Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/355

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8. III. MAY 6, '99.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

349

>aron de Noilles. Both ladies, presumably isters, were unmarried in 1777. Their por- i raits by Romney were at the exhibition of Old Masters in 1883, but the catalogue gives i o biographical details. W. ROBERTS.

Carlton Villa, Klea Avenue, Clapham, S.W.

" WIGS ON THE GREEN." What is the origin cf this expression ? PARSONS.

THE GOLDEN GATE. Why is the entrance to the harbour of San Francisco so named ?

PARSONS.

WINDSOR CHAIRS. Why are these so called 1 C. E. CLARK.

"TRING, WING, AND IVINGHOE," &c. Is there any historical allusion or significance in these ancient lines'? Lord Nugent, in his ' Memorials of John Hampden,' quotes authorities to prove that they are merely a rhythm; more than that, he shows that neither of the three places was ever the property of the Hampden family; and still we find people continually asking about it, even at your antipodes. D. BROWNE.

New Zealand.

SARAH CURRAN : ROBERT EMMET. The subject of Sarah Curran has been recently I discussed in 'N. & Q.,'but lately I have come I across a somewhat startling statement regard- i ing her letters. Repeatedly in books on the 1803 period it has been stated that the corre- spondence between her and her lover Emmet was destroyed by Major Sirr. Now, accord- ing to the following extract, this statement is incorrect, unless Mr. O'Hart has been misinformed. In ' Irish Pedigrees, and Origin I of the Irish Nation,' by John O'Hart, there is the following passage :

" Everything belonging to the Emmet family, even down to the butchers' and grocers' bills, was seized by the Government, at the time of Emmet's arrest, and retained. The papers were sent first to London, subsequently returned to Dublin, and placed in the State Paper Office, where they are deposited. It is Stated that, by orders of the late Duke of Marl- borough, when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Emmet papers were sealed up, and orders issued that they should not be opened for 100 years. All the letters of Robert Emmet's father and mother ire also there, with the celebrated love letters from arali Curran to Robert Emmet, which Major Sirr f 1798 memory found so pathetic that he says he r ept over them." Vol. ii. p. 544, foot-note. Can any correspondent of ' N. & Q.' throw ight on this statement 1 Its pages have Iways been so generously open to Irish ubjects that I venture to offer this query, ''urely, now that nearly a hundred years ave elapsed since 1803, all need for secrecy bout these documents ought to have ceased.

FRANCESCA.

ST. JORDAN. (5 th S. iii. 129; 9 th S. iii. 207.)

THERE is no doubt, as suggested by the REV. C. S. WARD, that College Green (Bristol), the open space in front of the cathedral (formerly the abbey), represents, at any rate in part, the "magna area" of Leland. The open space undoubtedly includes or forms part of what was formerly known as the sanctuary. Refer- ences to the sanctuary (" Sanctuarium locum Sancti Augustini," &c.), together with certain measurements, appear in ' Itineraria Symonis Simeonis et Willelmi de Worcestre,' 1778, p. 188, printed from MSS. yet to be seen in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cam- bridge. The compiler of the printed work erroneously inserted "de" before the name Worcestre ; as a matter of fact, however, William Wyrcestre, otherwise Worcestre, a fifteenth-century chronicler, was a native of Bristol, with which place his family had been long connected.

In the " magna area," which is sometimes described in old documents respectively as " viridis placea " and " the grete Grene," there was a chapel which, long before Leland's time, was known as St. Jordan's Chapel. In a roll, or series of accounts of the monastic officers of St. Augustine's Abbey, commencing in 1491 and ending in 1492, among the entries of the offerings (oblations) made at the pyxes before certain images, or in the chapels of the monastery or abbey, is the following item : " Et de 22d. receptis de hujusmodi obla- tionibus provenientibus de pyxide S ci Cle- men tis juxta Capellam S" Jordani in viridi placea ibidem."

Leland's intimation that " St." Jordan was "unus ex discipulis Augustini Anglorum Apostoli " is not supported, so far as I can learn, by any written evidence ; we must therefore assume, in the absence of con- firmation, that it was believed in Leland's time that a St. Jordan had existed contem- poraneously with St. Augustine. The REV. C. S. WARD, in common with many others, has failed to discover that such a saint ever had an existence. What, then, is the explana- tion of the title of " Saint " associated with the name of Jordan ?

My theory is that the chapel was either built by Jordan, one of the Fitz Harding family, or erected after his death as a memorial to him. We may, I think, safely assume that Leland's statement as to the burial of " St." Jordan in the " magna area " was derived from an authentic source; in other words, that