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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. OCT. 17, 1003.

home Government. But, on looking, I do no find it there ; perhaps I saw the expression used in one of the newspaper notices of th< book in 1868. We shall be glad of any earlj examples. I am told that it was used by the late Cecil Rhodes in a memorable speech ; a reference to that would also be useful.

J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.

"MAIS ON REVIENT TOUJOURS."

Mais on reyient toujours A ses premiers amours.

Where did Etienne, who introduced this couplet in the opera comique of 'Joconde (1814), find it 1 ? What is the Latin original o: the expression, either in poetry or as a pro verbial phrase ? B.

PAYNE. In the August number of the Cornhill Magazine is an article on ' Rupert, the Captive of Linz,' in which is mentioned " Master Peter Payne," who had brought to Bohemia from England " the teaching o1 Wycliffe." Can any of your readers give me some particulars of the life of Peter Payne ? WILLIAM PAYNE.

Southsea.

[Refer to the 'D.N.B.,' s.n., xliv. 14.]

EMMET AND DE FONTENAY LETTERS. In the opening years of the nineteenth century a correspondence was carried on between members of the Emmet family and Madame Gabrielle de Fontenay, ci-devant Marquise de Fontenay. This lady and her husband, during the first years of the French Revolu- tion, lived as Emigre's in Dublin, but returned to France in 1800. Three of the letters (all written by R. Emmet) were published in a JNew York newspaper in 1868. Up to thirty years ago the letters were in possession of a distant relative of the Emmet family living in Paris. Since his death nothing is known of them.

Copies of the letters, or any information about them, will be acceptable. The letters are addressed to " Madame Gabrielle de Fon- tenay, chez Madame de Ruay a Ponce, pres Mountome par Vendome, Loire et Cher" Very few letters of R. Emmet are known : probably in Ireland some may remain if the possessors of them would produce them

FRANCESCA.

DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.-I am anxious to know whether the following book is rare and also if it be authentic : "An Account ot the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, from her First Coming to Court to the Year 1710. In a letter from Herself to My Lord - -. London : Printed

by James Bettenham for George Hawkins at Milton's Head, between the two Temple gates. M.DCCXLII." WILLIAM TOWNSEND STORRS.

[It was written by Nathaniel Hooke the younger, the friend of Pope, at the dictation of the Duchess, and is unquestionably authentic. As to its rarity we cannot speak.]

OVERSTRAND CHURCH. Inside the tower of the ruined church at Overstrand, near Cromer, a few feet above floor level, there is a small square recess iri the wall, with a kind of flue rising from it into the tower. The purpose of this recess seems to be a puzzle. According to Mr. George Beckett, the author of 4 The Vale of Health ; or, Overstrand and Sidestrand, Past and Present ' (London, 1899), "it may have been used as a stove for kind- ling incense " (p. 22) ; but it is evident from this that he has never witnessed the opera- tion, which is easily and usually performed without a special stove. Is there anything like it to be found in any other pre-Reforma- tion church, and what was really its obiect ?

L. L. K.

ST. WILLIAM OF AQUITAINE. Was he an ancestor of the early Plantagenets 1 We think he was, but have not been able to find evidence confirming or disproving our opinion.

N. M. & A.

A SWEDENBORGIAN DRUGGIST. (See ante, p. 189.) That Lord Macaulay drew from the trial scene in ' Pickwick ' his apposition of "Epsom salts" and "oxalic acid" can hardly be doubted, but why did he dub his hypo- thetical druggist a Sweden borgian 1 ? Was the word selected simply as a sonorous spithet ; or was it also a quotation ? In 'The Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson/ 2 vols., 1883, appeared a letter from the latter, dated 14 May, 1834, wherein he wrote: "I shall put with it the little book of my 3wedenborgian druggist of whom I told you." The little book in question was * Observations on the Growth of the Mind,' by Sampson freed, who was a graduate of Harvard College n 1818, and died at the age of eighty in 1880. Acknowledging this letter on 12 August, 1834, Carlyle wrote: "He is a faithful thinker, that Swedenborgian Druggist of yours, with really deep ideas." I suppose it is possible
 * hat Macaulay may have heard of this inci-

lent, but in all probability his use of the ohrase is merely a coincidence.

CHARLES HIGHAM.

SAMUEL DANIEL. For many years past here has been much controversy as to the >irthplace of Samuel Daniel (1562-1619), who .cted as Poet Laureate to Queen Elizabeth.