Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/427

 2 nd S. NO 21., MAY 24. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

419

British interests, was pensioned by our govern- ment. By the subjoined extract from a lively work entitled A Transport Voyage to Mauritius, 1851, he will see it asserted that Napoleon not only pensioned him, but tried, unsuccessfully of course, to apply his rare qualification nearer home :

" On the right hand side of the town (Port Louis), viewed from the sea, is the mountain of Morne Fortune'e, on which is the signal station. It was from this spot that the celebrated ship-seer, pensioned by Napoleon, made his observations. Much has been said and written about this extraordinary man, who had undoubtedly the gift of seeing vessels at sea long before they were visible to or- dinary eyes. That he was so gifted there can be no question." It has been proved by many circumstances, one only of which I will mention. He one day gave notice that he had for some time observed two brigs, keeping precisely the same situation as regarded each other, but moving under sail, and with such extraordinary equality of course, that it was supposed the head of the one must have lain close under the quarter of the other, the four masts retaining their exact distance from each other. The night set in without any other person being able to discover any object whatever on the horizon, and the as- tonishment of the inhabitants ma}' be conceived when the next morning a four-masted American vessel came into harbour. There could have been no collusion here, for such a vessel had never before been heard of; she was the first ever built; and the man very naturally concluded that it must have been two brigs he had observed, though unable to account for the fact of their so long remaining in close company together. The authorities derived sub- stantial service from this far-seeing individual, as the position of the English cruisers was noted when they con- sidered themselves out of sight, and vessels from the har- bour were enabled to go to sea in security. The explan- ation given was, that he saw an appearance or reflection of the vessels in the sky, long before they came upon the horizon. When removed to Brest by Napoleon, he at once confessed that his powers had left him with the change of climate, and he was consequently sent back to the Isle of France."

I would add, that it must have required a pe- culiar eye to discover, as well as a peculiar re- fractory atmosphere to produce, the phenomena described ; for I know right well that the invalided military functionaries who have had charge of this same signal post, in these latter days, have never astounded the town below with any such extraor- dinary announcements, or established a character for prescience ; unless, by-the-bye, when frater- nising with their old companions in the barracks upon pay day, they have seen double on returning to their post, or through consequent fatigue they have become oblivious of their Flag Vocabulary.

J. O.

Gullet (2 nd S. i. 377.) The Essex oyster- dredgers call any hard rubbish, oyster shells, broken bricks, &c., used to make an artificial bottom for their oyster beds, cultch. Are not cullet and cultch something culled or selected from a larger quantity ? To cull a flock of sheep is to take out the culls or the worst, or faulty ones.

A. HOLT WHITE, i

Blood which will not wash out (2 nd S. i. 374.) Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather, speaking of the murder of Rizzio, and describing the scene of this cruel tragedy, mentions that the floor near the head of the stair still bears visible marks of the blood of the unhappy victim.

N. L. T.

English Pronunciation of Latin (2 nd S. i. 383.) If R. S. will compare my note with the note, p. 151., to which it refers, he will see that I never asserted that " the English pronunciation of Latin " began at the commencement of the present century, but the " usage which was complained of" by E. H. D. D. The English pronunciation of Latin existed in the time of Milton, and was very much disapproved of by him ; but the peculiar usage, of which E. H. D. D. complains, did, I be- lieve, begin no earlier than I have stated.

E. C. H.

Fairfax Correspondence (2 nd S. i. 337.) In the answer to the Query respecting these letters, it should have been stated that the larger portion of them came from Mr. Hughes into the hands of Mr. Bentley the publisher, by whom they were sold by auction at Sotheby and Wilkinson's in June, 1852. A considerable number of the letters were purchased for the British Museum, and are now bound up, in chronological order, in the Add. MS. 18,979. It may be added, that before Mr. Bentley bought the mass of this correspond- ence, many letters were scattered abroad, and passed into the collections of Upcott and others. The publication by Bell in 1848 was continued by R. Bell in 1849, two vols. 8vo. M-

The Words " Reason" frc. (2 nd S. i. 375.) The author of the work here referred to was the Rev. W. Robertson, born in the year 1705 in Dublin, where his father, a Scotch linen manu- facturer, had settled, and educated at the Uni- versity of Glasgow, whence he afterwards obtained the diploma of D.D. He was collated to various benefices in the church, in Ireland, through the friendship of Dr. Hoadly, Bishop of Ferns, and was just about to be instituted to a valuable living in Killala by a new patron, when an important change in his religious opinions led him to refuse all further preferment, and shortly afterwards to separate from the church, in which he had distin- guished himself as a learned, able, and zealous minister. This was in the year 1764, and in ] 766 he published, by way of apology, the At- tempt to explain the words Reason, Substance, fyc. In the year 1765 he was nominated by the Com- pany of Merchant Taylors, of London, to the Mastership of the Free Grammar School at Wol- verhampton, in Staffordshire, which he held till his death in 1783, having survived his wife and his numerous family of twenty-one children.