Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/477

 xii. DEC. 12, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

469

given to record of marriage Pike-Stuart, in Edinburgh, between 1725 and 1751 ?

E. F. McPiKE. Chicago, Illinois.

SIR THOMAS FAIRBANK. I want to ascer tain the place and exact date of death o; Sir Thomas Fairbank, who was, I believe, the engineer who constructed some of the earliest docks in Hull. This would be, J suppose, in the early part of the nineteenth century. BERNARD P. SCATTERGOOD.

Moorside, Far Headingley, Leeds.

HORATIO D'ESTERRE DARBY, a brother of John Nelson Darby, who appears in the 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' (vol. xiv. 43), was admitted to Westminster School 9 January, 1809. should be glad to obtain information con- cerning his career and the date of his death.

G. F. R. B.

A PROPHECY c. CHARLES II. The follow- ing occurs in 'Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 4287,' p. 349, 1667:

"A prophecy that was lately found written in a plate of brass in Folkston, in Kent :

When Brit tain e bold of Spanish Race From Gallick Sands shall land att Hyde, Then let not Hyde thereat make mirth,

As if the day were his. So true a head to King and nation Was neare cut of by proclamacion ; Hee ne're shall in his clutches have him, Then lett him looke to his fatt hide, Merlyn 's an asse if York can save him As old a towne as 'tis.

Does it refer to the sale of Dunkirk, Hyde, Lord Clarendon, and James, Duke of York ? The town of Hythe, near Folkestone, is often written, and oftener pronounced, as Hyde. R. J. FYNMORE. Sandgate, Kent.

"WELSH RABBIT." What is the earliest example of the derivation of "Welsh rabbit" from ' Welsh rare bit " ? It is condemned by Prof. Skeat in his 'Etymological Dictionary' as a pretence "as pointless and stupid as it is incapable of proof." It is, however, like many other such derivations, very generally accepted. One wonders who was the ingenious inventor of the derivation. In ' A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue' (Grose), third edition, 1796, is " Welch Rabbit, i.e., a Welch rare bit." This reappears in Pierce Egan's edition, 1823, "Welch" being changed into "Welsh." 'The Cook's Oracle,' sixth edition, Constable & Co., 1823 (No. 539), says that if the directions given are f olio wed^ the toast and cheese " will well deserve its ancient appellation of a ' Rare Bit.' " The late G. A. Sala in his 'Thorough Good Cook,' 1895,

pp. 131, 397, has "Welsh rarebit." In tho indexes he has also "Welsh rabbit." 'Webster's Dictionary,' 1889, says, " properly Welsh rare- bit." Ogilvie gives the same derivation. It is also to be found in Fliigel's ' English and German Dictionary,' 1830. A friend has sent me from Danzig the Mittagstafel menu of the Hotel Danziger Hof of 18 October, in which I find, between "Vanille- und Pfir- sicheis" and " Dessert" the following item: "Wales rarebits, engl. Selleria." I was not told whether the ** Wales rarebits" were real Welsh rabbits. In writing the above I have not attempted to give any authorities for the true spelling " rabbit " except Prof. Skeat, although no doubt there are plenty. " Scotch woodcock" is a name not unlike "Welsh rabbit." It is composed of buttered toast, anchovies, eggs, &c. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

BEADNELL. About the year 1830 there resided somewhere near, if not within the bounds of, the City (perhaps in the district immediately east of Gray's Inn Road), a family of the name of Beadnell. There were two, if not more, daughters in the family. The name is not a common one ; I can only find some half-dozen examples in the present year's ' London Directory.' Can any of your readers give me trustworthy information regarding the family in question : as to their actual address at the time I speak of, what became of the various members, and so forth 1 I have reasons for believing that one of the daughters, then a widow, was alive about 1855, but I can trace no further.

W. SANDFORD. 13, Ferndale Road, S.W.

COBDEN PAMPHLET. Can any reader of N. & Q.' help me to a copy of Cobden's pamphlet entitled " Incorporate your Borough, a Letter to the Inhabitants of Manchester. By a Radical Reformer"? It was issued from the office of Mr. John Gadsby, whose name as printer is attached to so many of the tracts sent forth by the A.nti-Corn Law League.

T. FISHER UNWIN.

JACOBIN: JACOBITE. A review in the Athenceum for 31 October, p. 576, points out '/hat an American writer says the "Jacobins" itill speak of Charles I. as "the martyr king." This has reminded me of a note, or perhaps I ihould rather say a query, which I have long thought 'of sending to you. Jacobite and Tacobin have different origins. The former 3omes from the Christian name of an exiled
 * ing ; the latter from a club of the time of

he French Revolution, which met in a house