Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/43

 9 th S. I. JAN. 8, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

35

who is rich enough to put F.R.G.S., F.R.H.S after his name, the page is cut in two wit" these letters.

As to arrangement, I should advise ME MURRAY to give up that amazing maze o complication he proposes to adopt, and let i be perfectly simple, like the printing. Th author's productions should be arranged his torically, so that you get, almost withou trouble, his biography. No distinction what ever should be made between different pro ductions as poems, prose, &c. but all shoul be arranged chronologically.

All that an inquirer may want in subjects form of writings, &c., should be suppliec by one index, which ME. MURRAY shoul< make himself, first having studied the work on that subject, particularly Mr. Wheatley' ' What is an Index?' The print of the index again, must be puritanical ; in printing anc arrangement no initial capitals except to proper names, and no worrying sub-divisions but one simple alphabet so far as it is possible To illustrate this, suppose 'A Flutter in the Cage \ or, the Unappreciated Rector,' by Wykehamist, has to be indexed. The averag man will first look under "Flutter." Not finding it, he will next look out all the other words the modern printer dignifies with capitals, and not finding them will give il up, having wasted his time. The biblio- grapher, being more knowing, observing that the book is pseudonymous, will look under " Wykehamist," but he too will be baffled. The indexer has been more knowing than that He has put it under a heading he has imagined for it, which is untrue, and indexed it under " Anonymous."

It is a good plan to index the sheets just before each is returned for printing. Many mistakes are thus discovered, as every word has to be looked at, almost without regard to its meaning.

If MR. MURRAY is going to write for the public, complexity, perhaps, will not matter, because he will never hear their " curses, not loud, but deep." But it is when he afterwards wishes to refer to his own work that his punishment will begin, and he will vow that the next thing he does shall be simply done. "Throw science to the dogs," he will then say. RALPH THOMAS.

ARABIC STAR NAMES (8 th S. xi. 89, 174; xii. 143, 317, 412, 457 ; 9 th S. i. 15). Your corre- spondent MR. T. WILSON would probably find the 'Orient Guide' under my name in the British Museum Catalogue. The fifth edition is on sale at the office of the Orient Line in Cockspur Street ; but there is a longer list in

the fourth edition. All the names have been transliterated and translated from the Arabic direct. W. J. LOFTIE.

REV. JOHN HICKS (8 th S. xii. 509). Very little is known respecting the life of John Hicks while at Portsmouth, or the date when he first succeeded to the ministry here. That he was living here in the early part of 1675 is certain, for his wife Abigail was buried at St. Thomas's Church, Portsmouth, on 15 May in that year. She was a daughter of the Rev. John How, of Loughborough, and sister of the well-known Nonconformist clergy- man John How, the domestic chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. Her tombstone was dis- covered during some alterations at St. Thomas's Church in 1828, with the following inscrip- tion :

" Here lyeth ye body of Mrs. Abigail Hickes | ye daughter of Mr. John How, & wife of Mr. John Hickes, | both Ministers of ye Gospel, who was born Here Grandchild, Daughter, | Sister, Niece, and Wife | of several Preachers lies, [ Her Preaching Life, | Summ'd them up all | and by examples taught | The Vertues which | Their Rules to View had brought. | Her pure meek cheerful spirit | made it plaine, | She was not to God's tribe | Allyde in
 * December ye 5th 1632, & deceased May 13th 1675. |

ine."

She had two sons by the Rev. John Hicks, John and William ; the latter was afterwards Rector of Broughton Gifford, Wilts. She also eft some daughters, for in one of the letters bo his second wife, written by the Rev. John Bicks shortly before his execution, he says : ' I hope my daughters will be as dutiful to you as if you had brought them into the world." One of these daughters was probably Abigail, who was baptized at Saltash on 1 December, 1667. During Mr. Hicks's resi- dence in Portsmouth there was no regular STonconformist chapel or meeting-house, Dis- senting worship, even in families, being pro- fited, and we find that in the year 1677 . Hicks was convicted of preaching in a seditious conventicle, or meeting-house, and lad to pay a fine of 20/. His name appears igain in the Corporation records in October, 679, when he was amerced in the sum of ^s. 4d. for not amending the pitching in front f his dwelling-house. He is supposed to have esided here until 1682. His second wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. John Moody, the master gunner at Portsmouth, by whom he ad two children, Elizabeth and James. After Ir. Hicks's execution his widow continued to eside at Portsmouth (where she owned some roperty inherited from her father) until her eath in January, 1705. Of her two children Elizabeth married Mr. Luke Spjcer, a mer*