Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/273

 9 th S. II. OCT. 1, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

265

dressed with architraves, like those at Whitehall. The whole inconceivably ugly." Walpole's 'Anec.,' i. 279.

Gerbier appears to have been a courtier, a diplomatist (in which capacity he seems to have had considerable success), a decorator, a philanthropist of a sort (he advocated the establishment in this country of Monts de Piete or Banks of Compassion), and somewhat of a charlatan, but there are, it appears to me, but slender grounds for describing him as an architect. JOHN HEBB.

Canonbury Mansions, N.

" Do IT BY DEGREES, AS THE CAT ATE THE

PESTLE." (See 9 th S. i. 390.) I suggested at the above reference that the Lincolnshire proverbial remark addressed to a fidgety or impulsive person, " Do it by degrees, as the cat ate the pestle," has reference to some folk-tale now lost. In this I feel pretty sure that I was in error. Yesterday I met a Dews- bury man, and in the course of our conversa- tion used this feline proverb, remarking as I did so that, although I saw its application, I could not fathom its meaning. "Ah!" re- plied my friend, " a West Riding chap would understand it well enough. Do not you know what a pestle is?" I naturally replied an instrument for pounding. "Yes, that will do," he said ; " but some words have more meanings than one. We call pigs' feet pestles, and it would be a slow job for a cat to eat one, for a pig s foot has a great many little bones in it and the best meat is deep down among them." EDWARD PEACOCK.

Dunstan House, Kirton-in-Lindsey.

ALCUIN CLUB. I was asked some time ago if I knew anything of the above club, and I had to reply that I did not. I now see in the Notes on Books for 31 August, issued by Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co., a note as to the publication of No. 3 of the " Alcuin Club Tracts," and giving the intimation that the club has been formed for the purpose of dealing with the practical study of cere- monial, and the arrangement of churches, their furniture and ornaments, in accordance with the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer. The tract No. 3 is entitled ' Litur- gical Interpolations,' the author being the Rev. T. A. Lacey, M.A., vicar of Madingley, and is royal octavo, consisting of twenty-four pages, published at two shillings. Perhaps this information is worth being preserved in 'N. & Q.' W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY.

14, Artillery Buildings, Victoria Street, 8.W.

ROSE CASTLE, CUMBERLAND. In Note B to chap. ii. of ' The Monastery,' Sir Walter telL

a delightful story of an incident that occurred at Rose Castle during " the forty-five." Scott says, " Rose Castle, the seat of the Bishop of Carlisle, but then occupied by the family of Squire Dacre of Cumberland." Does this mean temporarily occupied by the Dacres? How long has Rose Castle been in the posses- sion or occupation of the Bishops of Carlisle ? As an old North Cumbrian, as I may call myself, though I was not born in Cumber- land, perhaps I " did ought " to know this ; but as I do not, may I appeal to my old acquaintance Chancellor Ferguson, whose name I occasionallv see in ' N. & Q.' 1 He must know, if anybody knows, as I should imagine that he has the whole history of "cannie aul' Cummerlan'" sur le bout du doigt.

The Dacres in my time, I think, or rather, I am sure, lived at Kirklinton Hall, eight miles or so north of Carlisle.

I wonder if the gallant and chivalrous Highlander's cockade is still in esse, in the possession of any of Lady Clerk's descendants or others.

It is rather curious that the note immedi- ately following the foregoing (" The Fairies "), relating an experience of Scott's own, is, in its own way, as interesting as the "Rose Castle " note. JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

DR. JOHNSON AND TEA-DRINKING. The late romancist R. L. Stevenson, in his essay ' Ars Triplex,' has thus written : "Already an old man, he [Dr. Johnson] ventured on his High- land tour ; and his heart, bound with triple brass, did not recoil before twenty-seven in- dividual cups of tea." Is not this twenty- seven a small romance in itself ? I fancied I had read most of the Johnsonian literature in existence ; yet I have never heard of the doctor disposing of more than twenty-four cups of tea at one sitting. It is as well to point out this (if it has not already been noted) lest some other writer, a la Sir John Falstaff, should add a few more cups to a number which is already large enough in all conscience. THOMAS AULD.

Belfast.

EDITION. What is an edition ? Has one a right, without perpetrating a deception, to call a republication in separate form from ' N. & O.' a second edition ? or, in fact, is it not rather a duty to do this, so as to warn readers that the reprint is not the first pub- lication? When, last March, Mr. Fred. W. Foster published another edition of his ' Bib- liography of Skating,' I asked him why he did not put "fourth edition" on his title-page, instead of stating it in his (preliminary note,