Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/165

 9"s.x.Aca23,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

157

boat which plied between Liverpool and Dublin, and which its owners called the Duke of Wellington. The term Iron Duke was first applied t9 the vessel, and by-and-bye [sic], rather in jest than in earnest, it was transferred to the Duke himself. It had na reference^ whatever, certainly at the outset, to any peculiarities or assumed peculiarities in the Duke's disposition."

The italics are mine.

HENEY GERALD HOPE. 119, Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.

ROCKALL (9 th S. x. 69). A scientific expedi- tion, in charge of Mr. W. S. Green, M.A., F.R.G.S., H.M. Inspector of Fisheries, visited Rockall in June, 1896. An official account of it will be found in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxxi. part iii., 1897. No doubt this will give ASTARTE all the information she requires. Mr. R. Lloyd Prae- ger, one of the editors of the Irish Natu- ralist, published his diary of the cruise in that journal (Dec., 1897, pp. 309-23). The expedi- tion, though making several attempts, failed to effect a landing on Rockall. It appears from the Irish Naturalist of the same year (p. 48) that Capt. Hoskyns had landed on the rock in 1863. ALEYN LYELL READE.

Park Corner, Blundellsands.

Probably the latest account is that in Trans- actions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxxi. part iii. (1896-1901), ' Notes on Rockall Island and Bank, with Reports upon its Geology, Ornithology, Ac.' C. S. WARD.

Wootton St. Lawrence.

See Geographical Journal, 1898, index, p. 685, and p. 48, vol. xi. R. B. BURNABY. 33, Carlton Crescent, Southampton.

THE CUCKING STOOL OR DUCKING STOOL (9 th S. x. 48). Numerous queries and replies thereto, containing a fund of information on the above subject, have appeared from time to time in, and will be found scattered throughout, ' N. & Q.,' which valuable work, as years roll on, developes into a really mar- vellous commonplace book, or invaluable book of reference on almost every branch of antiquarian interest or literary research, and I would refer O. O. H. to vol. ix. of the Eighth Series, where on pp. 56-57 a learned contributor, writing on 7 Jan., 1896, took the pains to set out the different series and volumes of the work in which trustworthy information on this subject is contained, and referred readers interested in it to eight other works touching the same subject, and further mentioned nine places in which ducking stools were then (and probably still are) preserved. I add a complete list of references to the subject : 1 st S. vii. 260 ; via.

315 ; ix. 232 ; xii. 36 ; 2 nd S. i. 490 ; ii. 38, 98, 295 ; 3 rd S. xi. 172 ; 4 th S. iii. 526, 611 ; iv. 61, 144, 295 ; 5 th S. xi. 88, 399, 456 ; xii. 176 ; 6 th S. vii. 28, 335 ; viii. 79 ; 7 th S. viii. 286 ; 8 th S. viii. 349 ; ix. 56.* G. GREEN SMITH.

ENGLISH GLADIATORS (9 th S. ix. 407, 453). Sword and Buckler Court, on the south side of Ludgate Hill, seems to have escaped men- tion by writers on London topography, in- cluding Stow, Cunningham, and Wheatley, yet it frequently occurs in mid- eighteenth- century advertisements, and is described as " over against the Crown Tavern on Ludgate Hill." The "Crown Tavern" is probably identical with the present " Daniel Lambert," and was a famous resort. J. Huggenson was a publisher in Sword and Buckler Court. The character of his literature may be gauged by such advertisements as the following from the Whitehall Evening Post, 4 Dec., 1756 :

"This Day is published (Price Six Pence) Modern Quality. An Epistle to Miss M r a W, on her late acquir'd Honour. From a Lady of real Quality.

Mark by what wretched Steps their Glory grows,

From Dirt and Sea-weed, as proud Venice rose.

Pope."

There is a token e1*tant of another " Sword and Buckler" in, Sheere Lane, Temple Bar (Beaufoy Tokens, No. 996). The sign was set up probably by haberdashers, for Stow says that " every haberdasher then sold bucklers," i.e., in Elizabeth's time. With regard to my inference that these contests were a survival of the joust and tournament, Steele, in Spectator, No. 436, discovered that a principal in one of these combats which he witnessed had a blue ribbon tied round his sword-arm. This ornament he "conceived to be the Remain of that Custom of wearing a Mistress's Favour on such occasions of old." It is unnecessary to give more than the re- ference, but in a later Spectator, No. 449, Steele gives a humorous account of how these battles were previously arranged by the par- ticipants, derived from what he actually overheard from two would-be candidates for gladiatorial honours. Their prearranged cha- racter, however, made them none the less at times really desperate encounters, since in their excitement the combatants did not always preserve their temper.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

In 'The Virginians,' chap, xxxvii., "In which various matches are fought," Harry Warrington is a spectator of " a trial of skill

COLEMAN, summarizes the pith of all the others.
 * The last, written by MB. EVERABD HOME