Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/225

. XL MARCH 14, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the scientists of the present day assert that seeds lose all vitality after a very few years. But then (to be sure) the scientists accepted De Rougemont. H. J. MOULE.

Dorchester.

CKOOKED USAGE, CHELSEA (9 th S. x. 147, 253, 417, 474 ; xi. 34). I do not think that a crooked ridge or plough-land or balk would be so peculiar as to give a name to a path made upon it, unless the double curve which exists in all lands that have been ploughed by oxen may have been broken in some specially noticeable way. Some such reason seems to have existed for the name of one or perhaps two grass strips which were frequently given as boundaries in a tillage field in Button in Holderness, where Crookt Mear Balk, Crook Marr Balk, and Crook- marheadland seem to indicate what are sometimes called "balks and marstales in the common fields." THOS. BLASHILL.

GARRET JOHNSON (9 th S. xi. 127). Geraert Janssen, or Gerard Johnson, executed the famous portrait-bust of Shakespeare in the church at Stratford-on-Avon between the years 1616, the date of the poet's death, and 1623, when Leonard Digges in his com- mendatory verses to the First Folio wrote that Shakespeare's works would be alive [When] Time dissolves thy Stratford monument, ohnson, a naturalized Englishman of Dutch escent, resided in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, Southwark, near the Globe Theatre. He was probably brother of Ber- nard Janssen or Jansen (fl. 1610-30), for whom see the 'D.N.B.'; and either he or his father is mentioned in the ' Diary ' of Sir W. Dugdale, edited by W. H. Hamper, 1827, p. 99.

A. R. BAYLEY.

Garret is a form of the Christian name Gerald, and Gerald Johnson is familiar to us as the sculptor of Shakespeare's monu- ment in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. This man was, accord- ing to Halliwell-Phillipps ('Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare,' p. 258), "the son of a native of Amsterdam who had settled in England as 'a tombemaker' in the previous iv gn, and who had died in Southwark" a few years before the order for the memorial to the poet was given. Gerald Johnson's " place of business was near the western door of St. Saviour's Church, within a few minutes' walk of the Globe Theatre." So much has been said against the Stratford monument that it is a pleasure to find no mere bungler was commissioned to execute it.

ST. SWITHIN.

THE ORIGINAL DIOCESE OF NEW ZEALAND (9 th S xi. 126). On a hatchment- shaped encaustic tile in the south chancel wall of Chesterton Church, Warwickshire, is the following inscription :

In memory of

George Augustus Selwyn

First Bishop of New Zealand

Ninetieth Bishop of Lichfield

Born April 5 th Died April 11 th

1809 1878

What was Bishop Selwyn's connexion with Chesterton? JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

FASHION IN LANGUAGE (9 th S. ix. 228, 352, 435; x. 251, 337; xi. 156). Cure, meaning a fool, is from Hindustani through gipsy. It is a common word in Hindustani, though not in Forbes's ' Dictionary.' In a poem I bought in Delhi the line occurs : " Sampathi bipathi bicharke yuu pachtawat Kyur " (" The fool is sad, thinking there is a difference between good luck and misfortune. The wise man, of course, knows there is no differ- ence, since all things are a dream "). I have lost my copy of the poem, but I perfectly remember the line above quoted.

W. WATSON.

NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS CHANGING COLOUR (9 th S. xi. 89). The cheap coarse papers used for modern newspapers are very apt to become discoloured, but in a tolerably long experience of paste-and-scissors work I have never known a cutting to become illegible through discoloration, as air and light are the most active enemies, and to a great extent these are usually excluded from a book of cuttings. The paste used will sometimes cause discoloration : I find fresh starch paste and Higgins's photo-mounter quite harmless. Gum is bad. Washing the cuttings for a time in running water might have a good effect ; I have never tried it. Perhaps the rubbishy paper would not stand such an ordeal E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN.

If left exposed to the rays of the sun say in a window recess cuttings undoubtedly change colour, and quickly so, but those affixed with home-made paste, tempered by a little powdered alum, invariably remain unchanged. I happen to possess more than 26,000 personal newspaper cuttings of my own, the earliest dating back thirty - five years ago (Building News, 31 January, 1868). Looking the whole series through casually, I do not find one instance of discoloration, although the majority are culled from what MR. F. T. HIBGAME defines as "the cheaper morning and weekly papers." Still, one of