Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/317

 ii. OCT. 15, '98.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

309

and feeling sure that baulk is the more usua] modern spelling, I referred to Johnson, who, under the title ' Balk,' gives the derivation as from valicare, Ital., to pass over, and cites the Welsh bale, the Sax. bale, and the Su. Goth, balk; and he gives quotations from Spenser, Locke, Prior, Pope, and others. He seems also to regard baulk as a corrupt spelling, for under that title he writes, " See balk." Neither Wedgwood nor Ogilvie gives any explanation, save that the latter states bauk to be the Scotch form ; and Richardson does not even give the word spelt as baulk. In billiards the word, as indicating the space behind the crease, is always spelt baulk.

EDWARD P. WOLFERSTAN.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY WOODWARD OF THE ' SEVEN AGES OF PARSONS.' Do any of your readers possess a set of the above prints, illustrating a parody of Shakespeare's "seven ages of man*? I have six, viz., 'Curate,' 'Priest,' 'Vicar,' 'Rector,' 'Incumbent,' and 'Welsh Parson.' That of the 'Pedagogue' (which follows the ' Curate ') is missing from my collection. Date somewhere about 1790.

J. W. C.

TREVOR LLOYD BLUNDEN. Can any reader give me any information as to the pedigree, &c., of Trevor Lloyd Blunden, of Ballydugin and Oakfield, counties Tipperary and Kil- kenny ? He was born, I believe, in 1757 or thereabouts; married Rebecca Andrews, of Rahenv Park, King's County; served for some short time in the army ; and died about 1845, leaving four sons and one daughter. Was he any relation to Blunden (baronet) of Kilkenny? ROBERT GLYNN.

' OXFORD ARGO.' I shall be glad to know the name of the author of a little pamphlet in verse with the following title : " The | Oxford Argo. | By | An Oxford Divine. | [Engraving of a galley.] | London: | R. Sickle- more, | 36, Southampton Street, | Strand. | MDCCCXLV." At the bottom of the last page there is the note : " Printed by J. Dawson, Percy Street, Newcastle." I have heard the authorship ascribed to the late Rev. Hugh Stowell, for many years vicar of Christ- church, Salford, and Honorary Canon of Chester. JOHNSON BAILY.

Ryton Rectory.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. Alas ! that I so lately knew thee.

T. S.

He did not know, poor brute, Why love should not be true to death.

CORNUB.

Carnage is God's daughter, P.

" RANDOM OF A SHOT." (9 th S. i. 142, 214.)

IN a book, a copy of which is in my posses- sion, entitled " Animadversions of Warre, by Robert Warde, Gent, and Commander : Lon- don, printed by John Dawson, 1639," the word " randon " is used in connexion with the instrument then in use for ascertaining the proper elevation of a piece of artillery, the " utmost randon " or " at the best of the ran- don " meaning when the plumb-line cuts the line of 45 marked on the quadrant.

The "gunner's quadrant was a quadrant with a ruler attached and also a plumb-line ; the end of the ruler was inserted in the muzzle of the gun, and the plumb-line cutting the lines on the quadrant marked the proper degrees of elevation.

Tables are given showing the number of paces each piece carries at "point-blank" and at "utmost randon," or best of the randon " as it is also called. To quote from the book :

"This gunner's quadrant is a geometricall instru- ment, containing in circumference one quarter of a circle divided into 90 equal parts or degrees in the outmost limbe : and in the second limbe within there is twelve equal parts or divisions, and likewise each of those are sub-divided by means of parallels and diagonalls into ten equal! parts, so that each side will be thereby found distinctly divided into 120 equall parts : the use of them is to take all Geo- metricall mensurations, both of distances, heights, breadths, and depths which are either accessible or

inaccessible But as for the degrees and points,

principally are they to helpe the Gunners practise to levell and shoot at the best certainty, both in the right line called pointblancke, and also upon the advantage of all kinde of Randons or markes assigned : onely you are to make use of certain Tables, etc

" Now in levelling your Peece you are to put the ruler into the mouth of the Peece close to the lowest

side of the metall but if the marke assigned be

found by this instrument to lye beyond the reach of the reece at pointblancke, so as shoe must be mounted at some one degree or other, according as the distance shall be found : in this you must make use of certain Tables

' ' Further this industrious Gent! eman, Mr. Norton, lath made use of a Table of Randons, calculated ay Alexander Bianco, which he hath reduced for secant ranges thereunto annexed, as followes
 * he sixe first points of the quadrant, with a Table of

" Wherefore observe, if you have mounted your Peece to any of these sixe points, you must looke against the name of the same Peece you intend to use, and right under that point you mount it unto ; in the common angle, you shall finde the number of )aces of her Randon ; likewise this Table of secant Ganges are numbers proportionall, etc

"Further, observe if a Morter Peece will shoot i50 paces, at the best of the Randon, if you should