Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/375

 9* s. vii. MAY ii, woi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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persuading me to dismiss my doctor and send for the White Witch, who was a man. I never could be quite sure that he did not believe in himself. 'At Bideford yesterday Sarah Sayers, widow, of Silver Street, Bideford, was charged with pretend- ing to tell the fortunes of William Hewitt and his father, of Slade, Ilfracombe. On 9 February young Hewitt went to Bideford to see Mrs. Sayers about his father, who was ill. and, he feared, ill wished. Sayers agreed that that was so, and that the son was also overlooked. She would cure them both for 31. 3*. He paid her II. 10*., and she promised to visit Ilfracombe on the Monday fol- lowing, and that [sic] Hewitt must meet her. He did so, and on the way home told her he had lost a pig and some poultry, and another pig he had was not worth anything. She went to the pigsty, and also to the fowls' house, and sprinkled some powder there to cure them, and Hewitt paid her a guinea. Then Sayers gave him some little bags, telling him the whole family must wear them round their necks. Going back to the father's house she gave him a little bag, and said they must tell no one for a month. She said Hewitt, the father, had been overlooked by his master and mistress, Mr. and Mrs. Slee. They had been very kind to him. The woman was paid 12$. by Mrs. Hewitt. In cross- examination the witnesses admitted that the Hewitts did get better. The defence was that Sayers had only done what she was asked to do, and that she did not mention either Mr. or Mrs. Slee. She was fined 31. and II. 18s. costs. 5 "

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct. _

HATELY FAMILY. I should be obliged for information concerning the pedigree and birthplace of the Scottish family of Hately, who bear as their crest an otter's head erased. Who is their senior representative ? How do they connect with the Bethune and Balfour pedigrees, and where can I find published particulars? NEIL WYNN WILLIAMS.

NELSON'S DEATH. Can any one tell me how it came to pass that Mr. W. E. Davis, a competent artist, happened to be on board the victory at the battle of Trafalgar, and could make a very interesting picture of Lord Nelson's death in the cockpit of the ship 1 The picture now hangs in Greenwich Hospital, and the well - known engraving taken from it is the only authentic record of the sad event. The scene on the deck by West, P.R.A., is highly theatrical, and not true to what really happened.

ALFRED GATTY, D.D.

JEAN LE MANIQUE. In the edition of Monstrelet's 'Chronicles' which Smith, of

Fleet Street, published in 1845, in the foot- note on p. 137 reference is made to an epitaph on Jean le Manique, le Sieur de Boucicault, Marechal de France, Comte de Beaufort, ana Vicomte de Turenne. Could you kindly in- form me from what authority the com- mentator derives his knowledge, where that epitaph is, and of what words in full it con- sists 1 DION BOUCICAULT.

34, Duke Street, St. James's.

[We have encountered a Rue or Place Boucicault in one of the cities of Touraine or Poitou, we forget which. ? Poitiers.]

" GREAT BRITAIN " VERSUS " ENGLAND." In his ' Journal to Stella,' under the date 2 December, 1710, Swift says :

"Steele, the rogue, has done the impudentest thing in the world : he said something in a Toiler [No. 241] that we ought to use the word Great Britain, and not England, in common conversa- tion, as 'The finest lady in Great Britain,' &c. Upon this Rowe, Prior, and I sent him a letter turning this into ridicule. He has to-day printed the letter, and signed it with J. S., M. P., and N. R., the first letters of all our names." Is this the earliest known instance of the protest 1 ? "Great Britain" was of course employed much earlier (see ' H.E.D.').

H. T.

ST. GILES'S CHURCH, NORTHAMPTON. I have a newspaper extract which states that down to 1489 the mayor and burgesses of Northampton met in St. Giles's Church, and did their municipal business there. Will some reader kindly oblige me with the authority for this statement 1

S. O. ADDY.

N. OR M. IN THE PRAYER BOOK. Can you tell me if there is any other explanation of these letters being used in the office of baptism than that usually given, viz., that N. stands for name (nomen\ and M. is really NN., the double letter signifying the plural ?

J. A. D.

[See I 8t S. i. 415, 476 ; ii. 61 ; iii. 323, 437 ; 2 d S. xii. 204 ; 4 th S. xii. 204 ; 5 th S. vii. 80 : x. 513 ; 7 th S. iii. 105, 217, 315, 417 ; v. 513 ; vi. 113.]

" PAMINA AND TAMINO." In Goethe's l Her- mann and Dorothea,' Hermann complains that when he called at Minna's, that culti- vated family talked of "Pamina and Tamino," and laughed at him for a clown because he did not understand what they meant. I am in the same strait. What did they mean? If Hermann miscaught the names, what is the correct form ? F. M.

SIR SIMEON STEWARD. In the Bodleian (MSS. Rawl. Poet. 147) there is, in a collection of poems from various hands, a poem ascribed