Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/165

 XL Fm 2i,iB.j NOTES AND QUERIES.

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was informed at the time, by a member o "The Mohawk Minstrels," that Mr. Stead the artist to whom I refer, who became widely known as "Stead the Cure," or as "The Cure," when in poor circumstances purchasec the song I have named for a few shillings His gain by the transaction must have been very considerable indeed. " Soft words, with nothing in them, make a song " (Waller).

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

" PLACE " (9 th S. x. 448). The saying tha no house was allowed to bear this title unless it had been slept in by royalty is a piece oi folk-lore. The word is merely a variant o: "palace," and means a mansion of some degree of local importance. The Welsh plas is an exact equivalent, and is apparently th< British form of the Latin word palatium The squire's mansion, or the principal resi dence in a village, is often called Plas, or Plas Mawr, " the Great Mansion."

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

FlREBACK DATED 1610 (9 th S. xi. 30). With

the owner of these arms will, perhaps, be found associated the name of either Harris, Harries, or Herries, by whom the hedge- hog or urchin was borne allusively to the French "herisson." It also appears in the French coat of Le Herisse ; but both the hedgehog and its congener the porcupine being rare achievements in heraldry, MR. TOWNSHEND may find some difficulty in tracing these arms for a fireback, somewhat elaborate. Glover's 'Ordinary of Arms' gives " Argent, a fesse between three hedge- hogs sable," for Metford, and "Gules, a fesse between three hedgehogs argent," for Claxton (Edmondson's 'Complete Body of Heraldry,' 1780, vol. i. See also Berry's 'Encycl. Heraldica,' vol. ii.). The hedgehog was the badge of Sir Henry Sidney, the eminent statesman and favourite of Ed- ward VI. (Harl. MS. 353, fol. 145), and was the device used in several instances by foreigners, among whom were the Crequi family, Prince Butera, Marshal Turenne (Pallisser's ' Heroical Devices,' pp. 6, 83), and Rene Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, Chancelier de France in 1768. Guillim's 'Heraldry' says: k 'He beareth azure three hedgehogs or, by the name of Abrahall. The hedgehog signifieth a man expert in gather- ing subsistence, and one that providently layeth hold upon proffered opportunity, and so maketh hay (as we say proverbially) whilst the sunne doth shine, preventeth future want " (ed. 1638, p. 211). The peculiar

symbolic meaning in heraldry of the hedge- hog is that it is said to pull the grapes from their stalks, and gather them into a heap, into which it rolls itself, to carry the grapes on its prickles or spines to its young. Pliny says : " Hedgehogs make their^ provisions beforehand of meal for winter ; in this they wallow and roll themselves upon apples and such fruit lying under foot, and so catch them up with their prickles, and one more besides they take in their mouth, and so carry them into the hollow trees " (bk. viii. chap, xxxvii.). It was thus the device of the amorevole, whose motto was "Non solum nobis," in allusion to the spines laden with fruit for its

young. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

The fleur-de-lys may probably point to the Hawkins family, who were great in Glouces- tershire 1610, while the hedgehogs indicate that of Abrahall, a celebrated family in West Gloucester. I should like to hear in what part the fireback was found. GLOUCESTER.

ARCHITECTURAL " FOLLIES " (9 th S. x. 489). A "folly" which makes an effective item on the sky-line high above the Vale of Nidd, toward Wharfedale, is "Yorke's Folly," an imitation ruin, of which three massive "stoups" or piers remain standing, and which is said to have been built in a time of famine, at the expense of a member of the still existing Yorke family, who paid fourpence and a loaf of bread per day to the labourers on the building. The tower of Hadlow Castle, which is a conspicuous landmark in the Medway valley, between Tonbridge and Wateringbury, is known as May's Folly. It 's an erection of about the middle of the ast century, a tall slender shaft, and a very ine specimen of the domestic Gothic. Its ' folly " is said to consist in the fact that it was built to its great height in order that
 * he sea might be visible from its summit. A

third and quite recent " folly " is a mill chimney in Bingley, Yorkshire, which for some architect's or owner's whim was built n spiral form. It is a square in section and perfectly upright, or plumb, but each succeed- ng square of stones has been placed so that ts corners are a little to one side of the corners of the square below ; hence the orners curl around the chimney, from foot o top, in screw fashion.

H. SNOWDEN WARD.

If a complete list of these is wanted the ollowing may be noted. "Johnson's Folly," >therwise known as "Little Belvoir" and Sroughton Castle, stands on the top of what s usually called Broughton Hill, near Wart- naby, Leicestershire. It is a conspicuous