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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. SEPT. 20, 1902.

Brief es. In einer Auswahl herausgegeben und bearbeitet von Dr. Th. Klaiber und Prof. Dr. O. Lyon. Velhagen und Klasing, Biele- feld und Leipzig, 1902," wherein you will find interesting epistles dating from four cen- turies e.g., of Luther, Liselotte of Orleans, Gellert, Schubart, Burger, Wieland, Schiller, Goethe, Schiller's wife Charlotte, of Goethe's mother Bettina, Annette von Droste, Hiils- hoff, and last, not least, of Bismarck.

G. KRUEGER. Berlin.

THACKERAY'S RESIDENCES IN LONDON (9 th S. ix. 508 ; x. 138). The City Press of 27 August

" Mr. Peter Rigby Pratt, of 28, Clerkenwell Road, write* in reference to the renewed controversy respecting Thackeray's residence when a scholar at Charterhouse, and says that in the official maga- zine of the Charterhouse School, called the Grey- friar, vol. ii., No. 7, April, 1892, the whole question is fully discussed and set at rest for ever. ' Thacke- ray,' he adds, ' spent seven years at the Charter- house 1822-1828. At that time one of the masters, Penny by name, kept a boarding-house in Old Wilderness Row, now known as 28 and 30, Clerken- well Road. At this house Thackeray lived for the first three years,, with many other schoolfellows, among whom was Venables, the boy with whom he fought, when his nose was smitten flat. Up to a few years ago there were the remains of a small tunnel running from Penny's house into the school grounds. I have occupied these premises now for thirty-two years ; but it was about twelve years ago that the question was finally settled by a com- mittee of gentlemen, including the late Dean Liddell, Col. Wilkinson, Canon Philpot, the Rev. H. V. Le Bas (chaplain of the Charterhouse), and other old Carthusians. I should be happy to show my copy of the Greyfriar to any interested person who would care to call and see it." :

HERBERT B. CLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

WINE IN PUBLIC CONDUITS (9 th S. x. 149) Arnold's 'History of the Cross of Edin- burgh,' a very small volume published in Edinburgh in 1885, gives some interesting information about this old custom as it was observed in the northern capital. It relates that when James IV. and Queen Margaret made a procession through the town in 1502 they passed the Market Cross, where " wine was flowing for all to drink." In 1561 Queen Mary, m a State procession between Holyrood Palace and the Castle, passed the Cross, where ' the wyne ran out at the spouttis in greit abundance ; thair wes the noyces of pepill cesting the glessis with wyne." When James VI made his first public entry into Edinburgh, 'as he passed the Cross, Bacchus was seen on the venerable structure, distribut- ing wine freely to all"; and when he brought

Anne of Denmark to the capital of his king- dom in 1590, " on the side of the Crosse sate the god Bacchus upon a puncheon of wine,

casting it up cups full upon the people,

and the Crosse itself ranne claret wine upone the caussway for the loyaltie of that day." In 1633, when Charles I. went to Edinburgh

for his coronation, "upon the Cross

Bacchus, crowned with ivy, and naked from the shoulders up, bestrode a hogshead." In May, 1660, the Council ordered that the treasurer "prepare upon the Cross pipes of lead and such other things necessary for running of wine at the spouts, and to provide wine-glasses and other necessaries for the said use " ; and on 19 June the pro- vost and magistrates went to the Cross and drank the king's health, " the spoutes of the Croce rynnand all that tyme with abundance of clareyt wyne. Ther wer thrie hundreth dosane of glassis all broken and cassin throw the streites." Coming down to more recent times, mention is made of the celebration, in 1820, of the birthday of George III. " The citizens drank the King's health at the Cross, throwing the glasses over their heads." Glasses were broken to prevent their ever afterwards being put to meaner use.

As Arnold does not mention it, I may add that in 1566 the magistrates and council of Edinburgh voted the sum of ten pounds for a puncheon of wine, " run at the croce " in celebration of the birth of Prince James, afterwards James VI. W. S.

INITIAL FOR FORENAME IN SERIOUS VERSE (9 th S. iv. 184 ; ix. 227). The following lines occur in Alexander Neckam's poem 'De Laudibus Divinse Sapientiae' ('Distinctio Quinta,' 471-478, p. 451, edited by Thomas Wright in the Rolls Series, ' Rerum Britan- nicarum Medii JEtvi Scriptores ') : Pictavis insigni titulorum laude coruscans,

G. Porretanum laudibus adde tuis. Laudibus immo tuis titulum prsepone magistrum,

G. qui te rexit, filius atque pater, Quern sibi debuerat caput orbis proposuisse,

Deesse tibi natus noluit esse tuus. Nomen quod totus potuit vix claudere mundus,

Non licuit totum claudere lege metri.

G. Porretanus is the famous scholastic philo- sopher Gilbert de la Por(r)ee, Bishop of Poitiers (fl. 1154).

In a passage from the ' Anticlaudianus,' a poem by Alanus de Insulis, his junior by about forty years (cited by Ducange), the philosopher is styled plain Gilbertus, and it would have been possible to introduce Gil- bertus Porretanus into an elegiac couplet.

Perhaps Neckam regarded Gil(l)6bertus or GislSbertus as the more correct form, one