Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/275

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s. i. APRIL 2, >98.j NOTES AND QUERIED

267

MARIFER. In 1379 there was living a Sheffield a man called John Lambe, who bj radeis designated as a Marifer. He istaxec artisans as the smiths, shoemakers, wrights coopers, bakers, and weavers. I have no met with any other mention of this trade but suppose it was the duty of a Marifer to bear the image of the Blessed Virgin in Church or Guild processions. The trade seems to me quite as curious as that of a " Carnafor," mentioned ante, p. 189. Carnifex is mediaeval Latin for a butcher.
 * Jbove the labourers, at the same rate as such

ISAAC TAYLOR.

"WHO STOLE THE DONKEY? "" Who stole

the donkey ? The man in the white hat," was once a popular street cry, but is now seldom or never heard. It appears to have been applied in derision to Kadicals, who were supposed to affect white hats as head-gear. In an obituary notice of Edmund Tattersall, in the Times newspaper, it is mentioned that

"Lord Wharncliffe was the first Tory who wore a white hat after Henry (Orator) Hunt had made it a distinguishing mark of a Radical."

JOHN HEBB. Canonbury Mansions, N.

WALTER SCOTT'S 'ANTIQUARY.' (See ante, 3. 59.) At this reference you allude to Scott as designating Sir Arthur Wardour some- times as a baronet and sometimes as a knight. Now I think it is generally considered that the scene of the story is supposed to be on the eastern coast of Scotland. Has atten- I tion ever been called to the fact that in chap, vii., while narrating the wonderful sscape of Sir Arthur and his daughter from being overwhelmed by the incoming tide, Scott most graphically describes the setting of the sun beneath the ocean horizon 1

H. F. C. San Francisco, California.

[It has been subject of frequent comment.]

SCRAPS OF NURSERY LORE. Lady readers of ' N. & Q.' who were children in the fifties or sixties of this century may remember, as L do, a girls' toy-book, after the manner of

Struwwelpeter,' one of the pictures in which represented a little maiden, supine in bed, very ill, and no wonder, with an immense cherry-tree growing out of her mouth. This was the sad result of swallowing the stones along with the fruit, in spite of all warnings. But we all know that truth is stranger than fiction, and the Peterburgskaya Gazeta of

!6 June/8 July, 1897, quotes the following exemplification of this saying from the foreign papers :

"A little girl, seven years of age, Amelia L., whose father worked at the sawmills in Belgard ( Ain), was at play the other day, when she managed to push the seed of a plane-tree deep into her ear. Shortly after she began to experience acute pains, and it was found that the seed had taken root in the waxy secretions of the ear, and was growing apace. The father proceeded to cautiously uproot the intrusive plant, and the girl has now recovered."

If this story is true, it is to be hoped that Miss Amelia L., now that her ear is once more free and in working order, will incline it to hearken to the exhortations of her elders, and will not go on planting plane-trees in such obviously uncongenial soil. H. E. M.

St. Petersburg.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct. ___

" DAE BON ! " Can any one explain this Cumberland expression? In the Cornhill Magazine, October, 1890, p. 390, a man on Helvellyn is represented as saying, "Dar bon ! but it 's wonderful things is dogs ! " Is this expletive used elsewhere 1

A. L. MAYHEW

"MELA BRITANNICUS." ' A Letter to the Society of the Dilettanti on the Works in Progress at Windsor,' by Mela Britannicus, 1827. Who was " Mela Britannicus " 1 I pre- sume the name was taken in imitation of Mela Pomponius and his work 'De Situ Orbis.' In trie letter to the Dilettanti the writer advocates the pulling down of the Round Tower and all the Castle to the east of it, levelling the ground, and erecting thereon a square classic palace, approached through a bunnel, and with gardens and terraces orna- mented with statues and fountains in lode- stone and cement. J. N. D.

BISHOP MORTON: THEOPHILUS EATON. Theophilus Eaton, the celebrated first Governor of New Haven, Conn., married, as his second wife, Ann, daughter of Dr. Thomas Morton, successively Bishop of 'Jhester, Lichfield, and Durham, and widow )f David Yale. Who was her mother ? The D. N. B.' does not give her name. And who vas Theophilus Eaton's first wife 1

SIGMA TAU.

"ESPRIT D'ESCALIER." Will anybody tell me where this expression first occurs or who first used or invented it 1 A variant of t is " Pense'e d'escalier." Of course it refers .o the happy afterthoughts which sometimes