Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/138

 226 NOTES AND QUERIES. late Thomas Purnell, for whom see 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' Mr. Quiller-Couch has in recent years taken up Purnell's signature, "Q." Hence the mistake. This is the second time I have noticed it. H. T. A STRIKING REPLICA.—The fourth of the remarkable Adyta TTJO-OV, given to the world two years ago by Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt, ran thus: "£yei(p)ov rov ^iQov KaK(i eupjjcreis /J-f, ar^iirOv TO £vov Kayia tKti ctjut (" Raise the stone and there thou shalt find me, cleave the wood and there am I"). With the difficulty attached to this sen- tence, still less with its authenticity or rela- tionship to the Gospels, I have no concern here. My purpose is simply to correlate it with the following Manx proverb supplied by Mr. A. W. Moore in his ' Folk-lore or the Isle of Man ' :— "It is said that as some farmers were cutting their yearly stock of turf on the mountain side near Snaefell, they came upon a large block of stone, on which was engraved— Chyndaa us mish, as yiow us choyrle. Turn thou me, and thou shalt get advice. On turning it, after much labour, they found on the other side— Ta brott cheh boggagh arran croie, Chyndaa us mish myr va roie. Hot broth softens hard bread, Turn thou me as I was before— t. e., ' A soft answer turneth away wrath.'" Without any undue pressure, the situations and root-thoughts of the two dicta suggest a plausible connexion between the two. J. B. McGovEEN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester. THE COMMONEST SURNAMES.—The follow- ing paragraph which has appeared recently in some of the daily newspapers may interest those readers of ' N. & Q. wno make a study of nomenclature:— "A recent appendix to the last census report of the Registrar-General shows that the commonest names in England and Wales are Smith, 253,606, and Jones, 242,100, the next in order being Williams, Taylor, Davies, and Brown. In Scotland, Smith again leads, M'Donald, Brown, Thomson, Robert- son, Stewart, and Campbell following. In Ireland the Murphys head the poll with 6'2,600, and the next most frequent names are Kelly, 55,900; Sullivan, 43,000; Walsh, Smith, and O'Brien." B. H. L. HENBANE.—There is an interesting name for this plant in 'Alphita' which is not noticed in the ' H.E.D.,' viz., hennedwole (? hendwale). Henbane was one of the in- gredients of dwale, a sleeping potion, the use of which was especially "to make a man slepen whyles men kerne hym." It is strange the date 1706. C. C. B. ECCENTRIC MEASUREMENT.—In the will of John Thornton, of Bradford, woolstapler, P.C.C. 507 Swabey, I came across the follow- "ng peculiar measurement: "All those several closes of land to the last-mentioned messuage belonging, containing together about twenty Jays' work and a half (be the same more or less)." I thought the reservation very neces- sary and judicious. W. J. GADSDEN. GEORGE CHAPMAN. (See ante, p. 109.)— When I copied the inscription from Chap- man's monument in the churchyard of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, in 1891, I took the date therefrom as "MDCXX." I am, of course, Eiware that Chapman died in 1634, but shall be glad to know if the date stood as above before the restoration of the monument. I ask this mainly because the date as copied by me is given on a small picture of the monument which appeared in the Mirror of 30 May, 1835. JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire. DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER : MANX LAW.— The Genealogical Magazine for August con- tains a curious piece of information, not, I think, generally known to your readers, and therefore deserving a corner in ' N. <fc Q. Sir R. P. Edgcuinbe says :— " A peculiarity of the Manx law regarding mar- riages already celebrated under the forbidden relationship is, that whilst the children are illegiti- mate during the lives of the parents, the death of either parent legitimatizes the children." EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. MONSTER FROM THE TIBER. — In Pastor's ' History of the Popes,' English version, vol. v. p. 480, there is an account of a won- derful monster found in 1496 on the banks of the Tiber. The Venetian envoys describe it as having " the body of a woman and a head with two faces. The front face was that of an ass with long ears; at the back was an old man with a beard. The left arm was human; the right resembled the trunk of an elephant. In the place of n tail it had a long neck with a gaping snake's head at the end; the legs from the feet upwards and the whole body were covered with scales like a fish." Wo are informed by the author in a note that Franc. Rococioli wrote a book about the creature, but that it is so rare that he has sought for it in vain. The story can hardly be a mere fable; whatever the thing was,
 * hat in the 'H.E.D.' the earliest quotation for
 * he English use of Hyoscyamus should be of