Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/49

 9th S. IV. July 8,'99.] 33 NOTES AND QUERIES. was removed. Bolingbroke knew better, and carried the poet to France. It would not be impossible on other grounds to discount Walpole s malignant suggestion. The passage quoted by H. T. B. concludes thus :— "He sent Prior back with great anger, and in three weeks was turned out of the Government himself—but it is idle to produce proofs ; as idle as to deny the scheme." If the then Earl of Dorset was indeed " turned out" of his offices of Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports three weeks after he had refused Prior's ad- vances, the fact rather gives the lie to every- thing that is known of Prior's movements in 1712-13. Dorset was "relieved" in June, 1713. Since August, 1712, Prior had been in France, where he had gone in the confidence of Bolingbroke, and did not return till the March of 1715. How could he be treating for the Jacobites at Dover in May, 1713 ? It is not surprising that Horace Walpole should endeavour to sully as many beginnings as possible. Birth must have been a tender subject with him. It is inevitable, and almost satisfactory, that such hints as this about Prior should lead to nothing but a speculation whether Walpole thought his own descent sufficiently sure to warrant his in- dulging in spiteful chatter about the parent- age of his political enemies. George Marshall. Sefton Park, Liverpool. The Reputed Marriage of Cardinal Beaton (9th S. iii. 467). —My friend Prof. Herkless has sent to me the following note on this subject:— " Questions about Beaton's supposed marriage are not new, as may be seen from Archtrolof/ia, xxxiv. p. 35. I think that reference is correct, though I have not the book beside me. I have never been able to discover the slightest evidence for a marriage. I once wrote to the late Rev. J. Stevenson, S.J., who worked so much among Scottish MSS., asking him about this marriage, and he replied that he believed Beaton was never married. I do not see what bearing the Rev. James Carruthers's statement has on this question, since if Beaton was a widower before he took orders, and since Marion Ogilvy survived him, she could not have been the wife. The marriage of the daughter, the initials D. B. and M. O. together in Melgund Castle, and the recogni- tion of sons of Beaton as legitimate, though they were legitimated by Act of Parliament, may account for the supposed marriage of the Cardinal and Marion Ogilvy." George Angus. St. Andrews, N.B. The Poet's Immortality predicted by Himself (9th S. iii. 84).- Any list of the world's greatest bards which should omit the name of Pushkin would be absurdly incomplete. The centenary of this illustrious poet's birth occurs on this 26 May (7 June, New Style), and it is a joy to see how, throughout the Russian dominions, all sorts and conditions of men have combined to do honour to his memory. At St. Petersburg all the shop-windows are crowded with Pushkin albums, postal cards, busts, statuettes, portraits, keepsakes, and innumerable other mementos. I have just received a drinking-mug from the establish- ment of Korniloff Brothers, porcelain, &c. manufacturers, presenting a laurel-crowned bust of the poet surmounting a harp with pen and parchment roll affixed, and the dates " 1799-1899, 26 May, A. Pushkin," whilst at the back are four lines from his celebrated prophetic rhapsody, which I venture thus to do into doggerel verse for the benefit of those who might not understand the vernacular :— Through Russia s mighty realms shall spread my fame; There every spoken tongue shall sound my name : Proud scion of the Sclav, and Finn, and wild, Untam'd Tungoos, and Kalmuik's steppe - nurs'd child. H. E. M. St. Petersburg. Gate : Sign of Inn (9th S. ii. 526 ; iii. 216, 315, 398).—The " Gate Inn," Upper Langwith, Derbyshire, carries a gate for sign, each Darof the gate bearing a line of the four-line verse already given. It is said the lines are bor- rowed from inscriptions formerly on the gates of priories and monasteries, which ran:— This gate hangs well and injures none ; Refresh and pray, and travel on. Were there such inscriptions on the gates of old religious houses 1 Thos. Ratcliffe. Worksop. It will probably interest Mr. G. Yarrow Baldock to learn that there is an inn in Manchester Road, Bradford, which has for a sign a hanging gate on which is painted the inscription he mentions. Chas. F. Forshaw, LL.D. Hanover Gardens, Bradford. Bligh (9th S. iii. 427).—The same question appeared in ' N. <fc Q.' forty-three years ago (2nd S. ii. 40) without eliciting a reply. A subsequent inquiry (7th S. vii. 128) respect- ing Admiral Bligh's place of burial pro- duced the following information (216):— "Admiral William Bligh was born at St. Teath, in Cornwall, on 9 Sept., 1754 ; died in Bond Street, London, on 7 Dec, 1817; and was buried in Lam- beth Churchyard. He married Elizabeth Betham, of the Isle of Man; she died at Durham Place, Lambeth, on 15 April, 1812, aged sixty. Of the admiral's children, Harriet Maria, the eldest