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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. JUNE 23, 1000.

what sum would it be thought? nothing less than 2001. We only wish he may get it ! " I think I am correct in stating that 380/. was given for a Id. Mauritius, but am a little confused between the prices given for rare postage stamps and the eggs of the great auk. It would be well, perhaps, if some one would record in ' N. & Q.' the highest price ever paid for a single stamp. The stamp dealers Messrs. Stanley Gibbons & Co., whose business was lately formed into a company with a very large capital, were established in 1856. The last word in the editorial above referred to is timbrophily, a more pretentious and less euphonious word than its successful rival, philately. I almost owe an apology for unburying it. Neither word is given in the dictionary in my possession.

HOLCOMBE INGLEBY. Heacham Hall.

"FEBRUARY FILL-DYKE " (9 th S. v. 188, 277, 384). The various readings of this rime in Herefordshire, Essex, East Riding of York- shire, also in Ray's ' English Proverbs,' Percy Society's Transactions, * Holderness Glossary,' Hazlitt's ' English Proverbs,' and lastly, but not least, in the first seven series of 'N. & Q.,' will be found in ' English Folk-Rhymes,' by G. F. Northall, 1892, pp. 433-4.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

The version which I knew as a child it has many variants was :

February, February, fill dyke With either black or white ; But if it is white, The better to like !

" If it did both," an old farmer used to say, "an' did both well, it wer better an' better."

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

BEEZELEY (9 th S. v. 88). This name pro- bably means " the bees' field "; but it may also be from a personal name (e.g., A.-S. Bedg, "ring," "necklet," "bracelet," with g palat- alized or evanescent according to rule), as in the case of Beeston, St. Bee's, &c. Local his- tory must decide. As to the z for s, cf. " frieze "=Fr. /rise. HY. HARRISON.

ROYAL ARMS, ELIZABETH AND EDWARD VI. (9 th S. v. 436). One cannot distinguish with anything like certainty between the arms of either of these sovereigns, though it appears that it is usual to accept the hound as the sinister supporter of Elizabeth, and the dragon of Edward VI. The garter encircles both, because both were sovereigns of that order.

" Semper eadem " was the favourite motto of Elizabeth, rather than " Dieu et mon droit, though both were used. Of course, mottoes may oe varied at pleasure, and are not a part of the arms Burke does not attempt to dis- tinguish the arms of the different sovereigns ; he shows the variations in the arms of the office of sovereign, which arms are not hereditary, but are gran ted to each sovereign, and differenced when occasion needs.

It is known to law and heralds, re royal heraldry, that in England riot a single mem- ber of the royal family inherits any arms or title (except in the case of the secondary titles of the Prince of Wales), but they are com- moners, below the rank of armigerous gentle- men. This is the reason of the confusion of royal heraldry generally, not only of Eliza- beth and Edward VI., but in our own day of the Prince of Wales and his brothers.

The most trustworthy information con- cerning royal heraldry, and probably the only trustworthy information, snould not be sought elsewhere than at Her Majesty's College of Arms. R. F.-J. SAWYER.

Oxford.

So recently as 9 th S. i. 36 four replies were given to a query on this subject, in one of which it was stated that the lion arid dragon were the royal supporters during the latter years of the reign of Henry VIII. and the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. Special attention was directed to 8 th S. ix. 228, 477, where the heraldic supporters of English sovereigns from the reign of Edward III. to that of James I. (1327-1625) are fully set forth. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

TENNYSON QUERY (9 th S. v. 415). It is, I should say, the failure of sight that is meant. To the eyes of one in good health the case- ment at dawn grows something more than " a glimmering square." Many years ago I heard a lecturer on Tennyson remark upon this " beautiful bit of realism."

May I under this head ask another ques- tion concerning Tennyson 1 The Daily News in a notice of Mr. Churtori Collins's edition of Tennyson's 'Early Poems' (for Messrs. Methuen) recently called attention to the alteration Tennyson made, in ' A Dream of Fair Women,' from One drew a sharp knife through my tender throat

Slowly and nothing more,

to

uivered at the victim's throat new no more. The writer in the Daily News, in common with most critics, commends the change ; Mr.

The bright death qu Touch'd ; and 1 ki