Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/139

 9 th S. V. FEB. 17, 1900.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

131

tion being derived from " various accounts received this morning." Then follows (in the same column):

" Third Edition. Star Office. Four o'clock. We again stop the Press [the italics are mine] to an- nounce, that a Messenger is just arrived from St. Petersburgh to the Russian Minister, with dis- patches, which state, that half the French Army were immolated on the twenty-ninth ult. The above are the precise words of the official dispatch to the Russian Ambassador."

G. E. WEAEE.

Weston-super-Mare.

TALTARUM, A SURNAME (9 th S. v. 28). It would be interesting to know how the name is written in the original MS. record of the famous case. May not the termination rum be the modern expanded form of the semi- colon used to indicate an abbreviation 1 ? In this way Sarum as a name of a place arose from the misreading of sa; or sar; the abbre- viation used for Saresbiria. The name Sarum at full length was first used, so far as I have been able to discover, in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Taltarum may thus be a misreading of an abbreviation of some name beginning with Talta. A. R. MALDEN.

Salisbury.

For the explanation of this name, see Mr. F. W. Maitland in the Law Quarterly Review, vol. ix. (1893), p. 1, and Mr. G. J'. Turner, ibid., vol. xii. (1896), p. 301. Mr. Maitland shows that the fourth letter of the name is k or c, not t. Mr. Turner gives further explana- tions, and concludes that the true name is Talcarne or Talcarn. According to him, Tol- carn is a place and family name in Cornwall. Taltarum's was a Cornish case. C.

PRESERVATION OF SILK BANNERS (9 th S. iv. 459, 523). The modern plan is to encase the banners in muslin or some sort of oiled net. Any varnish or medium applied to the silk would only cause it to crack. E. E. COPE.

ALTARS AT GLASTONBURY (9 th S. iv. 498). The poem of St. Aldhelm, ' De Basilica edifi- cata a Bugge filia Regis Anglise,' will be found on pp. 115-17 of Dr. Giles's edition of the works of St. Aid helm, and ' Poema de Aris Beatse Marise et Duodecim Apostolis dedicatis' follows on pp. 118-28. Concerning these Dr. Giles writes in his preface, p. viii :

"The poems 'De Basilica' and 'De Aris' are published among the works of Rhabanus Maurus and Alcuin ; but Mai restores the former to Aid- helm in his 'Classici Auctores,' vol. v., on the authority of a MS. in the Vatican, adding a note that the other also belongs to Aldhelm. This opinion is confirmed by the authority of MS. 8318 (Bib. Reg., Paris), which also contains another fragment now first published ; but all these three

pieces are from one continuous poem in the MS. without division or separate heading, and the first part of the poem ' De Aris,' commencing with the words 'Hanc aulam Domini,' precedes the poem 'De Basilica.'"

'De Basilica' must have been written between the death of Caed walla, 20 April, 689, and that of St. Aldhelm, 25 May, 709. There is nothing in the poem to connect it with Glastonbury, but the lines

Fratres concordi laudemus voce tonantem, Cantibus et crebris conclamet turba sororum,

and also

Et lector lectrixve volumina sacra resolvat, clearly show that Bugga's minster was a double house of men arid women like Whitby and Barking. If the first part of ' De Aris/ commencing "Hanc aulam Domini servat tutela Marise," is really the beginning of ' De Basilica,' Bugga's church must have been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, a conclusion which is supported by the allusions in. the poem itself to the festivals of her nativity and assumption ; but this does not enable us to identify her minster. The Bishop of Oxford ('Diet. Christ. Biog.,' s.v.) identifies Bugga with Eadburga, Abbess of Minster, in Thanet, who died about 760. This, however, seems unlikely, and he refers the poems to Alcuin. C. S. TAYLOR.

Ban well Vicarage.

No. 17, FLEET STREET : MRS. SALMON'S WAXWORKS (9 th S. iv. 378, 395, 481, 543). I have in my possession the late Mr. T. C. Noble's MS. collections for a history of Fleet Street, the most important portions of which were incorporated in his 'Memorials of Temple Bar,' of which I also have the author's own copy, with additional notes. Considering the historic importance of the house, the informa- tion given in this book regarding No. 17, Fleet Street is far from satisfactory. The additional data which have been furnished by MR. JOHN HEBB in these columns are therefore extremely valuable. It would be interesting to know something further re- garding the establishment of Mrs. Salmon's Waxwork Exhibition. In the Spectator for 2 April, 1711, No. 28, Addison says :

"It would have been ridiculous for the Ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have lived at the Sign of the Trout ; for which Reason she has erected before her House the Figure of the Fish that is her Name-sake."

Further allusions are made to this ingenious lady in the numbers for 5 April, 1711, No. 31, and for 20 Oct., 1714, No. 609, and it is evident that the waxworks were then a well-known and popular exhibition. MR. MAcMiCHAEL follows Thornbury ('Old and New London,' '. 45) in supposing that Mrs. Salmon survived