Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/333

 9*s.x.OdT.25,i9Q2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the choir on great festivals. Her office is, i fact, strictly analogous to that of the capellan who attend on a Catholic bishop at pontifica ceremonies, for the purpose of bearing hi train, holding his mitre and crozier when no in use, and performing other similar duties. D. OSWALD HUNTER-BLAIR, O.S.B. Oxford.

QUEEN ANNE. Ce'sar de Saussure say that Queen Anne was called by the Thame watermen " Boutique d'Eau - de - vie." In Shelton Mackenzie's edition of the 'Nocte Ambrosianse' is a note saying that Ann had the nickname of " Brandy Nan." Eithe Garth or Arbuthnot [Garth] wrote the follow ing epigram on the statue at St. Paul's : The royal Anna's statue here we find Between the darling passions of her mind, The brandy shop before, the church behind.

I am sorry not to be able to give exac references, but I have few books with me and quote from memory. M. N. G.

"SWIFT'S STARLING." Has it been noticed that Miss Mary Cholmondeley's popular novel 'Bed Pottage' starts with a blunder in its first line? '"I can't get out,' said Swift's starling." Nobody is the worse for not reading Sterne ('Sentimental Journey'), but the inaccuracy of the allusive writer is characteristic of the age.

A. SMYTHE PALMER. S. Woodford.

PRAYERS TO THE POINT. In 'TheWessex of Romance,' by W. Sherren (Chapman & Hall, 1902), I find the following delightful effusion set forth as being a prayer found among the papers of one John Ward, some- time M P. for Weymouth. The date given is 1727. The document displays such a remark- able trust in Providence, coupled with such an " eye to the main chance," that it may be worth a corner in ' N". & Q.' :

. " Oh> Lord, Thou knowest that I have nine houses in the city of London, and that I have lately pur- chased an estate in fee simple in Essex ; I beseech Thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex and Essex from fires and earthquakes ; and as I have also a mortgage at Hertfordshire I beg of Thee also to have an eye of compassion on that county, and tor the rest of the counties Thou may deal with them as Thou art pleased. Oh, Lord, enable the bank to answer all their bills and make all my debtors good men. Give a prosperous voyage and safe return to the 'Mermaid 5 sloop because I have not insured it ; and because Thou hast said, ' The days of the wicked are but short,' I trust in Thee that Thou wilt not forget Thy promise* as I have an estate in reversion which will be mine on the death

ot the profligate young man, Sir J. L g. Keep my

"lends from sinking, preserve me from thieves and house-breakers, and make all my servants so honest

and faithful that they may always attend to my interest, and never cheat me out of my property night or day."

Can the authority for this document be supplied ? It smells somewhat of the lamp ; but it stands by itself of its kind.

W. H. QUARRELL.

[Oddly enough, W. B. H. also sends us simul- taneously the same quotation. ]

' PICKWICK.' By a curious inadvertence I have stated (in my ' Life of Charles Dickens,' 1902) that the number in which Samuel Weller makes his first appearance is part vi., and a similar mistake occurs in the introduc- tion to the " Biographical Edition " of ' Pick- wick ' (Chapman & Hall, 1902), where part v. is given. The correct number (as noted in previous works of mine) is part iv., which includes the famous chapter (x.) and " Phiz's " etching depicting the memorable scene in the yard of the " White Hart." In the intro- duction referred to I detect another little slip, viz., that the first number of ' Pickwick ' consisted of twenty*-four pages (i.e., a sheet and a half) ; it really contained two pages more a fact which Dickens himself had for- gotten when, in 1866, he wrote on the subject in the AthencBum. It would be interesting bo know why the title of the illustration tacing p. 50 of the " Biographical Edition " is Mare," instead of "Mr. Winkle soothes the Refractory Steed," as hitherto. There is no authority for substituting mare for steed, as hroughout the chapter as a horse.
 * hus printed : " Winkle soothes the Refractory
 * he animal in question is distinctly described

F. G. KITTON.

"OPEAGHA," ZOOLOGICAL TERM. This was originally a^ mere "ghost-word," a misprint or quagha, i.e., quagga, yet in the eighteenth .nd beginning of the nineteenth centuries it 'btained considerable currency, as a synonym or quagga, in works of reference. I have ^hilosophical Transactions, Ixiv. 268 ; (2) lees's 'Cyclopaedia,' 1819, s.v. 'Equus,' where he animal is called " quagga, opeagha, and Iso cwah or kwah" ; (3) Cuvier's 'Animal kingdom,' English translation by Griffith, 827, v. 295. I see there is no mention of this urious perversion in the part just issued of be ' N.E.D.,' in the article ' Quagga.' I have herefore ventured to draw attention to it on chance that it may be considered worth nclusion under the as yet unfinished letter O. JAS. PLATT, Jun.
 * ome upon it recently in (1) Masspn's 'Travels,'

' BELLE ALLIANCE " AS A CHRISTIAN NAME. During a recent visit to Ham (Surrey) I oticed in the churchyard the tomb of the