Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/449

 i* s.m. JU*E io, mi NOTES AND QUERIES.

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p rchase at these sales was odd volumes, which she u ed to carry to other booksellers and endeavour to si 1, or exchange for other books. She was also a c< nsiderable collector of medals and foreign coins of < Id and silver ; but none of these were found after h r decease. She frequented the Furnival's Inn C >ffee-house in Holborn, dining there almost every d ,y ; she would have the first of everything in s< ison, and was as strenuous for a large quantity, a.' she was dainty in the quality of what she chose f( r her table. At times, it is well known, she could d spense with three pounds of solid meat ; and we are s< rry to say she was much inclined to the dreadful sin oi drunkenness. Her death was occasioned by falling downstairs, and she was, after much affliction, at length compelled to make herself known to a Ger- man physician, who prescribed for her, when the d sorder she had, turned to a dropsy, defied all cure, and finished the life of so remarkable a female."

W. EGBERTS.

JOHN MASSY. I have tried in various ways for twenty years or more (once or twice through ' N. & Q.') to verify the tradition of the origin of the most prominent Massy family in America, that trie founder in this country was a boy kidnapped from the coast of Ireland, and that his father was the high sheriff of the county of Limerick.

As the result it appears that Hugh Massy, sometimes called captain and sometimes general, was the sheriff of Limerick County in 1674, and that his oldest son John, 1662- 1724, was kidnapped from the shore with other boys, among whom was one Rawdon, who was reclaimed by his family many years afterward, some one acquainted with his dis- appearance having casually heard his name called in a roll of soldiers here.

"General " Hugh Massy was a brother of Major-General Sir Edward Massy, and was the grandfather of two Irish peers, viz., Baron Massy of Duntry League and Baron Clarina, and his kidnapped son founded here a family which has comprised many men distinguished in military and civil life, including the Hon. William L. Massy, who was Governor of New York, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State for the United States.

No doubt the disturbed condition of Ire- land in the latter part of the seventeenth century made such kidnapping possible and search for the missing heir fruitless, but one would suppose that the recovery of young Rawdon would have enabled the family to trace John Massy here. F. J. P.

Boston, Mass.

BARON JOHN DILLON, 1731-1805 : BARON JOHN TALBOT DILLON, 1734-1806. These contemporaries were indebted for titles to the same continental monarch, and to the same English monarch for the royal licence

to bear them in this country ; were in the enjoyment of the same kind of reputation for enlightened philanthropy ; and were promi- nent in the Society of Freemasons, though in different countries. As a consequence, their identity has been confounded in the books of reference. Perhaps this would not matter much but that the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' is one of the books in question. An otherwise painstaking article on Baron Dillon welds them both into one, even to the begetting of their children. The fact that both the barons were Freemasons has led to the insertion of an article, disentangling their personalities, in the current part of Ars Quatuor Coronatoriim, the archaeological journal of the, Society of Freemasons. As the authority of the * Dictionary of National Biography ' is usually unquestioned and un- questionable, it seems desirable that reference should be made in these columns to the mysti- fication that vitiates its notice of Baron John T. Dillon and his son Admiral Sir W. H. Dillon. The authorities are set out at length in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. xii. part i. pp. 19-23. W. J. CHETWODE CRAWLEY. Trinity College, Dublin.

[We acknowledge with thanks the receipt of a reprint from the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum of the lives of the two Dillons, with a portrait of Baron John Talbot Dillon (Margate, Keble's Gazette Office, 1899).]

DICKENS'S " ANTHONY HUMM." The identi- fication of the characters in our great novelists is always an entertaining, if not always a pro- fitable amusement. I was told some years ago that the startling caricature in the 'Pick- wick Papers' of the L T nited Brick Lane Branch Meeting of the Temperance Society was intended to refer to an actual locality and a once-existent teetotal organization. The character of Anthony Humm was said to be based upon that of the late Mr. G. J. Knight, who died in 1875, and was in his day well known as a temperance advocate.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Moss Side, Manchester.

VISITING THE WISHING WELLS. The foil ow- ing is a cutting from the Daily Mail for 8 May :

"In Scotland old customs die hard, especially in the Highlands, as was evidenced yesterday, the first Sunday in May, when the time-honoured practice of paying a visit to the wells, the waters of which are known for their healing virtues, was observed by hundreds of persons. Young and old journeyed from Inverness during the day to St. Mary's Well, which is situated near to blasted Culloden Heath, and after drinking the water a coin was dropped into the well. This act is supposed to be an earnest of good health and success during the