Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/84

 78

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. m. JAN. 28, m

Antiquities,' calls it " the holy or fortunate cap or hood," and gives many instances of the belief that children so born will be very fortunate. The following paragraph, from a current number of the Lancet, shows that the superstition has not died out :

"A letter has been received by a correspondent, a medical man, asking him if he feels disposed to buy a caul, or, in case the article is of no use to him, if he can recommend an establishment where cauls are purchased. We believe that there is still some market for cauls among sailors, who retain their belief in the efficacy of the membranes as a protec- tion against shipwreck and drowning, and we endorse the notice given by our correspondent to try the mercantile marine. Notices of ' Cauls for Sale Within' were to be seen recently in windows in the vicinity of the docks both of London and Liverpool, but it is some time since we have noticed an advertisement of a caul for sale in the daily press. It may be remarked that the sale of cauls, so far from being a very ancient custom, is a com- paratively modern innovation. The witchcraft of the Middle Ages declared against the caul retaining any virtue whatever if parted with by gift or sale to any but a member of the child's kindred. Probably it was the midwife, as is pointed out in ' Credulities Past and Present,' by W. Jones, who discounte- nanced this exclusive view of the matter, and pro- ceeded to turn the accident of parturition into coin of the realm."

EVEEAKD HOME COLEMAN.

WOLLASTON ARMS (9 th S. ii. 429 ; iii. 29). The monument erected by William Wollaston to the memory of Alice Coburn is not in Stratford Church, as stated in Mr. K. E. Chester Waters's book, but in the church of St. Mary -le- Bow, Bow Road, Middlesex, where she was buried. EITA Fox.

HEREDITARY ODOUR (9 th S. ii. 505). The notion of a distinct odour being associated with a family is not exactly new. It is a notion that must have got, or been put, in the head of Louis XIII., who often said, boast- fully, " Je tiens de mon pere, moi, je sens le gousset." This is a claim to an hereditary odour ; a heritage not at all desirable, though the king was proud of it, for Madame de Verneuil told Henri IV., in reference to this property, " que bien lui prenait d'etre roi, que sans cela on ne le pourrait souffrir, et qu'il puait comme charogne " (see ' Memoires de Tallemant, Henri IV.'). B. D. MOSELEY.

I am quite certain that if I was blindfolded, and had been placed by the side of my late father, say, at the dinner table, and not told who was sitting by me, I should have known at once he was not far off, there was such a queer odour, not from the breath, always emanating from him. He was a non- smoker, but fond of port wine, and I always used to put it down to this. I notice it also

in some of my brothers who neither smoke nor drink port. ALFRED J. KING.

I would cite "a man of your rank and smell," vulgar, but expressive. A. W. T.

FURLY OF COLCHESTER, ESSEX (9 th S. iii. 27). I have in my possession several notes of births, marriages, and deaths of the above family dating from the year 1613 down to the

E resent time. They refer principally to that ranch of the family who were members of the Society of Friends. I shall be pleased to place these notes at the disposal of your cor- respondent MR. ARTHUR BRENT, if he will communicate with me. RITA Fox.

64, Watling Street, B.C.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

Memoirs of the Verney Family from the Restoration to the Revolution, 1660-1696. By Margaret M. Verney. Vol. IV. (Longmans & Co.) THE task begun by Frances Parthenope, Lady Verney who died before her work saw the light of compiling from documents and pictures at Claydon House a history of the Verney family has been accomplished by her successor, Margaret Maria, Lady Verney, and the complete work, so far as concerns the scheme proposed, has now seen the light. On this the lover of history is to be con- gratulated. Works which, like the present, conduct us, so to speak, personally through some of the most striking epochs of history, and show us the thoughts of active participators in the struggles and the influence upon domestic life of the events under which the State reeled, are, necessarily, scarce and precious. Twice already (see 8 th S. i. 465 ; vii. 179) have we drawn attention to the fortunes of the family, the first instalment presenting them in action, with Sir Edmund Verney in the thick of the fight at Edgehill, his hand, cut off at the wrist, still grasping the royal standard committed to his charge ; the second occupied with the difficult, but indispensable task of gathering together such scraps of family property as con- tributions and exactions and confiscations on both sides have left. In this third and concluding por- tion times are somewhat easier. The Restoration has brought to the land a respite from civil war, and the troubles we encounter are those only to which humanity is at all times subject. Touching references to past vicissitudes or calamities are still encountered, and we find the day of the dis- astrous fight at Edgehill and the death of the standard-bearer still observed.

If the records of the fourth volume are on the whole less stimulating than those of its prede- cessors, it is to be remembered that the times were more peaceable. Revolutionary influences such as drove James II. from the throne pass com- paratively lightly over the Buckinghamshire home, and though we have pictures of the consternation caused by the ravages of the Plague and the Fire of London, the rebellion of Monmouth, and the trial of the bishops, the main purport of the notes and correspondence is domestic. Some very lively entries deal with the exploits of highwaymen, and we find,