Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/105

 .29, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

97

nologically (that is to say, grammatically, ! or etymology is, I believe, a part of grammar) A.S a matter of fact, " averse to " is quite as incorrect as "different to" if not more so. That it is more common I admit; but it will not be so much longer if we are careful of the meanings of our words. Possibly I might have cited a more suitable example ; but I chose this in juxtaposition with the other just because it is an instance of a word whose meaning has been obscured by false usage, the other of one whose meaning is in danger of being obscured in the same way. There was, however, no real inconsis- tency in my former note, for, in spite of Lennie, "averse" does not require "to" after it rather than "from." And the statement that it does has not been generally accepted. Many of our most scholarly writers still use the older and once universally followed con- struction, and at least one recent grammarian terms the other form a " blunder."
 * averse from" is correct, not "averse to."

I must correct two misstatements made at the last reference. I did not lay down any " assured dictum." My words were, "Speaking for myself, I think," &c. Nor did I pillory " averse to" as a " glaring absurdity." There was nothing in what I said that even sug- gested either the noun or the adjective.

C. C. B.

PETER THELLUSSON (8 th S. xii. 183, 253, 489 ; 9 th S. i. 17). I do not think that the whole truth about the Thellusson lawsuit has been discovered by your various correspondents. MR. RALPH THOMAS speaks of a hearing, December, 1798, a judgment in 1799, and an appeal decided in 1805 ; but Hunter, in his 'Deanery of Dpncaster,' published in 1828, vol. i. p. 317, writes :

"It is fresh in the public recollection that the provisions of it [i. e., the will] have been contested in every form and in every court. Nothing has remained for his family but to acquiesce. In Vesey's ' Reports,' Trinity Term, 1805, the argument upon it, legal, political, and moral, is perspicuously detailed."

This certainly has a very different sound from the two hearings and an appeal mentioned above. It must not be forgotten, also, that the law, beyond its costs, entailed on the family the hideous injustice of upholding the will; and when Hunter wrote, twenty and more years afterwards, the estates were still in the hands of the trustees under the will. And unless local tradition be mistaken, these gentlemen interpreted literally the clause empowering them " to manage the estates as if they were their own." I also have an idea that a second lawsuit, amicable or otherwise,

between the part of the family represented by Baron Rendlesham and that represented by the present owners of Brodsworth was finally necessary before the affair could be settled. Hunter concludes :

" The House at Brodsworth was inhabited for some years by Mr. Charles Thellusson ; and has since been the residence of the receiver appointed by the trustees under the will. The purchases made by the trustees have been considerable in the counties of York, Norfolk, Warwick, Hertford, Middlesex, and in the Bishoprick of Durham. About 1500 acres was bought at Amptherby, near Malton, but the rest of the Yorkshire purchases have been in the vicinity of Brodsworth. viz., at Bilham, Thorpe, Pickburn, Adwick, and Brods- worth."

It must not be forgotten that the costs of both sides would have to come out of the estate. WILLIAM SYKES, M.D., F.S.A.

Gosport, Hants.

POEM BY ADELAIDE PROCTER (9 th S. i. 48). I do not see this quotation in Allibone, that is, not under Miss Procter's name ; but I see a mention of a collected American edition (there seems to be no English one) by Ticknor & Fields of Boston, in which your correspond- ent will doubtless find the poem in question. I think, but am not sure, that it was originally published in 'A Chaplet of Verses/ 1862. There is also a second series of ' Legends and Lyrics.' C. F. S. WARREN, M.A.

Longford, Coventry.

This poem will be found in ' A Chaplet of Verses,' published by Longmans, 1862 ; also in the American edition of Adelaide Procter's 'Poems,' Boston, Osgood, 1877. E. A. P.

HEBERFIELD AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND (8 th S. xii. 504). Sir Walter Besant's account of the transaction which resulted in the execution of Heberfield is substantially cor- rect, though it contains a few minor inaccu- racies. Heberfield or Habberfield, alias Slender Billy, was not a Westminster boy ; he was not even a respectable character. Mr. J. E. Smith, the Vestry Clerk of St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, West- minster, in his valuable 'Memorials' of the latter parish, 1892, p. 273, quotes Lord Albe- marle's account of Heberfield, and also gives an extract from the News of 2 Feb., 1812, from which it appears that the unfortunate convict not only managed badger-baitings, dog-fights, &c., in Tothill Fields, but also kept a con- venient fencing repository, and that, owing to the reputation which he bore as a man of strict probity in his nefarious dealings, and to his being considered the safest fence about town, his connexion amongst robbers of every description exceeded by far the patronage