Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/16

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

. x. JULY s,

half-year ending 30 June, 1901, says: "The expenditure on capital account has amountec to, ' <fec. ; and then : " The gross receipts on revenue account were," &c. The Grea Eastern .Railway report for the same half year states : " The working expenses hav( been," &c. ; but another paragraph has this,

remark : " The death of Mr., one of the

directors, occurred during the half-year." In the Royal Insurance Company's report for the year 1900 occurs the following : " In the annuity branch the purchase money receivec for new annuities, together with the pre miums on continental annuities, amountec to," &c. And then comes : " Thirty-eigh annuities have expired during the year, the annual payments on which amounted to,' &c. Are the tenses as used in these examples legitimately interchangeable ? If not, which is the correct tense ? HENRY SMYTH.

[One does not look for the highest form of the English language in the reports of commercia companies. An account of the transactions of a certain period may treat them in two ways : as written just at the close of the period, when the compound tense may be used, or as written when the period is definitely ended, when the preterite should be used. The instances quoted above are not consistent with themselves, and thus are open to censure. The " Shade of William Cobbett in the Pall Mall Gazette of 18 February, 1901, drew attention to a similar confusion between the com- pound past and the preterite in the King's Speech at the opening of Parliament the preceding day.]

SCHAW OF GOSPETRY. Can any of your readers inform me if there are descendants of Frederick Bridges Schaw, of Gospetry, lieutenant in Leighton's Regiment of Foot, and son of Dr. Schaw, physician to Frederick, Prince of Wales ? He married in December, 1762, Isabella, eldest daughter of Dr. Thom- son, "late from Jamaica."

WM. CRAWFORD.

CANTERSHIP. In the Gentleman s Magazine for March, 1733, there appears the .following announcement under 'Ecclesiastical Prefer- ments ' : " Mr. John Pember to the Cantership of St. Davies." St. Davies is, of course, a mistake for St. David's ; but what of Canter- ship ? Probably it stands for precentor, but apparently the word is omitted by Dr. Murray from the 4 H.E.D.' D. M. R.

\Cantorship, the office of a precentor, is in the 'H.E.D.'; and under 'Canter* there is the entry "obs. var. of Cantor."]

MARY STUART PORTRAITS. In the preface to Albert Way's catalogue of the works of art exhibited at the meeting of the Archaeo- logical Institute at Edinburgh, July, 1856, mention is made of one "beautiful paint- ing [of Queen Mary] at Madrid, in the

royal collection, of which a copy, obtained through Lord Cowley while ambassador at the Court of Spain," <fec. I should be very glad of any particulars of this picture or the copy. Are any reproductions known and obtainable? J. J. FOSTER.

Offa House, Upper Tooting, S.W.

GLADSTONE : AN ITALIAN ADDRESS. Lord Ronald Gower, in ' Old Diaries,' p. 66, writes, under date July, 1888 :

" I think the last time he [Mr. Gladstone] was at Stafford House was when he gave an address in Italian to the Italians who had presented the marble medallion of Garibaldi to my brother."

Was this address ever printed ; and, if so, by whom? I believe, if my memory fail not, he also, in the course of his versatile career, delivered addresses in modern Greek in Corfu, in Italian in Rome or Naples, and in French in Paris. Were these ever printed ; and, if so, are copies of them procurable, and where? J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

SIR T. BROWNE: QUOTATION. Will you kindly inform me in what part of Sir Thomas Browne's works the following passage occurs ?

" To pray and magnify God in the night and in my dark bed when 1 cannot sleep : to have short ejaculations whenever I awake, and when the four o'clock bell awakens me, or on my first discovery of the light, to say this collect of our liturgy, ' Eternal God, who hast safely brought me to the beginning of this day,' &c."

CHARLES WILLIAMS.

Norwich.

[This sounds as if it came from the ' Religio Medici.']

MISTRESS RACHEL HOWE. I should be glad if any one would give me information concerning the above lady. 1 have an old mezzotint, without date, representing her as a child, with a dove on her hand. Beneath is "Kneller S. R. Imp. et Angl. Eques Aur. pinx. T. Smith fee. Sold by T. Smith at the Lyon and Crown in Russel Street, Covent Garden." Was there any special reason for publishing this portrait ? F. V.

"A-SAILING BY THE NIGHT." In Leland's Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land ' there is a poem, ' Stand from Under,' every stanza of which ends with the above words. Do these mean simply sailing by night, or sailing in the night or what ?

RICHARD PHILLIPS.

THE " PEC SLETNA " OF DERBYSHIRE. Under Mercian Origins' (9 th S. ix. 42) J. B. said, 'The Pec ssetna dwelt in our Derbyshire." n Derbyshire is the district yet known as