Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/23

 9 th S. I. JAN. 1, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

15

the warm translucent yellow, clouded with varying shades of brown, seen in the ossified back, when in its highly polished state, of the land-turtle. But it certainly can be dis- tinguished by a remote suggestion of a resemblance to the shell of that reptile. The real old Whieldon plates, so named after Thomas Whieldon (circa 1740), the first maker of them, are also distinguishable by their bevelled edges at least all those I have seen are. The ware was produced by the use of pounded flint as a constituent of the body of earthenware. The material was mixed with sand and pipe-clay, and coloured with oxide of manganese and copper.

J. H. MACMICHAEL.

Great Coram Street.

ANGELS AS SUPPORTERS (8 th S. xi. 384 ; xii. 32, 232, 394). The angel supporters referred to (8 th S. xii. 32) on the high altar screen of St. Alban's Abbey bear the arms of Bishop John of Whethamstead, and are fif- teenth-century work. In the fifteenth-century tomb of Rahere or Raherius, the early twelfth- century and first Prior of St. Bartholomew's Priory, in Smithfield, E.G., known as the founder's tomb (although the actual founder- ship is uncertain ; Leland distinctly records Henry I. as the real founder, that monarch having given the ground on which the priory was built), there is a kneeling angel at the feet of the recumbent figure. It bears an heraldic shield. Recently a new porch has been erected at the west end of this vener- able old church. Over its doorway is a niche containing a statue, and beneath are some arms upon a shield borne by angel sup- porters. Being there at a wedding a few weeks since, I asked my old friend Mr. Thomas Dixon, a worshipper at the church fully fifty years, whom the figure represented, and he told me unhesitatingly St. Bartholomew. But later this assumption was corrected by the Rev. Sir Borradaile Savory, Bart., the vicar, who assured me the statue was actually Rahere. Neither he nor his assistant clergy, however, appeared to know whose the arms were, or why angel supporters were intro- duced. He referred me to his architect, Mr. Ashton Webb, from whom, however, I have been unable to obtain any satisfactory information. HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

ARABIC STAR NAMES (8 th S. xi. 89, 174; xii. 143, 317, 412, 457). MR. WILSON will find these names with their English equivalents in 'Mazzaroth; or, the Constellations,' by the late Frances Rolleston (Rivingtons, 1875). The Hebrew, Arabic, Syrjac, Coptic, Greek,

and Latin names of the signs of the Zodiac and their Decans, the planets and principal stars in the heavens are given, with much valuable and interesting information on the astronomy of the ancients.

JOHN P. STILWELL. Hilfield, Yateley.

Would MR. LOFTIE kindly describe 'The Orient Guide ' more fully ? I cannot find it in the British Museum Catalogue under "Orient," "Guide," or "Periodical." His etymology of Betelgeuse is interesting ; it differs from Ideler's. Mr. J. E. Gore, in his useful elementary 'Astronomical Glossary,' 1893, 139 pp. small 8vo., gives a great many Arabic star names and their usual Greek letter equivalents, without giving the mean- ing of the Arabic words. Mr. Gore gives "Algenib = y Pegasi, probably al-djanak al- farras, i. e., the wing of the horse." Can this farras be the origin of the German Pferd, which Dr. Daniel Sanders, 'Worterbuch* 8.V.J derives from Greek irdpa and Latin veredus, which he takes to be the Hebrew pered? T. WlLSON.

Harpenden.

The explanations of Oriental star names by your correspondent MR. WILSON are read with interest beyond the Atlantic. A similar compilation, showing the significance of star names in Greek, will be very welcome to many readers who either have no access to Ideler's ' Untersuchungen ' or who cannot read his German. JAMES D. BUTLER.

Madison, Wis., U.S.

GRUB STREET (8 th S. xii. 108, 212, 251, 373). Some quarter of a century ago an old friend of mine and an old contributor to ' N. & Q.,' Henry Campkin, F.S.A., librarian and secre- tary to the Reform Club, wrote an interesting pamphlet on this street. It was located near bt. Giles's, Cripplegate. Mr. Campkin was well known as an archaeologist and antiquary, and presented me with a copy, which has, unfortunately, been lost.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

FRENCH PEERAGE (8 th S. xii. 489). As already stated, it is difficult to meet with a landy equivalent of our English peerages.

The 'Annuaire de la Noblesse de France,' compiled by M. Borel d'Hauterive, will, how- ever, probably be of assistance to the DUKE DE MORO. Unfortunately, though the exist- ing holders of titles and their immediate relatives are given in the current volume for each year (a small and not expensive one),
 * he purely genealogical portion of the work