Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/500

 416 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9th s. vi. NOV. 24, woo. lucrative trade. It would seem from the quotation from Macaulay's ' History ' that my old friend was of the same family as the courageous adherent of the Prince of Orange. R. HOBBINS. THE ORDER OF RAMAKRISHNA (9th S. vi. 347). —The following paragraph, cut from the Daily Chronicle of 7 Nov., will probably interest your correspondent:— "Sister Nivedita, of the Order of Ramakrislma, of Calcutta, is at present in London on a lecturing mission. She appears in lecture halls and drawing- rooms wearing the garb of her Order—a society of Wandering Friars, men and women who devote themselves to the interests of the very poor. Her object is to remove misconceptions as to the reli- gious thought of India, and she addresses herself especially to vindicating the Hindoo character from the charge of untruthfulness made against it. The appearance of untruthfulness, she points out, is really only the Oriental counterpart of the 'con- ventional falsehood' of European social life, having exactly the same object — to make the wheels of every-day life movo more smoothly. On the other hand, she maintains that the pursuit of truth in all its great and essential aspects is revered and practised among the Indian peoples. The so-called idolatry she explains as innocent and even helpful symbolism. Sister Nivedita has on several occasions had the advantage of having as chairman the scholarly Prof. Romesh Butt, now lecturing upon questions of Indian philosophy at University Col- lege. Sister Nivedita is known to her English friends as Miss Noble." G. L. APPERSON. "SEEK" OR "SEEKE" (9th S. v. 26; vi. 211, 291).—Later reading enables me to amend my explanation of " blow the seek," which is not "synonymous," as I surmised, with "blow a rechase " or " recheat." I have met with an example much earlier than 1C21 from the 1 Coucher-Booke of the Honour of Tutburye," as quoted by Blount in his ' Fragmenta Anti- quitatis,' 1679, p. 170, where " blow a Seeke," "blowe a Recheate," and "blowe a Morte" occur successively as three distinct blasts. "Blowe a seoke" is explained by Beckwith, in his 1815 edition of the 'Fragmenta'(p. 532), as "a manner of blowing a huntsman's horn, such as is used when they seek a deer." If this definition be correct, blowing the seek " would bo a signal for opening the chase, not for renewing it when the quest failed. F. ADAMS. PRIME MINISTER (8th S. x. 357, 438; xi. 69, 151, 510 ; xii. 55, 431 ; 9th S. ii. 99 ; iii. 15, 52, 109, 273, 476 ; iv. 34 ; v. 94, 213).—The original query was as to why it was no place was assigned in the table of precedence to the Prime Minister as such, and no allusion even made to such a personage, and the obvious reply came from more than one quarter that in law there is no such office as that of Prime Minister, and that, therefore, the beaier of that title could have no legal precedence. But the Queen has now formally adopted the phrase, as witness the following extract from the official Court Circular :— " The Queen held a Council to-day [Nov. 12] at 1 o'clock, at which were present the Duke of Devon- shire, K.G., Lord President of the Council; the Marquis of Salisbury, K.O., Prime Minister: the Marquis of Lansdowno, K.G. ; the Right Hon. C. T. Ritchie, M.P. ; the Right Hon. St. J. Brodrick, M.P.; and Lieutenant-Colonel the Right Hon. Sir Flcetwood Edwards, K.C.B." It is to be noted that immediately prior to this Council Lord Salisbury had delivered up the Seals of the Foreign Office and had re- ceived the Privy Seal, and that, in the list as given above, he is placed in the regular order of precedence, immediately after the Lord President. What precedence would have been given him if he had taken the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, for example, remains matter for speculation. ALFRED F. ROBBINS. MOATED MOUNDS (9th S. v. 309,399, 454 ; vi. 11, 76, 134, 170, 253, 336).—"The evidence for their Norman origin is overwhelming." By no means do I venture to deny this. Still, is there not a difficulty in the way 1 Could a Norman keep be carried by a piled-up mound of Norman origin? Surely such a mound would need many years' "settling" before it could bear such a burden. A mound formed by scarping a natural elevation is quite another thing. Vide Corfe Keep. H. J. Mo OLE. Dorchester. PICTS AND SCOTS (9th S. v. 2G1, 418, 482 ; vi 90, 190).—Two correspondents have favoured me with replies to my note at the second reference. One of these—that of P. F. H.— can hardly be taken au grand tfritux, and calls for no animadversion other than that my note has pricked him into a humour which is less Scottish than Erse. The old Milesian blood overflows deliciously the banks of its Caledonian canals. With MR. W. M. G. EASTON the case is more serious. He means what he says, and his indictment wears the mask of veracity. But it is only a mask. The offending sentence ran thus: "The Ulster plantation under James was nothing short of a return of the descendants of the original Irish colonists to the mother country," and I find nothing in MR. EASTON'S rejoinder to lead me to change it. My con- tention would hold good were there but one planter-family of Scottish blood, and accord- ing to MR. EASTON'S own showing there were