Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/343

 9"- S. IV. Nov. 11, '99.] 397 NOTES AND QUERIES. and cut a faggot of wood with a hatchet and another with a bill-hook. Proclamation was next made : ' Tenants and occupiers of a certain tenement called " The Forge," in the pariah of St. Clement Danes, in the county of Middlesex, come forth and do your service.' The City Solicitor on this occasion counted six horseshoes and sixty-one nails. The Queen's Re- membrancer replied, ' Good number.' Faithful suit and service having thus been made, the ceremony ended." Florence Peacock. Dunstan House, Kirtoti-in-Lindsey. We must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct. " Gradient." — The earliest examples I have of this word (as a substantive in the engineering sense) are of the year 1836, and throw no light on the obscure question why the word was selected to express the mean- ing. Can any older instance be found ? One of my quotations is from the Mechanics' Magazine for August, 1836, and refers to " a contemporary journal" as containing " a violent tirade against the word gradient as at present used by civil engineers." The mode of reference suggests that a rival publication —not, for instance, an ordinary newspaper— is probably meant. I should be glad to know in what periodical this " tirade" appeared, and whether it contains anything that illus- trates the history of the word. The American synonym of gradient, viz. grade, occurs in 1835 ; older examples of this also would be welcome. Henry Bradley. Clarendon Press, Oxford. " Hattle." — In Ray's ' North - Country Words' (1674) this is registered as a Cheshire dialect word, meaning wild, skittish, used of a skittish cow. " Hattle " is no doubt the same as the Chaucerian hatel: " Povert is hatel good," 'C. T.' D. 1195 (Corpus MS.). Compare O.E. hatol, " odiosus, in the Kentish glosses (c. 870) in Wright's 'Voca- bularies' (1884), col. 69. I wish to know whether " hattle" has ever been used in Kent in the sense in which Ray registers it. A. L. May hew. Oxford. Thomas Dover, M.D.—Can any one give me information about the place of burial and will of Thomas Dover, M.D. ? In the 'Dic- tionary of National Biography' he is stated to have died, 1742, in Arundel Street, Strand, but I cannot trace his burial in the registers of St. Clement Danes, nor his will at Somerset House. T. C. Colyer-Fergusson. Wombwell Hall, Gravesend. " The ass bearing books."—In Mr. Zang- will's ' Dreamers of the Ghetto' (1898, p. 283) is quoted a Hebrew proverb, "Chamor nose sefarim" (a donkey bearing books); this seems to be connected with the saying "Asinus portat mysteria," alluding, says Dr. Brewer, to the custom of employing asses to carry trie cista which contained the sacred symbols when processions were made through the streets. In my edition of the ' Dunciad' (1729) the frontispiece is a sprightly-looking ass chewing thistles, laden with the works of Dennis and other objects of Pope's mordant satire, atop of which squats an owl; on the sides of this plate is the legend " Deferor in vicum vendentem thus et odores." Are these later book-laden asses of Hebrew origin ? James Hooper. Norwich. Prince Augustus of Prussia.—In vol. ii. p. 439 of Capt. Duncan's 'History of the Royal Artillery,' published in 1873 by John Murray, mention is made of Prince Augustus of Prussia. Where can I find some account of him, whose son he was, and when he died? R. B. B. Bill of Exchange, 1404. — A bill of exchange of the year 1404, mentioned in Beckman's ' History of Inventions,' is de- scribed as being drawn for "duo millia scutoruni Philippi quolibet scuto pro xxii grossis computato," i.e., for gold at a silver valuation. Can any of your readers give me information with regard to the description of money mentioned in any other early bills of exchange up, say, to the Stuart period or during it? W. W. C. " My lodgino is on the cold ground."— In a copy of Bacon's'Sylva Sy 1 varum ' (ed. 1635) recently presented by Prof. J. E. B. Mayor to the library of this college, I find a Latin translation or "My lodging is on the cold ground." It is apparently written by the same hand which inscribed on the title- page " Wolf ran Mann hunc librum tenet 1665." The lines themselves are dated 27 June, 1666, the words " 7 Sleepers Fest." being appended, though I learn from the ' Book or Days' that the Feast of the Seven Sleepers was 27 July, not 27 June. For comparison I send the modern words of the song as given in Boosey's 'Songs of England,' vol. i. A note is there added, " Words by John Gay, founded on an older