Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/533

 12 s. ix. NOV. 26, i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 439 in feeldes." This, however, does not refer to our country, and the turnips Gerard speaks of as grown at Hackney and the best to be found in Cheapside market were evidently garden produce. According to ' Chambers' s Encyclopaedia ' it was towards the end of the seventeenth century that turnips were first raised in Britain as a field crop, which would agree very well with what Mrs. Hinkson says of them. C. C. B. IRISH, SCOTCH AND WELSH HERALDRY (12 S. ix. 388). While a number of works specifically deal with Irish and Scotch heraldry, the following can be cited as authorities treating on Wales and Welsh families : John Reynolds' s ' Display of Heraldry and Coats of Armour in North Wales.' J. Guillim's ' Display of Heraldic Visitation of Wales,' &c., 2 vols., 1846. Edited by Sir Samuel B. Meyrick. A crack work. There are many scattered references in other works and publications. ANEURIN WILLIAMS. Menai View, North Road, Carnarvon. REFERENCE WANTED (TENNYSON) (12 S. ix. 372). Tennyson makes reference to the " garnet- headed yattingale " in ' The Last Tournament,' in the 63rd line from the end of the poem. ARCHIBALD SPARKE. on A History of the Douglas Family of Morton in Nithsdale (Dumfriesshire] and Fingland (Kirk- cudbrightshire) and their Descendants. By Percy W. L. Adams. (Bedford : The Sidney Press.) THE Douglases of Morton have hitherto, it seems, been content with seeing their own line disappear into the mists of the past about the beginning of the seventeenth century. The immediate ancestry of James Douglas of Morton, who married Christian Lockhart in 1624, remained in doubt, but was supposed to be connected with Douglas of Dalkeith. Mr. Adams has now cleared up his descent, making him grandson of Patrick Douglas, son of James Douglas of Drum- lanrig, a descendant of the old Lords of Douglas and Mar. The first section of the book, which sets put the history of the barony of Morton and its holders, is a good piece of antiquarian and genealogical work. Mr. Adams therein quotes in full from the manuscript of one Peter Rae, " Minister of the Gospel at Kirkcon- nell," a pleasant and most careful description of Morton in the beginning of the eighteenth century, which provides, what is always a desir- able adjunct to the history of a family, a respect- ably antiquated view of its setting and home. Another good document, given in full, is the testament of the aforesaid Sir James Douglas father of Patrick which establishes the family line. The sketch of these Douglases is necessarily brief, but it opens up sundry avenues which might be pursued with advantage by enthusiasts for Scottish antiquities, and the subject is carried into further ramifications by extensive notes on Douglas of Coshogle and Dalveen, and Crau- furd of Lefiioreis. The first section presents the plan of the whole book, which is to be commended for its clearness, its full documentation, and the sufficiency of its detail on the subject of allied families. Another good feature is the heraldry, in itself of even unusual interest, and well set out. The best of the book is concerned with the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, whence a remarkable crop of letters has been culled, which, even when they are not of any extraor- dinary merit, throw a lively light on domestic and personal concerns, and also in some instances on the politics of the day as seen by people more or less in a position to judge of them from the inside, though not themselves responsible for the conduct of any public affairs : a class of letter the writer is frequently a woman which must always have considerable value. Mr. Adams gives many pages to " Annie Laurie " both to the lady and the song. The occasion for this is that the writer of the verses is William Douglas of Fingland, son of Archibald Douglas of Morton. In spite of his passion for Sir Robert Laurie's daughter and the pathos of the song he made about it, he found it in him to marry Elizabeth Clerk no long time after Annie Laurie had jilted him. We have interesting particulars of variants of the song especially one derived from a nonagenarian lady, Clerk Douglas, grand-daughter of William, who died in 1859, but a week or two short of a hundred. William Douglas's eldest son, Archibald, settled at Witham, in Essex, where he died in 1778. A son of his, Robert, became rector of Salwarpe in Worcestershire, and founder there of an im- portant branch of the family, whose alliances and careers afford a great deal of most interesting material, to say nothing of their racy epistolary intercourse with one another. The Appendices, which occupy nearly a quarter of this large volume, consist principally of extracts from divers Registers. Their nature is explained in a table of contents but not at the head of each Appendix itself which has rather an odd ap- pearance " Appendix A" being a very meagre title. Illustrations are most lavishly supplied and both well chosen and sufficiently well exe- cuted. The book, indeed, is one which the student of genealogy should by no means overlook ; and the historian, whose regard is fixed less on a man's place in a line than on his share in his country's affairs, will also find his account in it, for the Douglases of Morton have borne some part in most of the principal events of their several times. On Hyphens and " Shall " and " Will" " Should " and " Would," in the Newspapers of To-day. By H. W. Fowler. S.P.E. Tract No. VI. (Clarendon Press. 2s. 6d. net.) THE Society for Pure English has deserved exceedingly well of all wielders of the pen from the composer of advertisements to the composer of tragedies by the publication of this enter- taining and instructive treatise. How much