Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/243

 9*8. VII. MARCH 23, 1901.1 NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Wethers'; some valleys are so choked with then as to be of a general grey tint. Geologists name these masses ' Silicious drit,' or 'Tertiary Sand-stones. They have commonly been named Druid-stones The most satisfactory derivation of the namt Sarsens or Sassens is from the Anglo-Saxon wore for a rock or stone, .se.s\ pi. .men or .sr.scm.s 1. 'Th( people where the stones are found,' says Prof. T. R Jones, ' call them Sasens or Sassans, so that perhaps the word Sarsens is no other than the Anglo-Saxon word for rock properly pronounced.' Other deriva tions have been proposed, Saracen softened to Sarsen, and the Latin saxa, stone [M'C]."

It is the blue-stones at Stonehenge, and not the Sarseris, which are unmatchable in the geology of Great Britain. ST. SWITHIN.

The full geological history of these stones is given by Prof. Thos. Rupert Jones in Wilts Mag., 1886, and Geol. Mag., February and March of the present year. The latter papers are supplementary to the one of 1886. As Prof. Jones is the authority on the subject, examples and localities given are reliable. C. DAVIES SHERBORN.

540, King's Road, S.W.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD (9 th S. vi. 509 ; vii. 92, 157). To the quotations from Dr. Ingram's ' Memorials of Oxford ' given at the last reference with regard to William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, may be added the follow- ing from the ' D.N.B.':

" Smyth's biographer, Churton, after completely disproving Wood's assertion that Smyth was a migrant from Oxford to Cambridge, inclines to identify him with William Smyth, a commoner of Lincoln College in 1478. He would then probably be about eighteen years old."

And further on we read :

"Three of his nephews he made archdeacons in his diocese, appointing one of them, William Smyth, Archdeacon of Lincoln, to the most valuable prebend, it is said, in England. Another of them, Gilbert Smyth, he made a prebendary in 1498, nearly six years before he took sub-deacon's orders. Matthew Smyth, the last Principal of Brasenose Hall and the first of Brasenose College, in all pro- bability a relation of the bishop, was presented by him to a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral in 1508, though he was not ordained sub-deacon till 1512. One of Bishop Smyth's last acts was to grant a lease, probably on beneficial terms, of the manor of Nettleham in Lincolnshire to Richard Smyth, doubtless a kinsman. Churton complains that in Smyth's time the cathedral of Lincoln was ' peopled with persons of the name of William Smyth,' and, from what we know of the bishop's care for his kins- men, it is not unfair to suspect that most of them were relatives whom he indemnified in this way for the diversion of the bulk of his property to his

A. R. BAYLEY. SURNAMES (9 th S. vii. 28, 98). I believe the rVynnes claim that their name is the oldest >n record as a surname. My very old friend
 * College."

the Rev. G. R. Prynne, the venerable vicar of St. Peter's, Plymouth, writes me :

"Prynne is the only family name which occurs in the ' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,' which is the oldest historical record we have of English history. It was, it appears, the family name of the last king of Kent. The name has been spelt variously. Laud, in his defence, in the same written speech, spells it in three ways, ' Pryn, Prynn, and Prynne,' in alluding to one and the same person, i.e., the famous William Prynne, the leading counsel against him. I do not think it ever could have had a 'de' before it, as that prefix to names was introduced into this country with the Norman Conquest, and could hardly have been applicable to an Anglo-Saxon name. I believe a book was published at Bath a few years ago, entitled ' Swaenswick,' which gives much fuller information relative to the very ancient surname of Prynne."

HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

PALL-MALL AND GOLF (9 th S. vi. 444 ; vii. 52). An article on the 'Game of Pall-mall,' accompanied by four illustrations (two of the mallets, and two of the postures of the player) from Lauthier, by Mr. Henry B. Wheat-ley, will be found in the Antiquat^y for April, 1881. RICHARD LAWSON.

Urmston.

A POEM ATTRIBUTED TO MILTON (9 th S. vi. 182, 238, 292 ; vii. 90). Chaucer, in the begin- ning of the second book of 'The House of Fame,' has the lines :

that in Parnassus dwel Besyde Helicon the clere wel. The " in Parnassus " of Chaucer may be com- pared with the " in Helicon " of Milton ; and we may be sure that the later poet in his epitaph meant Helicon to be a mountain. In 'Paradise Lost' he mentions the Apnian mount ; and this must be Helicon, which is n Boeotia. Chaucer in the above lines shows great confusion. He thinks Helicon to be a mmtain near Parnassus. But Parnassus is n Phocis, and its fountain is Castalia. Heli- con is in Boeotia, and with its rivers, Per- messus and Olmeius, and its fountains, tlippocrene and Aganippe, is described by Vlilton as " mediis Helicon in undis."

E. YARDLEY.

DAVENPORT-HuLME(9 th S. vii. 129). Baines's Lancashire' furnishes a pedigree of the Hulmes of Hulme, in the county of Lan- 3aster. Other particulars of families bearing ,he name of Hulme will be found in 'N. & Q.,' i rd S. vi. ; 6 th S. xi. ; 7 th S. ii., iii. ; and 8 th S. xii.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

SHIPS OF WAR ON LAND (9 th S. vii. 147). 'erhaps it is worth while to mention Bruce's