Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/421

 9* s. xii. NOT. 21, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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5. Are there any churches outside Rome besides the Westminster Cathedral that rank as basilicas, and, if so, which are they ?

Some of these questions, I have no doubt, could be answered if I had access to De Gerstenberg's *De Basilicis eorumque Juri- bus,' published in 1733. Perhaps some con- tributor to ' N. & Q.' may be more for tunate than I am in this respect. It is not in the British Museum. I may add that St. John Lateran, besides being the seat of the Pope as Patriarch of the West, is also his cathe- dral as Bishop of Rome. It is also in a special sense the church of the Pope as Supreme Pontiff, and it is, I suppose, in this capacity, and not as a basilica, that it is "Omnium Ecclesiarum Urbis et Orbis Mater et Uaput." JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

GENERAL FRANCIS NICHOLSON, GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1719-28 (9 th S. xii. 201, 296). It would be more correct to style Eraanuel Scrope (who was created in 1627 Earl of Sunderland, and died without legi- timate issue) Baron Scrope of Bolton than Baron Bolton, for by the former title they were summoned to Parliament for eleven generations. They divided with the Nevilles, who owned Middleham Castle, the owner- ship of Wensleydale, and were lords of Middleham (not Lords Middleham, as once styled in 4 N. & Q.').

Burke, in his 'Dormant and Extinct Peer- age,' gives as the illegitimate daughters of the Earl of Sunderland :

1. Mary, married first to the Hon. Henry Carey, secondly to Charles, Marquess of Winchester, afterwards Duke of Bolton.

2. Annabella, married to John Grubham Howe, Esq.

3. Elizabeth, married to Thomas Savage, Earl Rivers.

The old castle of Bolton, their ancient residence, is a quadrangular structure, having a tower at each corner, connected by a curtain wall, and the view from the summit of one of the towers is very fine. The dukedom of Bolton was created in 1689, and became extinct in 1794. The barony of Bolton was created in 1797, and is yet in existence. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

FOLK-LORE OF CHILDBIRTH (9 th S. xii. It may interest F. J. C., who inquires for legends similar to those which are related to inquisitive youngsters when new-born chil- dren are, "in some mysterious way," pre- sented to them, if I cite a very modern instance, resembling those which aver that babies are brought in by storks, or dug out of parsley beds or from under currant

aushes. On his awakening early one morn- ing a young friend of mine was thus addressed by his nurse : " Oh ! Master Trip- tolemus, you have got such a dear little sister come home last night ; aren't you glad 1 ?" Foreseeing, peradventure, that his jwn nose was likely to be put out of joint, Triptolemus replied tartly, " No ; where did she come from I A happy thought prompted the nurse's answer, " From the Stores " " Send her back to the Stores," said he. This, it appears, was more easily said than done. I have inquired in Bedford Street, as well as in Waterloo Place, and it seems that in neither of the Stores there situated is there a Baby Department. O.

In Lincolnshire, as we have no storks, except as very rare visitants, we do not know the story of their bringing the babies. Here children of inquiring mind are commonly told, when a baby arrives, that the doctor dug it up with a golden spade under a goose- berry bush. Sometimes it is stated that some one, not necessarily the doctor, has dug it up in a parsley bed. EDWARD PEACOCK.

If there were any legends once current in this country, similar to those which prevail on the Continent, relating to the superstition that the storks bring the new-born babies, they do not appear to have been noted by folk-lorists. This is probably because they had no existence, for the stork rarely fre- quents these shores, and was even rare in England when the fens were undrained. We have the cruel eagle that carries babies off, but not the kind stork that brings them. The white stork (Ciconia alba) is, for practical as well as for sentimental reasons, regarded with reverence in those countries which he makes his temporary home. This is so in Russia, Poland, Denmark, Holland, Spain, and the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, where he is protected instead of persecuted. The fact of his not meeting in our own country with this forbearance at the hands of the man with a gun has perhaps engen- dered in him a shrewd notion as to what a stupid he would be to cross the Channel when he is so well off where he is. At all events, no instance is, I think, known of the migra- tory stork nesting in England.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

In many parts of England the usual answer to children inquisitive as to where they came from is that they were found in the parsley bed. I have often heard this. C. C. B.

EPITAPH AT DONCASTER (9 th S. xii. 288). During the year 1837 I spent a few days at