Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/117

 9* s. vii. FEB. 9, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

109

'LASCA.' Can any one tell me where I may obtain an American poem called (I believe) 'Lasca"? It is a tale of the Wild West, and relates how, in a stampede of cattle across the plains, a Mexican girl saves the life of her lover by throwing herself on his body when the horse on which they are both riding stumbles and the cattle rush over ony and riders. The girl, of course, is illed. T. Z.

po kil

MRS. MARY ANNE CLARKE. I shall be obliged if you can give me any information concerning the above-named lady as to her date of birth, maiden name, date of marriage and death. She lived in the reign of King George III., I know, and was intimate with the king's second son, the Duke of York. One of the heralds of the College of Arms thinks the whole matter relating to her was threshed out in your paper.

S. B. TUDBALL.

The Queen, Bath Road, Bournemouth.

[See 1 st S. iv. 396, 493 ; 4 th S. xi. 484 ; xii. 454 6 th S. xi. 308, 373 ; 8 th S. vii. 408. See also ' D.N.B.']

EDMUND CRAVEN COLMAN was admitted to Westminster School on 18 July, 1812. I should be glad to receive any information about him. G. F. K. B.

BUTCHER. Thomas Butcher was admitted to Westminster School on 15 January, 1776, and James Gunniss Butcher on 26 May, 1780. Can any correspondent of 'N. & Q.' give me particulars concerning them 1

G. F. K. B.

CURRENCY BEFORE COINAGE. That great monetary authority Lord Avebury writes : u The banking schemes of ancient Egypt were in copper, circulated by weight." There was no coinage, so some undefined weight of copper was the unit of barter. Well and good ; but it is difficult to reconcile this with the conclusions of Birch and Wilkinson, for the latter writes of " the ordinary scales for weighing the rings of gold and silver that served for money." We are all familiar with the graphic scenes portraying the actual operation thus defined. Of course, the pro- portion of size is not evident ; still the talent is reputed to have consisted of gold. Possibly copper was utilized for the construction of weights. Can this be explained 1

A. HALL.

SHAKESPEARE'S LETTERS. I possess a book, 8vo, 338 pages, which has a title-page as follows :

" A Tour in Quest of Genealogy, through several Parts of Wales, Somersetshire, and Wiltshire, in a

Series of Letters to a Friend in Dublin, interspersed with a Desci iption of Stourhead and Stonehenge, together with Various Anecdotes and Curious Frag- ments from a Manuscript Collection ascribed to Shakespeare, by a Barrister. London, published by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, Paternoster Row. 1811."

The following is taken from p. 29 :

"On our return from the morning's ramble, I was tempted to enter an auction room, where, amongst other articles, books were selling, in the Catalogue said to have belonged to a person lately dead, who had left, as 1 was informed, very little more to pay for his lodgings, which he had occupied for three months only. He was a stranger, had something eccentric and mysterious about him, passed off for an Irishman, but was suspected to have been one from North Wales. I bought two or three printed books, and one manuscript quarto volume, neatly written, importing to be verses and letters that passed between Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway whom he married, as well as letters to and from him and others, with a curious journal of Shakespeare, an account of many of his plays, and memoirs of his life by himself, &c. By the account at the beginning, it appears to have been copied from an old manuscript in the hand-writing of Mrs. Shakespeare,which was so damaged when discovered at a house of a gentleman in Wales, whose ancestor had married one of the Hathaways, that to rescue it from oblivion a process was made use of by which the original was sacrificed to the transcript.

If genuine the extracts are very curious and interesting. What is known concerning this book, and what opinions have been expressed as to its authenticity 1 Also can any of your readers describe the process above referred to by which the "original was sacrificed to the transcript " ? Has the whole manuscript ever been published ? T. TURNER.

Norwich.

[The work is by Richard Fenton, for whom see 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' It is a humorous production, and may be classed with the Ireland forgeries. See 'N. & Q., 3 3 rd S. ii. 331. See also I 8t S. viii. 190; 6 th S. v. 279, 339; Gent. Mag., xci. ii. 644; Halkett and Laing's ' Dictionary of Anonymous Literature.' Fenton, 1746-1821, was known to Goldsmith, John- son, Garrick, and, in later years, to W. Lisle Bowles and Sir Richard Colt Hoare.]

"TIME WAS MADE FOR SLAVES." A writer in the Belgian Times^ referring to the clocks at Antwerp, says that there is inscribed on one of them, "Time was made for slaves." Where can this inscription be seen, and what is the origin of the saying ?

DUDLEY WALTON.

[The saying is first traced in Buckstone's bur : lesque 'Billy Taylor,' produced at the Adelphi about 183U. See 6 th S. ix. 78.]

MARYLEBONE CEMETERY. Lysons, in his 'Environs of London,' vol. iii. p. 253, men- tions as standing in Marylebone Cemetery the tomb of Capt. Thomas Butler Cole, who died at