31, Bishopscourt, Isle of Man. " Is not that Manks weather ? The glass below ' much rain ' from ' fair ' in less than 24 hours." I -Bishop Hildesley. February 3, Isle of Man. " Very formidable weather still." Bishop Hildesley to Rev. Philip Moore. February 13, Isle of Man.-r-" These dreadful; Storms; so quick upon each other, give us but too much cause for fears. ... I was yesterday to per- j form at Ballough to prevent Sunday travelling by a Judge of the Court ; and if I had not, he could i not have gone yesterday. It is well I was boxed up in my return, for so high a storm of wind with rain I never saw." Bishop Hildesley. February 21, Cambridge. " What has become of you in these inundations that have drowned us all, and in this hot and unseasonable winter." - T. Gray to Dr. Wharton. . J. PAUL DE CASTRO. 1, Essex Court, Temple. Gilbert White, in a letter dated Selborne, Jan. 2, 1769, to Thomas Pennant, Esq., writes : The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time as with you, and since then we have had delicate weather. Mr. Barker, who has measured the rain for more than thirty years. says, in a late letter, that more has fallen this year than in any he ever attended to ; though from July, 1763, to January, 1764, more fell than in any seven months of this year. A. H. W. FYNMORE. Arundel. A TRANSLATION OF KHAFI KHAN (12 S. ix. 128).' It was not Captain William Gordon who translated portions of Khafi Khan's history, but Captain Alexander Gordon, Madras European Regiment, and, in 1821, First Assistant to the Political Resi- dent at Nagpur (Richard Jenkins). See Grant Duff's 'History of the Mahrattas ' (1826), i. 118, and Elliot's 'History of India,' vii. 210. STEPHEN WHEELER. Oriental Club, Hanover Square. SIR THOMAS MILLER OF CHICHESTER (12 S. ix. 92). Sir Thomas Miller, 1st Bt., was knighted at Whitehall, Dec. 23, 1689. Le Neve says he was " of no family, but a kinsman left him a great estate which he had covetiously heapt together " (sic). Kimber says it was his uncle that left him a large fortune. He also says in his Baronet- age, " whom Sir Thomas married I do not find." CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Swallowfield Park, Reading. According to ' The Knights of England,' by Wm. A. Shaw, Litt.D., 1906, vol. ii!, p. 265, he was knighted at Whitehall, Dec. 23, 1689. 1 The English Baronetage ' (by Tho. Wotton), 1741, vol. iv., p. 123, gives v the Chichester Cathedral inscription in which " Dame Hannah, his Wife," is mentioned, but the author says, " whom he married I dont find." The date of the creation of the baronetcy is given as Oct. 29, 1705. Debrett's ' Baronet- age of England,' 1808. vol. i., p. 512, says that Sir Thomas " married Hannah, daughter of This is repeated in G. E. C/s ' Complete Baronetage.' ROBERT PIERPOINT.