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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* 8. XL APRIL 25, 1003.

appeared neither in the index to the half- yearly volume nor the General Index to the Seventh Series, and may therefore have been overlooked, and should now be repeated :

" Thomas Decker, in his ' Wonderful Year, 1603,' quoted what he termed a ' worm-eaten' proverb to this effect: 'Lincoln was, London is, and Yorke shall be.' Was there such a proverb current at that time?"

In Allen's 'History of the County of Lincoln,' 1833, I find that the prophecy, The first crown'd head that enters Lincoln's walls, His reign proves stormy, and his kingdom falls, was, from the earliest times, current in Lincoln.

" Stephen in defiance of this prediction, even in that superstitious age, entered Lincoln with his crown on his head; and the events of his reign amply verify the prophecy."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

[Our respected contributor is mistaken. " Lincoln was," &c., duly appears under 'Proverbs and Phrases ' both in the index to vol. vi. and the General Index to the Seventh Series. Several replies appeared at p. 231 of the same volume, but no earlier instance than Decker's was brought forward.]

QUOTATIONS WANTED (9 th S. xi. 68, 118, J36). Is there an earlier instance of "sky- blue scarlet " than this from Scott 1

" 'I dinna believe a word o 't,' said Ratcliffe, with another wink to the procurator. ' Thae duds were a' o' the colour o' moonshine in the water, I 'm thinking, Madge The gown wad be a sky-blue scarlet, 1 'se warrant ye?' " ' Heart of Midlothian,' chap xvi.

Hero is another instance of "moonshine in water" :

" ' Court favour, said ye ? Court favour, Master Heriot?' replied Sir Mungo, choosing then to use his malady of misapprehension ; ' Moonshine in water, poor thing, if that is all she is to tochered with I am truly solicitous about them.' " ' Fortunes of Nigel,' chap, xxxvii.

ADRIAN WHEELER.

FlREBACK DATED 1610 (9 th S. xi. 30, 157).

I am much obliged by GLOUCESTER'S answer. The fireback was found in a back kitchen at the Great House, Hasfield, evidently having been turned out of a reception-room when modern grates were put in. It has now been removed to Hasfield Court. In the seven- teenth century the Great House belonged to the Brown family. Since inquiring I have been told that the fleur-de-lys in the first quarter of the shield may belong to Kyrle, as Thomas Kyrle married an Abrahal heiress about 1500, which would combine thefleur-de lys with the Abrahal hedgehogs. But neither family had any connexion with Hasfield

while there are Hawkinses in almost every village round. DOROTHEA TOWNSHEND.

There is the old quatrain in Hereford- shire :

The hedgehog erst in prickly ball- Now stands of Kyrle the crest ; And thrice on shield of Abrahall The urchin's form 's impressed. I used to know many years ago the Rev. John Hoskyns - Abrahall, a Somersetshire man by birth, and Bath and Wells Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, who bore the coat Azure, three hedgehogs or. His father had been head master of Bruton School, co. Somerset. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

ARMS OF ETON AND WINCHESTER COL- LEGES (9 th S. ix. 241, 330 ; x. 29, 113, 233, 437). May I again revert to this subject for the purpose of mentioning two further facts which seem to me to conflict with the theory that "three lilies proper" were formerly the arms used either by Winchester College or by Winchester city 1

1. As regards the college, the theory is that the lilies had long been, and still were, in use in 1610, when Guillim published his 'Display.' Now in 1573 Richard Willes (' D.N.B.,' Ixi. 288) published his Latin poems,

" Ricardi Willeii Poematum Liber

Londini Ex Bibliotheca Tottellina. CIO.IO.LXXIIL"; and what may be called the second part of his little book has a separate title-page: "In Svorum Poemat. Librum Ricardi Willeii Scholia. Ad Custodem, Socips, atq ; Pueros Collegij Wiccammici apud Win-

toniam " On the back of this title-page,

and facing the author's dedicatory letter to the college, there is a woodcut of the well- known Wykehamical arms, with the roses and chevrons. They are similar in all respects to the arms which a little more than a cen- tury later began to appear on the school 'Long Rolls,' and a fine example of which, reproduced from a plate used in 1723, forms the frontispiece to Mr. C. W. Holgate's book about these annual rolls. The position which these arms occupy in Willes's book seems to me to indicate clearly that he intended them to represent the arms which the college was then using, and Willes, having been a scholar at Winchester, ought to have known well what those arms were. His evidence mili- tates strongly against the theory I have mentioned.

2. As regards the city, the theory is that the lilies were in use in 1588, when William Smith compiled his 'Particuler Description of England.' Now the windows of the West