Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/201

 9">s.x.SKp T .6,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

193

The brickwork of the front has been coloured and tuck-pointed ; the sashes with small squares of glass, through which young Ruskin counted the bricks in the houses opposite and watched the operations of the turncock, have been removed, and replaced by new sashes glazed with large squares of flatted sheet glass, completely destroying the quiet simplicity of the front.

Gerard de Nerval, in one of his best-known poems, asserts the dignity of inanimate matter, and exclaims :

Grains, dans le mur aveugle un regard qui l'[t* ?]epie ! A la matiere meme un verbe est attache Ne la fais pas servir & quelque usage impie !

It is surely an impious use to treat in this unceremonious manner a building hallowed by so many associations.

This is how the citizens of Brescello, in Italy, a town of some five thousand in- habitants, have honoured the birthplace of Antonio Panizzi, a man of less note than Ruskin, while we are satisfied to mark Ruskin's birthplace with a small tablet re- cording his name and the date of his birth and death.

The inscription on Panizzi's birthplace is as follows :

In this house the citizens of Brescello Desire to commemorate to the latest posterity the

place In which was born on the 16th April, 1797,

Antonio Panizzi, Barrister, scientist, bibliographer,

Who,

being in 1821 exiled For unsuccessful efforts for the good of his country,

Was hospitably received in London,

And made director of the British Museum

And decorated with the Order of the Bath.

By the authority of his name

And with powerful adherents

He laboured for the redemption of Italy,

Which gratefully elected him a senator of the

kingdom. And deplored his death on the 8th April, 1879.

JOHN HEBB.

BLACK MALIBRAN (9 th S. ix. 367, 390, 494 ; x. 36). The information required will be found in a work entitled ' The World of Music,' by Anna, Comtesse de Bre'mont, 1892, 3 vols.

THALASSA.

HOBBINS FAMILY (9 th S. x. 28, 98). John Southam, of Newbold Pacey, co. Warwick, married secondly Alice Hobbins, widow, at Newbold Pacey, 21 June, 1652. She was buried there 6 October, 1684. It is probable that there are other entries of the name in the registers. HERBERT SOUTHAM.

KNIGHTHOOD (9 th S. x. 28, 113). Nicholas Hercy, of Nettlebed, was fined for refusing

knighthood, 1630. Any clue to his grand- children Daniel, Charles, and Abigail Hercy after 1666 will oblige. They are not in any Visitation pedigree. A. 0. H.

SIR ALAN DE HEYTON (9 th S. ix. 248, 396). The following extract from the ' Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1330-1334,' p. 462, adds to my previous note concerning this knight :

"A.D. 1333, 7 Edward III., August 2, at New- castle-upon-Tyne. Pardon of the trespass of Thomas de Heton in acquiring in fee simple from Richard de Huntercoumbe the reversion of a moiety of the manor of Louwyk, co. Northumber- land, expectant on the demise of Elena, late the wife of Walter de Huntercoumbe, and, after attorn- ment by the said Elena, granting that the same should remain successively to John, since deceased, Alan, and Thomas 'his sons, Isabella his daughter, in fee tail, and to himself and his heirs, without having obtained the king's licence in either instance ; and licence for the same to remain in force. By K."

A variation of the Heaton arms appears to have been Vert, a lion rampant or, within a bordure engrailed (of the second ?).

In 9 th S. ix. 396 read Ilderton instead of " Uderton." * H. R. LEIGHTON

Bishop- Wearmoufh, Durham.

" MALLET " OR " MULLET " (9 th S. ix. 486 ; x. 93, 173). Tewkesbury and Durham mustards were not the only kinds in favour in the first half of the eighteenth century. There were "Tower mustard," "treacle mustard," and "yellow Arabian mustard," all of which are given but notexplained in ElishaColesV Latin Dictionary,' 1755. The thickness of Tewkes- bury mustard and its employment as a simile for dulness of wit are to be accounted for in the fact that in Shakespeare's time the refined mustard, as it is placed on our tables to-day, did not exist. Before 1720 in which year a Mrs. Clements, of Durham, hit upon the idea of separating the flour from the husk the seed was bruised with pestle and mortar, or crushed in a quern or hand-mill, and thus only, coarsely separated from the integument, in which state it was mixed for use on the table, and would consequently be of a con- sistency such as might easily suggest a com- parison to density of intellect. The use of mustard in England either as a condiment or poultice, and this manner of pounding it, appear to have been very ancient, for in the appraisement of the goods and chattels of Stephen le Northerne, ironmonger, in 1356, "a pair of mustard quernes " are mentioned, which are valued at sixpence (Riley's ' Memo- rials of London,' 1868, p. 284). The pungency of the roughly pounded mustard gave rise to a well-worn proverb, " He looks as if he lived on Tewkesbury mustard," said of one with a sad or severe countenance.