Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/257

 2"* S. N" 13., MAR. 29. 'S

NOTES AND QUERIES.

249

" I enclose a letter to the Post Master, St. Thomas, which, if you would back by one word, might lead to the discovery of this Person.

" I am sure you have ever been ready to do me a service. I am, with gratitude,

" My dear Sir F. Freeling,

" B. R. HAYDON. Sir F. Freeling, Bart.,

. " Post Office."

I observe the sale of one of his pictures (inter alia) at Exeter, the property of the late Charles Brutton, Esq., advertised for this day, as

" The Mock Election. Hayclon. 6 feet 3 inches by 4 feet lOJ. This is the companion picture of one painted for George IV., and is especially mentioned in the Memoirs of the Life of Huydon."

Where are now " The Chairing the Members," and the duplicate " Mock Election ?" Who was the "A. Z." mentioned in poor Haydon's letter?

JOHN GARLAND.

Dorchester, 18th March.

The Northern Circuit in Olden Time : Poetry of the late Lord Chancellor Eldon. The late Justice Sir James Allan Parke commenced going the Northern circuit at the time when the late Lord Chancellor Eldon, then Mr. Scott, was the most formidable leader on that circuit, and these two learned gentlemen became very intimate and friendly together in a short time. Upon one oc- casion the learned lord felt disposed to throw a joke at the other, and he was urged by his friends to do it in verse. He said he never attempted a line of poetry in his life, and could not do so, but being again urged, he wrote as follows :

"James Allan Parke came naked stark

From Scotland ;

But he got clothes, like other beaus, In England."

And this, it is said, was the first and only time he ever attempted to write poetry. X. Y. Z.

Temple.

Horse-chesnut (2Esculus hippocastanum, Zzn.). Among the many interesting communications on this subject, noted from time to time in your excellent journal, and which are not only highly amusing, but illustrative of the singular ideas en- tertained by our ancestors, the one I am about to relate is, I think, of more modern date than those hitherto recorded, and possibly may be co- incident with the introduction of this beautiful tree from the far-off mountains of Thibet into our country, about the year 1550. A youth of my acquaintance, being asked by a lady to collect her a few horse-chesnuts, was very curious to know what she could want with them ; and upon taking

them to. her, he asked her the question, when she replied, that "she used them to hang about her bed, in order to cure the rheumatism." Whether any cure was effected, I have never been able to learn. J. B. WHITBOBNE.

Serjeants' Mottoes. To complete the list of mottoes on Serjeants' rings, given in 1 st S. v. 92. 110. 139. 181. 563., and which include all down to the year 1850, some correspondent will no doubt be able to supply those taken by the three new Serjeants, sworn in before the Lord Chan- cellor on Tuesday, February 12, i. e. Mr. S. Pigott, Mr. S. Hayes, and Mr. S. Wells. The account given of the appointment in the Morning Post of the 14th contains an error, where it speaks of " the time-honoured custom of pre- senting the Lord Chancellor with gold rings of the date of the thirteenth century." If the writer means the time-honoured custom of the date of the thirteenth century, he is still under an erro- neous impression, for the earliest notice of ser- jeants' rings that we are acquainted with is of the date 1465.

Some one will perhaps be able to inform us why the Serjeant's " best man " at this ceremony is .called a " colt." The Post says " at the ap- pointed hour the three learned Serjeants, accom- panied by their respective colts, as the members of the bar officiating on this occasion are some- what fantastically designated," &c. CEYBEP.

Motto for a Screw Steamer. Allow me to sug- gest the following :

" Nee gerit expositum telis in fronte patenti Remigium : sed, quod trabibus circumdedit sequor, Hoc ferit, et taciti praebet miracula cursus, Quod nee vela ferat, nee apertas verberet undas."

Lucani Pharsalia, lib. iv. 423. seq.

Y. B. N. J.

Curious Inn Signs. Hutton in his Battle of JBosworth says, that upon the death of Richard III. and consequent overthrow of the Yorkists, all the white roses and white boars were pulled down, and that none are to be found at the present day, although we have black and blue boars in abund- ance.

Query, Is not this too sweeping ? I think I have seen both in Wales. Near Ecton, in North- amptonshire, is an old public house bearing the strange title of " The World's End," from which probably Hogarth took the idea of his picture, for he was a frequent visitor at the rectory there. In that case, if I remember rightly, the sign is a bona-Jide attempt to limn the destruction of the world, representing a globe floating in a sea of thunderbolts and flashes of lightning. I am told that in the southern division of the same county, near Whittlebury Forest, there is, or was, another " World's End," in open defiance of the Coperni- can or any other system, the sign-board exhibiting