Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/115

 XIL AUG. s, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

107

says to another : " Sie sind auf Ehre der schlaueste Teufel, der je aus einem Tintenfass gekrochen ist." In the same author's 'Soil und Haben,' seventh chapter, reference is made to a horrible spirit as developing from the black smoke which comes forth from an inkbottle, "as in that old story." Can your readers give information as to where this story may be found 1 With this it is interest- ing to compare Luther's greeting the devil with an inkbottle, and also Robert Louis Stevenson's ' The Bottle Imp.'

CHARLES BUNDY WILSON. The State U-niversity of Iowa, Iowa City.

BANNS OF MARRIAGE. I have seen printed on the title-page of books wherein is recorded the publication of banns of marriage a copy of clause 6 of 4 Geo. IV., cap. 76, 'An Act for amending the Laws respecting the Solemnization of Marriages in England.' This directs that

" the church - wardens and chapel - wardens of churches and chapels wherein marriages are solemnized shall provide a proper book of sub- stantial paper, marked and ruled respectively in manner directed for the Register Book of Marriages ; and the banns shall be published from the said Register Book of banns by the officiating minister and not from loose papers, and after publication shall be signed by the officiating minister, or by some person under his direction."

These instructions would seem to be explicit enough, but only last Sunday I saw a clergy- man publish banns which he read out from a sheet of notepaper held in his hand. As I have observed this done on several occasions before, I am tempted to ask if, in the face of the paragraph I have quoted, such a slipshod method is not distinctly illegal. I may add that I once examined a book of banns in which the last entry was incomplete, although the parties had then not only been duly asked three times in church, but actually married a month. This is what might reasonably be expected from a habit of using slips of paper.

JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

A MISSING WORD. Says the Periodical of July :

"The Bishop of Worcester was the guest of the Authors' Club at a recent dinner, and, replying to the toast of his health, his lordship said that 'there had been m reality but one event in his literary career. He had once been accused of wrongly using a verb, and, on turning up the word in the " New English Dictionary," he found himself confronted by the very quotation in question from one of his own books a standing rebuke to him for his bad grammar, as it was the only known instance of that particular use of the word.'"

What was this distinguished verb 1

ST. SWITHIN.

DICKENS : ' PICKWICK.' In Bell's ' Standard Elocutionist,' by David Chas. and Alexander Melville Bell, new edition, 1883, on p. 65, is given, "Gabriel Grub. Attributed to Charles Dickens." If I am not dreaming, I think I must have read of Gabriel Grub in 'Pick- wick ' (chap, xxix., ' The Story of the Goblins who stole a Sexton'); but then, what is the meaning of attributed? Is it pretended that Seymour the artist (who, his friends claimed, gave Dickens his ideas for this novel), or any one else but Dickens, wrote the story of Gabriel Grub? Perhaps some reader of ' N. & Q.' can throw a little light upon the matter. ADRIAN WHEELER.

MRS. MARTYR, SINGER AND ACTRESS : C. H. WILSON. Where was Mrs. Martyr buried ? She died in or near London, 1807. The general details of her career are known to me. Mr. Clark Russell ('Representative Actors') quotes C. H. Wilson (1801) as a critic on Mrs. Martyr's performances. From what work is his extract taken? Charles Henry Wilson (not mentioned in 'D.N.B.'), of the Inner Temple, was author of ' Poly- anthea : a Collection of Fragments in Prose and Verse,' 2 vpls. 8vo, London, 1804, in which I find no mention of Mrs. Martyr.

ROBERT WALTERS.

Ware Priory.

" WAKE ''= A VILLAGE FEAST. In which of the English counties is wake in popular use to signify the village feast, anciently held to commemorate the dedication of the church ? It seems to me that antiquaries and other students of rural custom have sometimes made use of the term in connexion with places where it is quite unknown to " the folk." G. W.

"SHOT THE MOON." What is the origin of this idiom ? M. L. R. BRESLAR.

[Consult Barrere and Leland under * Shoot ' and ' Moon.']

COUNTY COUNCIL BOARD SCHOOLS. Can any correspondent of 'N. & Q.' inform me whether returns are published, Parliamentary or otherwise, showing in detail the amount of the parish rates received and how expended ] The demands are not only excessive, but also continuously increasing.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

NICHOLAS OF LYNN AND NICOLAUS DE LYRA. In a curious, but somewhat feeble book, entitled 'Vestiges of the Historic Anglo- Hebrews in East Anglia ' (1870), the author, the Rev. M. Margoliouth, LL.D., Ph.D., devotes over three pages to proving thai