Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/214

 176 NOTES AND QUERIES. 19° S. VL Sm. 1.1900- fv. Fabrigas “ the plaintiff declared that the defendant on the lst of September, in the year 1771, with force and arms, &c., made an assault upon the said Anthony at Minorca, (to wit) at London aforesaid. in the parish of St. Mary-le-Bow, in the Ward of Cheap,” dsc. Any parish in London might be named, and it is quite likely that some case was in 1776 the talk of the town. in which St. Martin’s happened to be the one chosen. I am unable to suggest a reason for a parish in Westminster being so selected. Q. V. HENRY SPENCER Assess (991 S. vi. 121).- In a very interesting article at this reference by MR. RALPH THOMAS it is stated that “about 1877 ” Ma. Assam: first became a contributor to ‘N. dz Q.’ I imagine the articles signed H. S. A. in the last volume of the Fourth Series are from his pen. This would makehis first appearance on ll October, 1873 ; his last was on 21 January, 1899. The Editor suggests that MR. ASHBEE wrote the ‘Index Librorum Prohibitorum.’ This appears hardly consistent with MR. AsHBEE’S state- ment in a note on an _‘Essay on Woman’ (5"‘ S. vii. 409). Where was Mn. Asnmm buried? Are his memories of great men-sig., George Cruik- shank M. De apierre, M. aul Lacroix, and Lord Houghton--to be published? His use was very full, and doubtless he could have told good stories of many men of note. It is gratifying to see t at his library (even, I assume, under conditions) has become the property of the nation. It deserves to be recorded in your columns in due course whether his pictures and drawings alike pass under Government control. T. CANN HUom:s. Lancaster. FIGURES ISSUING FROM SPIRAL SHELLS (9"‘ S. vi. 106).-I was about to reply that the graceful lines of a spiral shell, not difiicult to reproduce in wood, and the suggestive cavity within, were all-sufficient to ead mediaeval carvers to shape out the figures noticed by your correspondent. I thought mere freaks of fancy accounted for them all. I find, however, that Mr. T. Tindall Wildrid e (‘ The Grotesque in Church Art ’) thinks otherwise. He believes that we have in the shell-babe issuant the survival of a sun-myth, and perhaps the best explanation that he offers of it is that the shel stands for the ocean and the child for “the sun rising from the sea at some particular zodiacal period ” (Sp. 53). The little one is often being attacke by a dragon, and its pa an original was perhaps Horus, who kil eg Typhon, having been aforetime cast into the sea b Osiris, who appointed him a shell as his cfywelling-place. At New College, Oxford, there is an age or a fox instead of the child, and the e ect is quaint (pp. 50-59). ST. SWITHIN. ‘ FULHAM, OLD ANU Nsw’ (9'»*‘ S. vi. 99).- Readingoghe suggestive notice of Mr. Féret’s grand k, the reference to fishing rights, enumerating “four hundred smelts,” lus- trates the title ‘Westward for Smelts’ in Shaksperian literature; further it appears that Strand Green was the Billingsgate of that epoch. A. ALL. High ury, N. DEDICATION or AUTHOR 'ro Hxmssmr (9“' S. v. 167, 237, 320).-‘ A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke’ be 'ns as follows: “The Author to Herself: Madam, Tho’ Flattery,” &c. The copy I have access to has lost the title - ge, but a passage towards the end is wortliaquoting :- “ This Day April 19. 1755 is published the Eigith and Last Number of ‘ A Narrative of the Life of rs. Charlotte Charke’ with a Dedication from and to myself: The properest Patroness I could have chosen, as I am most likely to be tenderly partial to my poetical Errors and will be as bounteous in the Reward as we may reasonably imagine my Merit may claim.” Aasnvn. HORNS or Mosss (9"' S. v. 284).-Bacchus, sometimes identified with the sun, had golden horns :- Te vidit insons Cerberus aureo Cornu decorum. Horace, book ii. ode 19. In a note in the Delphin Horace acom- parison is made between Moses and Bacchus n the time of Homer and Hesiod, Apollo was not the sun- od of the Greeks, though he became so afgterwards; and his name seems to have an afiinity with that of Belinus, the sun-god of the Celts. E. YARDLEY. Are such passages allegorical or literal? In Exodus xxxiv. we are told that the face of Moses beamed. Now I see nothing in a “shining” countenance, say like that of Sha.kspere’s schoolboy, to startle the Israelites. There is a danger in belittling facts, so the details must ave been sue as to inspire terror; the words “keren oer enice” cover a horn or ray of fire before him. Such horn would have two peaks like the Dhu’l Karnein,or two-horned Macedonian conqueror. See also the “Ram with two horns” in Daniel. Then we have in Habakkuk iii. 4, “horns or rays from His hand.” Such horns or rays are projectiles, emalwtions, calculated to