Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/117

 9 th S. I. FEB. 5, '98.]

NOTES AND QUEEIES.

109

ame of Payn with this coat of arms. Can nyof your readers help me with a suggestion "
 * >lk. I am unable to trace any one of the

E. L. F.

ACKERLEY. Can any of your readers inform ne of the true derivation of this name? Is i onnected with "oak," or "acre," or with some >ther word? Runcorn, in Cheshire, seems to >e the original headquarters of the family. FEED. G. ACKERLEY.

POPULAR NICKNAMES FOR COLONIES. Woulc t not be well to make a note of the date o: popular nicknames for colonies as "Ehodesia and "Westralia"? The former may be con idered to have received official sanction by ts use upon the huge map of South Africa lung in the room adjoining Westminster Hal n which the House of Commons' Select Com mittee upon South African affairs sat last pring. POLITICIAN.
 * he introduction into common use of such

ILLUSTRATED WORKS FOR CHILDREN. I have nearly finished a profusely illustrated work lealing with the books which amused our 10 be referred to rare examples or collections ANDREW W. TUER.
 * reat-grandparents when bairns, and desire

Leadenhall Press, E.G.

TOWN HUSBANDS. The following is a cut- ing from the Spalding news in the Stamford Mercury of 31 Dec., 1897:

The annual meeting of the Town Husbands was iield on Monday, Dr. Perry presiding. The Rev. L W. Macdon'ald, M.A., was elected a Town [usband, to fill the vacancy caused by the death f the Rev. A. W. G. Moore, M. A. The Rev. R. G. Ash and Mr. B. Fountain were appointed the acting 'own Husbands for the ensuing year."

What is a Town Husband; and why is this fficer so called 1 CELER ET AUDAX.

[See 7 th S. viii. 447, 496; ix. 96.]

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. We are all immortal till our work is done. Wasted the bread and spilled the wine of life. E. E. DOBLING.

. [At 8 th S. vi. 438 the autlwrship of the line " Man is immortal till his work is done" is claimed by James Williams, D.C.L. See also 8 th S. vi. 88, 118; vii. 239.]

What horrid sounds salute my withered ears!

Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,

She sparkled, was exhaled, and flew to heaven. [Young's 'Night Thoughts,' Night V. 1. 600.]

Poem describing a boy being rowed down the river of Life. First he urges the boatman to go quicker, and the latter tells him he will find the pace quicker presently. In the end the boy has grown to be an old man, and begs the boatman to go slower. C. F. J.

THE CHEVALIER SERVANDONI. (9 th S. i. 88.)

THE records of the various journey ings made by the brilliant decorator Jean Servan- doni seem to show that the visit to London, during which he carried out the fireworks in the Green Park on 27 April, 1749, was his first and, most probably, his only one of any duration or importance. He arrived in Paris from Italy some time previous to 5 January, 1731, when the Academy of Painting was ordered to receive him as a mark of the king's satisfaction with his "decor du Palais du Soleil " at the Opera, where he held the post of "peintre-decorateur" for nearly eighteen years. From that date up till 1746, when he fled to England to escape his creditors, he was constantly engaged on work in Paris (the west front of St. Sulpice, &c.) and else- where in France. After his flight he was employed at Brussels and Madrid as well as in London, but, in 1751, he returned to Paris, where he won a lawsuit against the Chapter of St. Sulpice for board and lodging, which they had agreed to provide so long as he lived, in part payment of the work executed for them. He failed, however, in the com- petition for the Place de la Concorde and left the capital, discredited by his fantastic pre- tensions and extravagances, accepting an invitation to Dresden from Augustus of Saxony, to whom he became first architect in 1755. We next hear of him, in 1760, at the Court of Vienna, where he superintended the marriage fetes of Joseph II.; but he found his way back again to Paris, where he died in

66. I do not think he can have married in London, unless with a second wife, as his son Jean-Adrien-Claude Servandoni was born in Paris in 1736. He established himself at Brussels, and, says Mariette, "n'aime pas moins a figurer." W. L. will find references to further sources of information concerning Servandoni's career, if he will consult Bauchal's ' Dictionnaire des Architectes Fran- 3 _._s.' In this volume Servandoni, or Servan- dony, is very properly included, as, though ie pretended to be a Florentine, he was really

Frenchman, born of humble parents at jyons in 1695. EMILIA F. S. DILZE.

DANCING UPON BRIDGES (8 th S. xii. 208, 94). I confess I am unable to strengthen MR. BEEPER'S conjecture that the celebration of n the idea of protecting the structure from loods " by propitiating the river-god; nor do
 * ames on bridges " not improbably originated