Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/105

 9* s. x. AUG. 2, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Edward Fleet wood, of Holland, in co. Lancaster, aged about one hundred, living in 1634. This entry occurs in a pedigree in the 'Visitation of London, 1633-1635' (vol. xv., Harl. Society), signed by Geoffrey Fleetwood the son. Centenarians are rare even nowa- days, when the average duration of life is longer ; can MR. PINK verify the dates of birth and death of this patriarch ? It would be interesting to have positive proof, as Geoffrey may have been "pulling the leg" of the amiable gentleman who recorded the pedigree.

The Fleet woods were connected by marriage with the family of Milton, as Thomas Milton, Deputy-Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, and nephew of the great Milton, married Martha, daughter of Charles Fleetwood, of Northamp- ton. Milton's cottage at Chalfont St. Giles was built by the Fleetwood family, as appears by their arms over the door.

It is also worth noting that Samuel Cooper, who painted the known miniature of the regicide, was uncle by marriage to Alexander Pope.

The Fleetwoods have represented at least one constituency in Parliament during the reign of nearly every sovereign from Ed- ward VI. to Victoria inclusive ; but here I am trespassing on ground MR. PINK has made peculiarly his own, as a reference to the too little known, but valuable work by Messrs. Pink and Beavan on the ' Parlia- mentary Representation of Lancashire ' will easily prove.

In conclusion, I may mention that the his- toric estate of the Vache is now (July) being offered for sale. R. W. B.

LADY NOTTINGHAM (9 th S. ix. 128, 213, 455 ; x. 11). The reprinting of an old tradition should rout all other approaching columns. The following truly "extraordinary feat of maternity " is related of Margaret, who is stated to have been the great-great-grand- daughter of King Stephen and the wife of Herman, Count of Henneberg :

"Margaret is said to have borne at one birth,

in 1276, 365 children, the one half males, baptized John, and the other half females, baptized Elizabeth, the odd one being a hermaphrodite."

The lady is reported to have died shortly afterwards ! RONALD DIXON.

AINSWORTH THE NOVELIST (9 th S. ix. 409 ; x. 10, 57). No official biography of Ainsworth has appeared or is likely to appear. For the " Windsor Edition " of his novels, now in course of publication by Messrs. Gibbings & Co., I have written a memoir, somewhat fuller in character than that which I con-

tributed to the ' Dictionary of National Bio- graphy.' As many of. his romances are of historical interest there has been added to the memoir a chronology of the novels, which range in point of date from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Manchester.

BYRON'S GRANDFATHER (9 th S. ix. 509 ; x. 52). In the 'Registers' of Bath Abbey, recently published by the Harleian Society, I find the following burial entry : " 1779. Jan. 15. George Gordon, Esq. Under Mrs. Peirce's stone, by the font." But there is no reference made to the cause of death.

T. C.-F.

HALLEY FAMILY (9 th S. x. 27). The streets mentioned by MR. McPiKE are on the north- east and east sides of London. It appears probable that they are named after Edmund Halley, F.R.S., Astronomer Royal to George I. According to the ' D.N.B.' Halley was born at Haggerston, lived at Islington, afterwards in the City, and was buried at Lee in Kent. I venture to make the suggestion, seeing that a considerable part of Halley's life seems to have been spent more or less on the east side of London. CITTHBERT E. A. CLAYTON.

Richmond, Surrey.

AN HEUSKARIAN KARITY IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY (9 th S. viii. 378 ; ix. Ill, 415 ; x. 14). The h in Heuskarian is intrusive, the Basques themselves calling their language Eskuara, Euskara, Uskara (see 'Chambers's Encyclopaedia,' art. 'Basques,' and 'H.E.D./ voc. ' Euskarian '). R. B R says very pro- perly that the indefinite article preceding it " should be a, not an, as the sound of the first syllable is you, though the letters are eu." Many writers follow the rule, "a before a consonant, an before a vowel," regardless of the fact that it is based on the sound, not the shape, of the letters, arid oblivious of the Euclidean axiom that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. They use an before "euphony," "ewe," " use," and every other word with the like beginning which I cannot affirm to be incorrect, the syllables eu, ew, and u being certainly not consonantal, for no consonant or conjunction of consonants is a syllable. But why do they use a before words beginning with ?/, which also is not a consonant, but leading partner in an association of vowels 1 If it is for euphony that they write " a youth " and " a yew," the same reason has force in the cases of "use," which differs phonetically from "youth" only in the consonantal ending, and of "ewe, which is absolutely identical