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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vn. MARCH 23, 1901.

of Phrase and Fable,' but this refers only to Pythagoras, with whom the idea is not now supposed to have originated. C. C. B,

[See ' Arabs and Odd Numbers,' ante, p. 225.]

AUTHOR OF VERSES WANTED. A small MS. book in a private collection, entitled 'Ane Example Booke as Followis, 1617,' has on each leaf a large capital letter drawn and ornamented in ink with a pen. Each capital letter is intended to form the begin- ning of a quotation, generally in verse. The letter T has the following : The prettie Lark climing the yilking cleir Chantes with a cheir, heir, peir. I neir my deir then stouping thence, seeming hir fall to Kewe Adewe she sayis, adewe deir, deir adewe.

The letter B has three verses of six lines each. The first verse begins : Breake heavy hart and rid me of this paine This paine that still increaseth day by day By day with sighs, &c.

The last verse ends with

And yet I live and living feele more smart

And smarting cry in waine breake heavy hart.

The letter S has

Spainis Rod, Romis Rowin, Natherlandis Relief heavinis Jem, erthis Joy, worldis wonder, naturis cheif,

eight lines in all, and beneath

" this is qu'in Elisebethis epitaf." Are these verses known 1 B. K. L.

"GiLL's LAP." This is a prominent cluster of trees on a hill about three miles south of Hartfield, in Sussex. What is the meaning of " Lap " 1 Gill is supposed to be derived from Guilderus, a Roman general, buried at Glynde, near Lewes. Gill's Lap is said to have been one of his way posts.

H. G. H.

SIR ANTHONY BRABASON. Would you kindly inform me at what date Sir Anthony Brabason, Bart., lived, and who is hife present representative, as I see it statec that a Mr. Higgins, under the will of his maternal grandfather Sir Anthony Brabason took the name of Brabason ? This Higgim died in 1864. I cannot find any trace of this Sir Anthony Brabason in any genealogica books. RICHARD DASHWOOD.

IRISH HARPS. In the ' National Music of Ireland,' by Michael Conran, p. 214, there is a statement that at the period of the Revolu tion, " when lists were made of the effect.' or property of the proscribed adherents o; James II., it was found that nearly all, even the Anglo-Norman families of the Pale, pos sessed one Irish harp." I am anxious to know

f this list is printed, and if so, in what work ; >r if not printed, the title of the MS. and where it is preserved. I shall be glad to hear of any really ancient harps that are preserved in country houses in Ireland or Scotland. ROBERT B. ARMSTRONG.

6, Randolph Cliff, Edinburgh.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A CITY? Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' tell me the qualifications of a community which entitle it to be called a city in England putting aside the new method of creating such by letters patent under the Great Seal ? Does a city cease to oe so if the bishopric attached to it has been dissolved, e.g., for nine hundred years? Is Westminster a city because it has been an episcopal see, or because it is so styled in writs from the Crown 1 R. F. J. SAWYER.

Christ Church, Oxon.

[Consult 'H.E.D.' under 'City.' See also 3 rd S. ii. 25 and 7 th S. vii. 427.]

MARAT. (See 2 nd S. viii. 256.) Can W. B. C., Liverpool (your correspondent in 1859), or a relative, kindly say if the materials upon which was based the "investigation lately taken at Edinburgh," and reported in the Glasgow Star of 4 March, 1793, are stil^ in existence and can be seen, or can anything still be learnt concerning them 1 VERITAS.

-What is the meaning GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

" To SIT BODKIN."- of this phrase ?

[The term is applied to a team of three horses, two of which are abreast and the third in front. It is thence transferred to the central figure when three persons sit in a hansom or other vehicle. It ap- parently suggests that the figure so seated should make itself flat as a bodkin ; but consult ' E.D. D.' and the ' H.E.D.' See also ' N. & Q.,' 7 th S. viii. 27, 76, 116; ix. 74; 8 th S. xi. 267, 354, 429; xii. 114.]

ROMAN STEELYARD WEIGHTS. Can any one refer me to instances, in public museums or private hands, of steelyard weights of Roman age in the form of male or female heads? I know of two in the British Museum, of one ploughed up in the parish of Haversham, near Newport-Pagnell, Bucks, and of another found on the cliff at Walton- on-the-Naze, Essex. Are the last two now in public institutions 1 If so, where ?

T. CANN HUGHES, M.A.

ROBERT JOHNSON, SHERIFF OF LONDON, 1017. Can any of your readers give the parentage, birthplace, exact date and the place of death, and the correct arms of the above ; also the name and parentage of his wife ? Mr. Cokayne, in his valuable work 'The Lord Mayors and Sheriffs of London: 1601-1625,' was apparently unable to furnish