Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/197

 g> s.x. SEPT. 6, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

189

kept by the Marquise de Langeac for sale at twenty-five louis each (p. 480). This seems to me an astonishing statement, and I should be much obliged to any readers of ' N. & Q.' who could give me particulars confirming this or otherwise, or who could refer me to any work (preferably in English) where I could learn further details. JAMES CULL.

KNIGHTLEY CHARLETON. Can any of your readers inform me who was the father of Knightley Charleton, of Apley Castle, whose son Robert was Sheriff of Salop in 1472, and tell me in what manner they were connected with John de Cherleton, Baron of Powys ?

M.D.

MISODOLUS. Who was S. H., who appears on the title-page, with the suffix of Misodolus, of " Do no Right, Take no Wrong, Keep what you Have, Get what you Can ; or, the Way of the World Displayed. London, printed for Robert Gifford, in Old Bedlam without Bishopsgate, 1711," and where can a copy be seen 1 It is not in the B.M.

XYLOGRAPHER.

THE CORONATION CANOPY. When, and why, did the privilege of holding the canopy at the coronation of the British sovereign lapse from the hands of the Barons of the Cinque Ports? Although the Barons were officially present at the Coronation of King Edward VII. they did not perform this function, it being delegated to the Earls Rosebery, Spencer, Cadogan, and Derby. On a monument to the memory of Capt. Thos. Delves, on the south wall of St. Clement's Church, Hastings, it is recorded that "he had ye Honor of being one of the Barons of this Antient Towne and port who carried the Canepy over King Charles ye second at his Coronation." I understand that until early in the present [last 1 ?] century part of the gorgeous canopy which was held over George I. at his coronation did duty as a pulpit cloth in St. Clement's Church. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

THE THREE TOWNS. In Canon Ashwell's ' Life of Bishop Wilberforce,' 1879, vol. i. chap. vi. p. 170, occurs the following sen- tence :

" Archdeacon Wilberforce was soon felt to be the stirring spirit and master-mind of the neighbour- hood, capable of attracting to himself whatever was zealous or intellectual in ' the three towns 'of Ports- mouth, Portsea, and Gosport."

Was the term " the three towns "ever applied as above (i.e., between quotation marks) to these three places 1 It certainly is not now, the only places called " the Three Towns," so

far as I am aware, being Plymouth, Devon- port, and Stonehouse, which commonly bear that title. I wonder if the late Canon Ash- well can have confused the two great naval ports in his mind. It is certainly curious if at any time they ever bore the same dis- tinctive and comprehensive second appella- tion of "the Three Towns"; if ever used now in reference to Portsmouth, the term would include Portsmouth, Portsea, and Southsea, not Gosport. W. SYKES, M.D., F.S.A.

NOVELISTS' ACCURACY. This is proverbi- ally questionable. Like poets, they enjoy a breadth of statement which gullible readers innocently swallow. Not so I, however, being a modest member "of both fraternities myself. Apropos of this prefatory remark, I fell recently upon a passage in Zola's 'Rome' which leads me to doubt its veracity. The paragraph commences at p. 244 thus :

" Mais cequi 4tonna le plus le jeune pretre, ce fut d'apprendre que le Saint-Pere. <Stait un d6termm6 chasseur, lorsque 1'age ne I'avait point encore affaibli. II chassait au ' roccol^' passionnement."

And ends :

"Leon XIII., assis a 1'ecart, guettant, tapait dans ses mains, effarait brusquement les oiseaux, qui s'envolaient et se prenaient par les ailes dans les grandes mailles dos filets. II n'y avait plus qu'a les ramasser, puis h, les etouffer, d'un 16ger coup de pouce. Les bectigues rotis sont un delicieux regal."

Now as Zola is not accustomed to make rash statements, I ask, Is this passage accurate? One has heard of mediaeval militant and hunting bishops, but the latter r6le sits very inconsistently upon the meek and scholarly Leo XIII. J, B. McGovERN.

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

CARLYLE, COLERIDGE, AND SWINBURNE. I should be glad to learn what and where are the " carnivorous lines " referred to in the following passage from Oliver Wendell Holmes's ' Life of Emerson,' 1885, p. 196. The author is referring to Emerson's visit to Eng- land in 1847, and his impressions of people he met here :

" But it is impossible to believe that he passed such inhuman judgments on the least desirable of his new acquaintances as his friend Carlyle has left as a bitter legacy behind him. Carlyfe's merciless discourse about Coleridge and Charles Lamb, and Swinburne's carnivorous lines, which take such a barbarous vengeance on him for his offence, are on the level of political rhetoric rather than of scholarly criticism or characterization."

R. B. L.

TOXTON. I wish to find a place or property called Toxton in Sussex, where a family named Oriel lived in 1730. F. PALMER.

Datchet, Windsor.