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NOTES AND QUERIES. fl) th s. XIL AUG. s, IQOS.

is no moral doubt to a careful student of his strange life.

Is your querist aware that, until he received his M.D. without any test, he lived, during these antecedent ten years, under a most care- fully guarded incognito 1 and that in January, 1776, he disappeared from English life as Dr. Marat? He reappeared (24 June, 1777) on the staff of Count d'Artois in Paris, like a meteor, as an M.D. of St. Andrews " et plusieurs facultes," which no man living not even his various copious biographers, in- cluding Mr. Morse Stephens has been able to trace till this hour. Had your querist desired, he could have discovered that all the houses in Church Street, Soho, were numbered, and their occupants named, in 1775 and 1776, the only period important here ; and that Marat's name is nowhere to be found in the * London Directory ' between 1765 and 1776. His reputation in June, 1776, was presumably good in Paris, but he had completely wrecked it even there by 1783, when he vacated his royal appointment as worthless, and returned to the British Isles, to flit from city to city, amid darkness and difficulties, till Paris drew him back late in 1788, to rise to the crest of the revolution, and perish five years afterwards. VIGILANS.

That most atrocious miscreant Jean Pan* Marat must undoubtedly have enjoyed "a certain reputation" while in England. His residence in Church Street must have been for a very short period. He was convicted of stealing 200. worth of moneys and coins from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the hulks at Woolwich. He also resided (under various aliases) at Newcastle, Warrington, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin, and ulti- mately died under the hand of Charlotte Corday on 13 July, 1793. See also 7 th S. vii., viii., ix. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

See 7 th S. vii. 488 ; viii. 76, 135 ; ix. 29, 78 ; 8 th S. iv. 125, and the further sources there indicated. W. C. B.

4 AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S LOVE-LETTERS' (9 th S. xi. 504). Though not very appropriate, the heading which MR. UDAL gives to his query must, I suppose, be used for any reply. Quite recently we have had what looks very much like another instance of the sort of imposture he regrets. There has recently been issued, by a London publisher of good repute, what purports to be a 'Journal of Arthur Stirling/ whom we are asked to think of as an authentic, but unappreciated man of genius. It is stated that he committed

suicide, and an obituary notice is quoted from the Neio York Herald. From internal evidence, one is inclined to doubt the "editor's" good faith. As to the 'English- woman's Love-Letters,' the short-lived sensa- tion which they produced was surety brought about more by the doubt as to their genuine- ness than by any conviction of it. It is, no doubt, a modern trick to write a preface vouching for the truth of a work of fiction. But as a matter of morality it is no worse than the invention of lying stories for a news- letter ; and that, we know, is an expedient for promoting sales as old, at least, as Defoe.

L. H. [The obituary has been acknowledged as a "fake."]

The most notorious fraudulent preface is that in the case of 'Drelincourt on Death/ attributed to Daniel Defoe. This may help us to accept him as the compiler of 'Drury's Journal/ 1729, a realistic account of Mada- gascar ; and its graphic details evince the capacity to write 'Robinson Crusoe/ while the mystification which admits Harley to a claim is only a part of Defoe's whole career.

A. H.

"WAIK," "WENE," AND "MAIKE" (9 th S. xi. 249). Your correspondent at the second of the references in the editorial note is unjust to Jamieson in saying that he does not help one in the matter, for if he refers, not to waik, but to iveik, he will find that the latter signifies a corner, or angle, and wein (not ivene)a, pot, a scar, while maik=m&iQ seems to suggest that gnome, or brownie, is meant, for brownies certainly have " neither flesh, blood, nor bane." So that maike or mate would appear to allude to one of the " good neighbours," or " good people," and we consequently have : In yon green wood there is a waik [corner], And in that corner there is a wene [spot], And in that spot there is a maike [fellow or

familiar]

That neither has flesh, blood, nor bane ; And down in yon greenwood he walks his lane. In that green wene [spot] Kilmeriy lay, Her bosom happed [i.e., covered, heaped] flowerits gay.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

CARSON (9 th S. xi. 488; xii. 19). Dr. Herbert William Carson, F.R.C.S. Eng., L.R.C.P. Lond., is in practice at Welbeck Street, London ; Dr. Stewart Carson, M.B.C.M. Edin., is in practice at Salvin Lodge, Alston, Cumberland ; Dr. Thomas John Carson, L.F.P.S. Glasgow, is in practice at Union Street, Oldham ; Dr. John Henry Carson, L.R.C.P. Edin., L.R.C.S. Edin., is in practice at Crumlin, co. Antrim, Ireland ;

wi' the