Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/175

 9 th S, XI. FEB. 28, 1903.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

167

place." I venture to submit that a parallel exists in India, where the idiom common to all Muslim is called Urdu, which means pre- cisely a camping-place. No doubt it is a contraction from the full phrase Urdu-zaban i.e., camp-language ; but this rather increases than diminishes the analogy with the English, since Fielding and all other early users of the term have "slang patter" instead of "slang," which thus appears to be an abbreviation of the same nature as Urdu. We cannot, as Prof. Skeat says, call a language a camp, but we can call it camp patter. What will be wanted, when Mr. Craigie comes to treat this for the ' N.E.D.,' is an early example of the use of slang in the sense of camping- place, and it is in the hope that some one may find this that I pen these lines.

JAMES PLATT, Jun.

'ABBEYS AROUND LONDON.' (See ante, p. 137.) If the writer of such an injurious misstatement as " very inaccurate * Abbeys around London ' " will point out any other inaccuracies than the "slip " about the restora- tion of St. Alban's screen he will be doing a service to your readers. I do not, of course, consider as an inaccuracy my statement about the Rood of Boxley legend, as I gave it " for what it is worth " i.e., nothing but a curiosity.

THE AUTHOR OF * ABBEYS AROUND LONDON.'

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them

LORD-BOROUGH. The article ' Wolverhamp- ton ' in ' England's Gazetteer ' (1751) contains the following statement :

"The D^an is Ld. -borough of Wolverhampton,

Codsall, Hatherton, and Petshall and hath all

manner of privileges belonging to the view of frank-pledge, felons goods, deodands, escheats," &c.

I should be glad of any other examples of the use of this term, and also of any information with regard to its exact meaning and history. HENRY BRADLEY/ Clarendon Press, Oxford.

SIR SIMONDS D'EWES'S PORTRAIT OF SIR R. COTTON. In July, 1626, D'Ewes had SirR. Cotton's portrait painted, and placed it in his own library. In the * Autobiography ' he describes it as a portrait "down to the middle." Humphrey Wanley, writing of this portrait to Sir R. Harley, describes it as "a 3/4 piece of S r Robt, Cotton, very finely done,

perhaps by Dobson, for it does not seem to oe Vandyke's."

What has become of this portrait 1 It seems probable but, so far as I can see, not certain that in 1705-6, when D'Ewes's grand- son, the second Sir Simonds, sold his grand- father's collections to Harley, th rough "W anley, the portrait was included in the sale. But if that were so it is unlikely to have been in- cluded in the sale by which (in 1753) the Harleian MSS. passed to the nation.

There is a portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery, presented to the British Museum in 1792 by Paul Methuen, Esq., of Corsham. I am informed that Mr. Methuen did not then give any particulars as to its history. There is another portrait of Sir R. Cotton in the Mediseval Room in the British Museum ; and there are two engravings in the British Museum of portraits of Cotton, one of which bears letterpress describing it as made from a picture presented by Cotton to D'Ewes. D'Ewes himself nowhere (so far as I know) speaks of the picture as presented to him by Cotton. In the * Autobiography ' he simply says that he "caused" Sir R. Cotton's picture to be " very lively and ex- actly taken, being the first and the only excellent representation that was ever taken of him."

Question remains, What has become of the portrait which D'Ewes had painted in 1626 1 I shall be very thankful if any correspondent of * N. & Q.' can throw light on the matter.

Wanley also describes as among the pictures which he saw at Stow-Langtof t in the time of the second Sir Simonds D'Ewes a portrait of the Duke of Buckingham in his ducal robes, and another picture which appeared to him better than any Holbein he ever saw. This latter would seem to have been the portrait of the widow of Adrian D'Ewes, great- grandfather of the first Sir Simonds, who about the middle of the sixteenth century migrated to England from Kessel, in Guelder- land. What has become of these two latter pictures I know not. L. B. CLARENCE.

Coxden, Axminster.

AUSTIN FAMILY OF ASHTON AND OUNDLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. Is any pedigree of this family in existence embracing the above branches ? Austins were settled in both places between 1500 and 1800.

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

"THAT IMMORTAL LIE." I shall be obliged to any reader of 'N. & Q.' who will inform me of the name of the author of this ex- pression, which was applied to Pascal's