Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/355

 II. OCT. 29, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

347

(2) Edward Browne, M.A., Head Master 1652-8 ; (3) Hen. Montague, who was expulsus from the head-mastership in 1660 ; (4) John Smith, M.A., Head Master 1713-18. If any reader of ' N. & Q.' can identify the college and university of the last named from the following data he will render me no small service. John Smith, M.A., author of ' A Life of Scipio Africanus,' London (R. Knaplock), 1713; curate of Great Mongeham, 1705; Stpurmouth, 1706-13; vicar of Preston by Wingham, 1706-18 ; Milton next Sitting- bourne, 1711-18; sometime chaplain to the Earl of Jersey. In 1706, described as of West Langdon, he married Damaris, daughter of the Rev. Timothy Wilson, vicar of Great Mongeham, and a six-preacher of Canterbury Cathedral. Buried in Canterbury Cathedral, February, 1718. His son John Smith, of C.C.C., Oxford, B.A. 1727. Replies may be addressed to J. M. Cowper, St. Mildred's, Canterbury. WILLIAM COWPER.

Jamaica.

"STUDIUM SINE CALAMO EST SOMNIUM." In the library of my friend M. Paul Le Blanc at Brioude (Haute Loire) I found a col- lection of law tracts that belonged to a certain Antoine Gal let, Avocat at Craponne, A.p. 1754 ; and this fine Latin motto, which might be vindicated by every contributor to ' N. & Q.,' was written on a fly-leaf by the owner of the book, Antoine Gallet. Was it ever said before ? H. GAIDOZ.

22, Rue Servandoni, Paris.

PORTRAIT OF MRS. SHERIDAN AS ST. CECILIA. (See ante, p. 247.) I have what is apparently a sketch of Reynolds's por- trait of Mrs. Sheridan. The figure is represented in profile, dressed in white, and playing on a musical instrument. It measures about 12 in. by Sin. It came into my possession through a lady whose grandmother was contemporary with Mrs. Sheridan, and who, I think, belonged to the circle at Devonshire House of which Mrs. Sheridan had the entrfe. Is it known whether any sketch of St. Cecilia, other than that in the Glasgow Gallery, was made by the artist ?

ENQUIRER.

of this unique old spot, to decipher the words, but without success : the paucity of vowels would seem to be the chief obstacle. Perhaps some skilful reader of ' N". & Q.' can help us. CECIL CLARKE.

Authors' Club, S. W.

SCOTT'S 'ANTIQUARY.'-- What is the exact title of the work alluded to in the following passage in chap, vi., and who is the author ? Mr. Oldbuck says to Miss Wardour-:

" Under arms, Lord love thee ! didst thou ever read the history of Sister Margaret, which flowed from a head that, though now old and somedele grey, has more sense an d political intelligence than you find nowadays in a whole synod ? Dost thou remember the Nurse's dream in that exquisite work, which she recounts in such agony to Hubble Bubble? When she would have taken up a piece of broad cloth in her vision, lo ! it exploded like a great iron cannon ; when she put out her hand to save a pirn [bobbin], it perked up in her face in the form of a pistol. My own vision in Edinburgh has been something similar."

Although a romancier is not bound by the rules of strict chronology, the author alluded to would seem to have been alive in the last decade of the eighteenth century.

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

"PILLAR DOLLAR." Can any numismatist kindly inform me whether the Spanish "pillar dollar" is worth anything beyond its current value? I have a very fine specimen which from its new appearance must have been out of currency from quite its youth. The date is 1760. UTRAQUE.

BURY HEAD, SOUTH DEVON. Can any of your contributors kindly inform me of the exact date of the building of the forts on this headland ; also the date and reason of their demolition? SILO.

PARNELL PORTRAITS. Can any one tell me of an existing portrait of the Rev. Thomas Parnell, the poet, who died in 1718; also of any portraits of the Parnell family of the seventeenth century? LOWPIELD.

[Consult ' Diet. Nat. Biog.']

A PUZZLING INSCRIPTION. Upon a window- pane of one of the front rooms in No. 8, Church Row, Hampstead, where Mrs. Barbauld, the novelist, resided for a time, the following curious sentence is very neatly cut with a dia- mond, " Lgbl slep malef." Now, what does it mean? Many attempts were made by members of the Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society, when they inspected what remains

CHURCH BUILT BY BECKET. In Michelet's ' Histoire de France ' occurs the following passage (vol. ii. p. 355) :

"Ainsi furent completes 1'abandon et la misere de 1'archeveque [Becket]. II n'eut plus ni pain ni gite, et fut reduit a vivre des aumones du peuple. C'est peut-etre alors qu'il batit 1'^glise dont on lui attribue la construction."

To what church does Michelet refer? It would be in France, no doubt, as it is of the period of Becket's exile that he is writing. T. P. ARMSTRONG. Putney.