Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/119

. v. FEB. io, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Ill

that Peter Ellis was of Iscoyd. The date o any information about him I shall be glad tc learn. PYM YEATMAN.

Thorpe Cottage, Teddington.

There was a family bearing the name o Ellis long resident in Hanmer parish, in th< hundred of Maelor, in the county of Flint Their principal residence was at The Wern about a mile from Hanmer Church, which maj be known to some of the readers of ' IS". & Q. as having been gutted by fire in 1891. There are several allusions to the members of th family in the celebrated Philip Henry \ 'Diary,' published by the late Canon Lee Andrew Ellise, of Hanmer, gent., was one of " the Jury to inquire for his Highness the Lord Protector touching Ecclesiastical P'motions " (p. 25).

" 1670, Aug. 22. I visited Mr. Andrew Ellis of y Wern, who thought himself past ye worst, but dy'd ye second day after, an upright, peaceable, usefu man in his place."

The following year Philip Henry's sistei Katharine married Mr. Tobias Ellis, son, apparently, of Andrew, with whom she livec unhappily as appears :

" 1680. Jan. 21. Sister Ellis ill, her husb. unkind vide Exod. 4, Romans 8. 17, if children then heirs.'

"Feb. 11. Received a letter from sister Sarah wherein she wrote mee word of the death of my dear sister Ellis," &c. P. 284.

I have little doubt that the Peter Ellis, jurisconsultus, was a member of this family, though I have not yet been able to locate his position in the pedigree. "1st" doubtless = Iscoed, the adjoining parish to Hanmer, where Philip Henry owned Broad Oke, and where he lived the latter part of his life. This property is still possessed by his de- scendants. GEORGE T. KENYON.

BILL OF EXCHANGE (9 th S. iv. 397). Tn the ' Bibliotheque de 1'Ecole des Chartes' (third series, ii. 70, 1851) is printed a protest (dated 14 November, 1384) of a bill, which runs as follows :

" Al segnor Antonio Laurentii, en Genoa, p. a. de 576 f. e 21 sol. Januo [merchant's mark],

"En nome de Dio, Seta, die vn septembris MCCCLXXXIIII. Segnor, per questa primera litera piyeres a xxx jorui vista a me p. Antonio Grille DLXXVI floreni de flor e xxi soldi januari, et sunt p. cambi de cccm lire xv e vi barcellonenses che 6 ricevudo da Jac. de Varxi a ragione de soldi xiiu per floreno; perche vos prego che fazate bon compimento al tempo. Vostro Raimondo Salvador."

This protest is recorded in the books of the notary Theramo de Magiolo (' Notarial Archives of Genoa,' fogliazzo 5, p. 191b) in Latin.

Doubtless some of your readers can identify the dialect of this bill : what appear to be misprints or rnisreadings may be linguistic peculiarities.

Noel, in his ' Histoire de Commerce,' i. 281, says that the same volume of the * Biblio- theque' contains a copy of a bill of exchange of 1204, but his reference seems to be in- correct. Q. V.

EGYPTIAN CHESSMEN (9 th S. v. 28). On what ground does A. M. assert that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the game of chess? All the evidence is the other way. That a game was played on a board something after the manner of our draughts is certain; but chess can hardly be played unless the pieces used are of various shapes, and no such pieces from ancient Egypt appear to be known. Birch states that " the set of each player was alike, but distinct from thatf of his opponent" (Wilkinson's ' Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,' ed. Birch, ii. 55, note). This statement is borne out by the illustrations on pp. 57, 59, and 60 of the same work, as also by the actual pieces with which the game was played, some fine specimens of which may be seen at the British Museum. A.. M. refers to an engraving of " this game " (i. e., chess) in the Art Journal, but the pieces there figured accord exactly with Birch's description, and the writer of the article in which the illustration occurs considered that the game represented was one resem- bling draughts. If, as stated, one of the objects shows two infants swathed, nothing further is needed to prove that they are not "of ancient Egyptian origin." The idea of swathing an infant would have appeared ridiculous in ancient Egypt, where princesses ven went naked for several years of child- hood.

Probably this is one of the not very rare cases where a strange object of unknown origin is attributed to that land of strange objects ancient Egypt. Can A. M. ascertain Drecisely why such an attribution is made 'n this instance? F. W. READ.

MARRIAGE GIFT (9 th S. v. 7). For the spoon,

as a domestic utensil, may be claimed the

lighest antiquity. The importance of the

part it played in the meals of our remoter

ancestors (consisting as these did largely

) spoon-meats such as puddings, porridge,

white-meats, soups, possets, and the like),

and consequently its importance also in

elation to their daily life, seems to have

levated it in the popular estimation to

,n almost superstitious degree as a symbol