Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/289

 12 S.TX. SEPT. IT, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 235 THOMAS STUKELEY (12 S. ix. 191). MR. HAYTHORNE will probably find the informa- tion he requires in vol. i. of Simpson's ' The School of Shakspere ' (Chatto and Windus, 1878). This contains a reprint of the anonymous play (printed in 1605) entitled ' The Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukely, with his Marriage to Alder- man Curteis' daughter, and valiant ending of his Life at the Battle of Alcazar,' preceded by a biographical notice of Sir Thomas Stukeley (he was knighted in 1571) occupying 140 pages. H. DUGDALE SYKES. Enfield. THE DANCE OP SALOME (12 S. ix. 150, 197). Above the west door of the cathedral at Rouen there is a carving representing the dance of Salome and the beheading of St. John the Baptist, in which Salome is repre- sented as standing on her left hand (the right forearm having been broken away), with her body bent in such a manner that her skirts hang like a canopy over her J. C. ' Miss CHOKER,' BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE (12S. ix. 90, 157, 216). I have always been told that " Miss Croker," afterwards Lady Barrow, was the sister of Mrs. John Wilson (not Williams) Croker, and not her niece, as MR. W. COURTHOPE FoRMANhasit. The story is that Mrs. Croker had a baby who died in infancy, and that her mother, who had had a baby at about the same time, gave ovor her child to her daughter. J. C. BARON RICASOLI (12 S. ix. 91, 154). There is an account of Bettino, Baron Rica- soli, in Beeton's ' Modern European Cele- brities ' (1874). W. B. H. HORSE-RIDING RECORDS (12 S. viii. 509 ; ix. 32, 56, 73, 99). See article headed ' Remarkable Rides ' in All the Year Round, Sept. 6, 1879. W. B. H. THE PILLOW CLUB (12 S. ix. 169). This was probably a combination of old Indians and of others connected with the East, who remembered the " flesh-pots " of their exile and tried to recall the savour. " Pillow " is a rendering of pilaw, a Persian word, which denotes chicken stewed in rice to- gether with special condiments. Hence the Patna rice and the mangoes desiderated. ST. S WITHIN. QUOTATIONS ON CHEESE (12 S. ix. 188). It may interest MR. HEDGER WALLACE to know of the following references to cheese and cheese-cakes in Brand's ' Popular Antiquities ' : p. 37. By the following passage in Feme's ' Glory of Generositie,' p. 71, it should seem that cheese-cakes composed a principal dainty at the feast of Sheep-shearing. " Well, vor your paines (if you come to our Sheep -shearing veast) bum vaith yous taste of our cheese-cake." This is put into the mouth of Columell the Plowman. In Braithwaite's 'Lancashire Lovers,' 1640, Camillus the Clown, courting Doriclea, tells her, " We will have a lustie cheese-cake at our sheepe wash " (p. 19). pp. 70-71, under title ' Groaning cake and cheese.' Against the time of the good wife's delivery, it has been everywhere the custom for the husband to provide a large cheese and cake. These, from time immemorial, have been the objects of ancient superstition. It was not un- usual to preserve for many years, I know not for what superstitious intent, pieces of " the Groaning cake." It is customary at Oxford to cut the cheese (called in the north of England, in allusion to the mother's complaints at her delivery ' the groaning cheese ") in the middle when the child is born, and so by degrees form it into a large kind of ring, through which the child must be passed on the day of the christening. In other places, the first cut of the sick wife's cheese (so also they call the Groaning cheese) is to be divided into little pieces, and tossed in the midwife's smock, to cause young women to dream of their lovers. Slices of the first cut of the Groaning cheese are in the north of England laid under the pillows of young persons for the above pur- pose. In the old play of ' The Vow-Breaker ; or The Fayre Maid of Clifton,' 1636, in a scene where is discovered " a bed covered with white, enter Prattle, Magpy, Long Tongue, Barren with a child, Anne in bod," Boote says : . " Neece, bring the Groaning cheese, and all requisites; I must supply the father's place and bid god-fathers." The following allusion to this . cheese occurs in ' Westward for Smelts,' 1620 : At last, hee locked oxit of the window, asking who knocked at the doore ? Tis I, kind husband (answered shee) that have beene at a woman's labour ; prethee, sweetheart, open the door. All these kind words would not get her admit- tance, but gained this churlish answere at his hands : Hast thou been at a woman's labour ? Then prethee sweetheart, returne and amongst the residue of the wives, help thou to devour the Groaning cheese, and sucke up the honest man's ale till you are drunke ; by that time twill be day- light and I will have thy friends at thy returne, who will give thee thanks for thy charitie. ROBERT GOWER.