Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/136

 128

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. i. FEB. 12, '98.

fronted with the above question. I desire to adopt the more general pronunciation, and should like to have the opinion of correspon- dents who are familiar with the English of all counties. To take the word grant as an example. Should it be grannt or grahnt ? Further, would some American contributor say what is the usage in the States ? I believe there the short a is distinctly predominant. But does it extend to words like half, 2)salm, calm, and awit ?

R. WINNINGTON LEFTWICH.

125, Kennington Park Road, S.E.

" BROACHING THE ADMIRAL." Could any of your readers kindly inform me the origin of the phrase " Broaching the admiral " 1

G. PETRIE.

[For "Tapping the admiral," otherwise "Sucking the monkey, see Farmer's ' Slang and its Analogues, i. 21, under 'Admiral,' where an explanation is given, with a reference to ' Peter Simple.' No origin is, however, furnished.]

MRS. WEBB, ACTRESS. Came from Edin- burgh to the Hay market in 1778, played many parts there and at Covent Garden, and died 24 Nov., 1793. What was her Christian name 1 ? Are any biographical particulars obtainable other than those supplied in the 4 Dramatic Mirror ' 1 Her maiden name was Child. She was a member of the company in Norwich when she married, first, a Mr. Day ; acted under that name in Edinburgh, and seems to have married an actor named Webb, who was in the Edinburgh company. Particulars will be greatly valued.

URBAN.

"GROUSE": "GROUSING," slang words = to grumble, or grumbling. Can any one give the origin or explanation of these ? R. B.

Upton.

REV. JOEL CALLIS, M.A., was head master of Tonbridge School, 1624-37. Is anything known of him beyond what is in the register of the University of Oxford ?

R. S.

REV. WILLIAM NEWMAN was head master of the same school, 1637-40. Is anything known of him beyond his Oxford career and that he was vicar of Colrede, 1638, and of Shepherdswell, 1640 ? R. S.

ADMIRAL PHILLIP. Can any readers of ' N. & Q.' tell me if Admiral Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, left any children, and what was the maiden name of his wife? His and his wife's tombs are in Bathampton Church, in Somerset, but there are no records or documents to snow whom

he married. His marriage was prior to his appointment as Governor of New South W ales ; and for some time before that appoint- ment he lived near Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, where he engaged in farming. In his will, made at Bath in 1814, he left legacies to relatives or connexions named Dove, Harris, Lancefield, Potter, Luke Ashton, Richard- son, Lane, Rule, arid Sutton.

Louis BECKE.

"LITTLE ENGLANDER." When and by whom was the political nickname "Little Englander" invented 1 POLITICIAN.

COLLECT FOR ADVENT SUNDAY. " Both the quick and [the] dead." The insertion of this second " the " is natural ; is it right 1 All modern Prayer Books omit it, and Stephens in his careful collation of the Sealed Books (1849) justifies them. But Parker, in his con- spectus of the revisions, represents the book of 1662 as following that of 1549 in insert- ing the word ; and the facsimile of the MS. annexed to the Act of Uniformity (14 Car. II.) certainly contains it published by the Queen's Printers and the Cambridge Press in 1891. The question was suggested to me when I heard a minor canon of Ely Cathedral insert the word at Evensong recently. W. E. B.

" HONKY-TONK." Can any reader cite a use of honky-tonk, a low groggery, in any dialect other tlian that of the negroes of the Southern United States? H. R. H.

LEWKENOR. Can any one give me a pedigree of Mary Lewkenor, wife of the Hon. Francis Nevill, son of the seventh Baron Abergavenny ? HARFLETE.

FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE SAVOY. When I was a child, my aunt, who lived in Fountain Court, Strand, used to tell me stories about the French prisoners of war who were kept in what used to be part of the Savoy Palace, just at the back of ner house, No. 9, Fountain Court ; and she gave me a tiny basket cut from a plum-stone, and also a pretty little cutting-out of tissue paper, with a tombstone, hour-glass, and little dog painted on it, with this motto, " Le terns ny la mort ne metteront point de borne a ma fidelite," both of which she said she bought from one or other of these poor fellows, who were nearly starving. I have searched lots of books about the Savoy Palace and London, all in vain, to find this corroborated in any way. All accounts of the Savoy pre- cincts end with the building of Waterloo Bridge. Nothing is said of any part but the