Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/453

 9*s. vi. NOV. 10. i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 377 falling. MR. SIMPSON says that my strength does not lie in criticism. I might have the same opinion of him, but I am too polite to say so. He adds that perhaps I deride the passage in ' Pericles ' about the billows kissing the moon. I deride nothing that Shakspeare has written ; I only doubt his sea knowledge. I dwelt chiefly on the un- natural descriptions of the sea in Shakspeare's plays. I have allowed that exaggerated lan- guage is used by sailors, and by poets who certainly have seen the sea. The exaggerated language of Ovid may be seen also in Virgil, "fluctusque ad sidera tollit." Thomson, in his ' Seasons,' has : — The mountain billows to the clouds In dreadful tumult swelled. Ovid was so fond of conceits that it was cliffi" cult for him to be natural. Shakspeare was also fertile in conceits, but he could rise superior to them. I quoted the lines of Horace because they give such a perfect image of a coming storm, and tell how the shore is strewn with seaweed afterwards. Homer also men- tions seaweed : — ' Iliad,' bk. ix. L 7. Milton says that the fish " graze the seaweed their pasture." Shelley says :— I see the Deep's untrampled floor, With green and purple seaweeds strown. Pope, in the ' Essay on Man,' has the line From dirt and seaweed as proud Venice rose. Campbell has written : — Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore. Shakspeare never mentions seaweed, unless he does so in one passage, where waves is usually read instead of weeds. Generally the poets, however slight their touches may be when they describe the sea, give us a true image of it. Tennyson makes the disgusted seamen ask : — Is there any peace In over climbing up the climbing wave ? Gray, says: — Here sea-pills scream, and cormorants rejoice, And mariners, though shipwrecked, fear to land. Here reign the blustering North and blighting East. MB. SIMPSON says that 1 have ignored some- thing which he has quoted ; but undoubtedly he has ignored some of my remarks, which I have repeated in my letters on this subject in order to enforce my argument. I cannot, however, continue to repeat them. E. YARDLBY. TWYFORD YEW TREE (9th S. vi. 29, 154, 218, 278). — The Caerhun yews are catalogued by Dr. Lowe in his 'Yew Trees' (Macmillan & Co.), p. 82, and measurements are given. My friend the late Rev. F. A. Malleson, vicar of Broughton-in-Furness, had a theory that the girth multiplied by twenty-three would give the age. How he obtained the theory I never knew—possibly from some foreign author, as the height from the ground for the measurement did not seem to enter into the calculation ; but it makes all the difference in an old yew. S. L. PETTY. Ulvereton. THE ABB£ LE LOCTRE (9th S. vi. 310).—A great deal about him is to be found in Beamish Murdoch's ' History of Nova Scotia,' vol. ii. pp. 40-274. Governor Lawrence's proclama- tion offering 25/. for every Micraac scalp is given on p. 308. More details are in the •Collections of the Nova Scotian Historical Society' for 1886-7, pp. 49-82. The giving 1,800 Hvres for eighteen English scalps by Le Loutre is mentioned on p. 56. Le Loutre was the person most to blame for the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755. M. N. G. ANCIENT AND MODERN NAMES OF CITIES, TOWNS, &c., IN ENGLAND (9th S. vi. 288).— MB. MASON will find a list of the modern equivalents for the majority of the places named in Domesday Book in a work entitled 'A Translation of the Record called Domes- day,' by the Rev. William Bawdwen. 1812. My copy only contains five counties—Middle- sex, Herts, Bucks, Oxford, and Gloucester: but another volume contains Yorkshire and part of Lancashire, Westmoreland and Cum- berland, and there may be others. The two volumes are in the Guildhall Library. W. B. GERISH. Bishop's Stortford. A fairly long list forms an appendix to ' A Law Dictionary; or, the Interpreter of Words and Terms,' <&c., by Dr. John Cowel, 1727 edition. RICHARD LAWSON. Urmston. The new catalogue of ' Charters,' published by the authorities of the British Museum, would very likely give your correspondent the information he seeks. ANDREW OLIVER. GEORGE GILBERT (9th S. vi. 209) — I am unable to supply any particulars concerning George Gilbert himself, but I would suggest that possibly his ancestor may have oeen William Gilbert, M.D., born in Colchester in 1540. He was famous for his researches in the science of magnetism, and published his great work ' Do Magnete' in 1600. He died in 1603, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Col- chester, where an inscription to his memory