Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/342

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NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. L AFML a,.

spelling of the Old Mercian aldor, correspond- ing to the A.-S. ealdor, which is a substantive, not an adjective, and meant a prince or a chief. See ' Alderman ' in the ' H. E. D.'

I protest, not for the first time, against such assertions as these, which excite the utter ridicule of our German cousins, and not wholly unjustly. Such things are never said about Latin. What should we think of one who expected us to believe that the Latin princepa meant " former" or " first"? Yet the present statement is quite as wild, and quite as opposed to facts. WALTER W. SKEAT.

GENERAL WADE (9 th S. i. 129, 209, 253). MR. F. ADAMS at p. 209 speaks of Wade's monu- ment in the south aisle of the nave of Westminster Abbey as " a splendid work of Roubiliac." In contradistinction to this I find in Mr. A. J. C. Hare's 'Westminster,' p. 77, the same monument alluded to as "a disgrace to Roubiliac." I am inclined myself to agree with a third critic (Malcolm), "who classes it "third in the scale of merit" in Roubiliac's work. It is certainly placed too high for its beauties to be properly appre- ciated, and for this reason it is recorded that Roubiliac wept as he stood before it.

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

My statement that Wade obtained his first commission in the Engineers in 1690 was copied from ' Chambers's Encyclopaedia '; the obituary notice in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1748, copied by MR. WHITE at the last reference, says merely that " he entered the army on 26 Dec., 1690." There was, as NEMO supposes, no regular corps of engineers in the army at that date. Officers entitled engineers accompanied the army on active service ; for instance, an ordnance train for service in Flanders, 27 Feb., 1692, included a chief engineer, a second engineer, and three en- gineers. The official document stating this is published in Major- General Whitworth Porter's ' History of the Royal Engineers ' (2 vols., 1889). According to this author, " a regular corps of engineers " was not formed until 26 May, 1716. " This day," he says, " may be taken as that on which the Engineer branch of the British army blossomed into a distinct corps." The members of the corps, whose names he prints, numbered twenty- eight, all officers. All that need be said further is comprised in the Gazette announce- ment (24-28 April, 1787): "The Corps of Engineers shall in future take the name of the Corps of Royal Engineers."

I take occasion to add that the Mr. Caul- (printed Canfield in the book I cited)

who is credited with the authorship of the road -making couplet was in all probability the William Caulfield who is described in a list of staff officers printed in Chamberlayne's ' Magnse Britannise Notitia ' for 1745 as "Baggage-Master and Inspector of the Roads in North-Britain." Wade was made a field- marshal on 14 Dec., 1743 ; and if the military roads were not completed until 1737, and Caulfield received the above-mentioned ap- pointment before 1743, as is likely, it is idle to question the " marshal " reading of the couplet. F. ADAMS.

Wade represented the city of Bath in Par- liament from 1722 to 1747. A full-length portrait of him, in his marshal's uniform, hangs in the Guildhall, it having been pre- sented by him to the Corporation, the mem- bers of which he had painted in return for his successive elections oy them. Miss Earl, Wade's natural daughter, was the first wife of Ralph Allen, the pioneer of postal reform. There is good reason for believing that Wade found the capital which enabled Allen to established his system of cross posts. When Allen built Prior Park a statue of the marshal was placed in a conspicuous part of the grounds. W. T.

THE CHARITABLE CORPORATION (9 th S. i. 127). The Corporation was established for lending money on pledges. Its history is given in the following works, which may be consulted in the Guildhall Library :

Account of the Charitable Corporation for relief of the industrious poor, by lending small suras under pledges at legal interest. London, 1719.

Narrative of the Corporation. London, 1719.

The case of the Corporation. London, 1731.

The case of the creditors by notes and bonds of the Corporation. London, 1731.

Short history of the Corporation from the date of their charter to their late petition, in which is con- tained a succinct history of the frauds discovered in the management of their affairs. London, 1732.

The resolutions of both houses of parliament in relation to Seign r Belloni's letter from Rome, May 4, to the committee appointed to inspect the affairs of the Corporation. London, 1732.

An answer to an audacious letter from Belloni,

dated Rome, May 4 to which is annexed a copy

of the translation of the letter (which was burnt by order of parliament by the common hangman), and a copy of the proposals made by John Thomson for delivering up the books and papers^ relating to the Charitable Corporation. London, 1732.

The present state of the unhappy sufferers of t Corporation considered. London, 1733.

Faction against the Corporation detected, wit! remarks on a speech for withholding relief from th company. London, n.d.

(Prospectus) from the Charitable Corporation lor relief of industrious poor, by assisting them with small sums upon pledges at legal interest, at t hous.e in Duke Street, Westminster, London, n.a,