Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/141

 9»s.vi.Auo.ii,i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 115 four sedilia on the north side of the altar i Chester Cathedral. The Rev. Henry Web in his ' Continental Ecclesiology' says tha the south wall of the sacrarium of Ratisbo Cathedral contains five sedilia. The Rev F. G. Lee in his ' Glossary of Liturgical an Ecclesiastical Terms ' tells us that when th three seats are level with each other th celebrant sits in the centre, the deacon o gospeller on his right, and the sub-deacon o epistoler to his left. When arranged on three steps the celebrant sits on the highest the deacon on the next, and the sub-deacoi on the lowest. Dr. Lee also gives remark able examples in Kent; Berkley, Oxfordshire St. Mary's, Leicester; Wellingore in Lincoln shire ; Rushden, Northamptonshire ; Chester ton and Merton, Oxfordshire ; and St. Mary's- Oxford. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. GUNPOWDER IN CHINA (9th S. v. 516).—Th silence of Marco Polo is regarded as a negativi argument against the theory that gunpowdei was invented by the Chinese. The name am date of the discoverer must still be considered as unknown. The matter was discussed in two letters in the Athenaeum of December 1868, and the learned writer of the seconr letter, after reviewing the statements of various authorities, decides against the Oriental origin of this destructive compound Nevertheless it would be unwise to conclude that the matter is settled. Apart from the great divergencies of opinion on the point, there is the testimony of Figuier in his ' Decouyertes Scientifiques,' which is not dis- cussed in the letters in the Athenaeum. He mentions that there is at St. Petersburg a fourteenth-century manuscript in Arabic, which describes certain clumsy firearms known in Arabia. If the powder used in these weapons was employed to propel, and not simply to explode, the statements in the manuscript would go to strengthen the widespread belief that both the Arabs and the Chinese were acquainted with gunpowder in the Middle Ages, and that the former learned its use from the latter. Of course, I express no opinion as to the value of the manuscript in question. T. P. ARMSTRONG. Timperley. It is a common belief that gunpowder has been known to the Chinese for two thousand years, and why Marco Polo omits to mention it I cannot say. From the accounts given of the attempts of Salmoneus and Caligula to imitate thunder and lightning some have been of opinion that gunpowder was known to the ancients (vide p. 263 of the English translation of Dutens's 'Inquiry into the Discoveries of the Moderns'). Bacon, in his ' Essay on the Vicissitude of Things,' says :— " Certain it is, that ordnance was known in the city of the Oxidrakes in India ; and was that which the Macedonians called thunder and lightning and magick. And it is well known that the use of ordnance hath been in China above 2,000 years." CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. Bradford. LA BELLE SAUVACE (9th S. v. 245, 426).— The correctly pronounced name of this old corner of London is undoubtedly Bell Savage Yard, the Gallicized form of La Belle Sauvage being traceable to Addison's mistaken inter- pretation of it, albeit that interpretation was founded on a perversion by a former Bonjface of the inn, who gave currency to it by issuing a tavern token, the obverse of which bore an Indian woman holding a bow and arrow. This was, however, but a tem- porary landlord's whimsy, for not only was it originally an inn owned by one named Savage, who had for his sign a Bell-on-the- Hoop, as is evident from a grant in the reign of Henry VI. quoted by Mr. Lysons, but in advertisements of the London Gazette for February, 1676 ; of the Post-Boy, 27-29 April, 1714; the St.James's Evening Post, 31 January, 1738; the Daily Advertiser, 8 April, 1742 ; and the Whitehall Evening Post, 15 July, 1756, it is invariably called Bell Savage Yard. At lad obtained a firm footing as Belle Sauvage Yard. In 1815 two taverns existed up the yard, one called the " Bell" Tavern and the other the " Belle Sauvage" Tavern, both fre- quented by persons within the rules of the Fleet prison. In the Epicure's Almanack 1815) a Mr. Twallin is described as late of t from the " Bell"), and as having kept the ' Sun " Tavern and Literary Chop House on ,he north side of Ludgate Hill. This " Sun " las long ago vanished ; but it no doubt jossessed interesting associations, for the mthor of the above-mentioned rare little xx>k was anxious to know "why it should >e called a literary chop house, unless the terrible and venerable company of reviewers net there to cut up books as well as chops." n 1851, during the Great Exhibition, it had >ecome La Belle Sauvage International Hotel, There German and French were sjx>ken, as n old handbill in uiy possession announces, 'he Cambridge coach used to set out thence, overing the distance in four and a half ours. In 1729 (Lond. Eve. Post of 2-4 Sept.) the Salisbury Constant Stage Waggon " set out
 * he beginning of the nineteenth century it
 * he Bell Savage (Bell in italics to distinguish