Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/56

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. JAN. 15, '98.

I have portraits of the three iudges, Sir Samuel Eyre, Sir Robert Eyre, and Sir James Eyre, and am very anxious to procure one of Sir Giles. I shall be very grateful if any of your readers can give me any information on the matter. The inquirer is a direct descend- ant of Sir Samuel Eyre. INQUIRER.

BALBRENNIE. Can any reader give me the derivation and meaning of the place-name Balbrennie? GEORGE AUSTEN.

ST. AIDAN. What old churches are there in Great Britain dedicated to St. Aidan 1 I have heard that there are five, and that each of them has a crypt ; but I only know of one St. Aidan's, Bamburgh and should be very glad of information respecting the others.

E. LLOYD.

POEM BY ADELAIDE PROCTER. Can any one tell me where to find a poem of Adelaide Anne Procter, entitled ' Star of the Sea,' of which the following lines are a part? How many a mighty ship

The stormy waves o'erwhelm ! Yet our frail bark floats on, Our angel holds the helm : Dark storms are gathering round

And dangerous winds arise; Yet, see ! one trembling star

Is shining in the skies ; And we are safe who trust in thee, Star of the sea !

These lines are quoted in Allibone's ' Diction- ary,' but are not to be found in the collected ' Legends and Lyrics.' FIFE.

EVIDENCE OF MARRIAGE. According to the law of Scotland, if two persons before wit- nesses declare themselves man and wife, they are so. I am curious to know whether such a record as the following, in a parish register, constitutes legal proof of a marriage :

" 1665. John Lorane, son to Thomas Loraine and Elspeth Allane his spouse, was baptised 7 May, 1665. Witnesses, James Allan ana George Mon- creiff."

Is the fact that a person is served heir to his maternal aunt (date 1793) legal evidence of the marriage of that person's father and mother? A. CALDER.

DEDICATIONS OF CHURCHES. In * N. & Q.,' 8 th S. xii. 416, in reply to a question concern- ing the dedication of Hollington Church, reference is made to Ecton's 'Thesaurus Rerum Ecclesiasticarum ' as an authority on the subject of dedications. But Ecton him- self says that he derived his information on this subject from Browne Willis : " For this the Editors are obliged to that Learned and Communicative Antiquary Browne Willis,

Esqr." (Preface to 'Thesaurus'), Can any one tell me whether any work of Browne Willis on church dedications is still extant, or give any information with regard to the metnods employed by him in his inquiries into the subject? The matter is really an important one, because Ecton's dedications are generally accepted without further in- quiry, and yet they really depend on Browne Willis. C. S. TAYLOR.

Banwell.

COUND. There is a village somewhere in Shropshire of this name, and Coundon occurs in Durham and Warwick. I am anxious to know the derivation and meaning of the word Cound. Is it possible that Condover should be spelt Coundover ? J. ASTLEY.

CITY NAMES IN THE FIRST EDITION OF

STOWS 'SURVEY.' (8 th S. xii. 161, 201, 255, 276, 309, 391.) Holborn. I should have been more grate- ful for the undeserved compliment that MR. LOFTIE has paid me, in comparing me with a late learned Dean of St. Paul's, if I had felt more sure that he had read my observations before commenting on them. Had he done so I might have been spared the misery of misquotation. MR. LOFTIE says : " That there was a running well in Gray's Inn does not account for the name of Holborn nearly half a mile away." I never said that it did account for that name, nor did I ever make mention of a running well in Gray's Inn. My quota- tion referred to a " common welle rouning with faire water lying and beyng in your high common waye, a little benethe Grayes Inne." The fact to be driven in is the well running in the highway, a little beneath Gray's Inn. It is obvious that this is a perfectly different thing from a well in Gray's Inn. But MR. LOFTIE writes as if it were trie same thing, and seems to think that the well in question was of the sunk or artesian order, whereas it was plainly a running stream, the word well being often used in Middle English for a small watercourse bubbling or welling forth from a spring. As regards the main point at issue namely, whether the name Holborn referred to a streamlet running down the hill from Holborn Bars to the Fleet Ditch, or to the Fleet Ditch itself let us see what Stow says on the subject. At p. 15 of the 1603 edition of the ' Survey,' the last published in his lifetime, he writes :