Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/441

 9< s. viii. NOV. 23, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

433

of a play by Samuel Foote (1720-77), produced posthumously in 1805. G. W. N.

Greenock.

COMIC DIALOGUE SERMON (9 th S. vii. 248, 339 ; viii. 309). Several years since a trial of this method of imparting instruction, in some sense resembling the " merry conceit " alluded to by M., was made by a Norwich clergyman at St. John, Timberhill, in that city. Instead of the ordinary sermon a dialogue between two clergymen was introduced, one of whom took the part of the inquirer, asking questions 1 and making objections, &c., while the other replied to both. I do not know whether this plan of teaching has ever been adopted in any other Anglican church.

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME.

1, Rodney Place, Clifton.

"PACK" (9 fch S. viii. 144, 273). At p. 90, vol. i., of the ' Carmina Quadragesimalia,' published at Oxford in 1723, edited by Charles Este, afterwards Bishop of Waterford and Lismpre, who died in 1745, is the follow- ing curious poem illustrative of this subject :

An Aqua sit Elementum Frigidissimum ? Aff r. Dura petit infames Phyllis sub nocte popinas,

Traditur imperio nympha, Bedelle, tuo. Torvus ades baculo immani, scuticaque tremenda;

Et laceras nudam terque quaterque cutem. Mox plaustro invehitur, populo plaudente, per urbem,

Et rite in notas prsecipitatur aquas. Protinus ingenti strepitat plebecula risu :

Nunc ait infames, i, pete, nympha, domos ; Vescvi baud domuit si virga libidinis aestus,

Exstinguet flammam frigida l>mpha tuam.

A note informs us that Vesceus (Anglice Vesey) was "Lictor olim Academicus." Charles Este, the editor, was elected from Westminster to Christ Church in 1715. The first and the second series (issued in 1748) of the book are very interesting from illustrating the manners and customs of those times. They were written by B.A. students of Christ Church, and recited in the School of Natural Philosophy in the Lent subsequent to taking their degree. Up to the first decade of the last century either a copy of Latin verses or a Latin essay was expected from every Bachelor of Arts on determining.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

"OBELISK" (9 th S. viii. 285, 389). The usual Egyptian word for obelisk was tekhen. JBenben is not obelisk, but pyramidion of an obelisk. The translation of the two words is rendered quite certain by texts in which they occur together. The Rev. James King does not assert in his 'Cleopatra's Needle,' nor is

it the fact, " that the word for obelisk on this monument is tekhen" He writes "obelisk (tekhen)" meaning that the obelisk was so called in Egyptian. In this case the obelisk is represented (as common objects frequently are) by an ideogram, the pronunciation of which has to be learnt from texts where the word is spelt out. It is perhaps as well to remark that, although Mr. King happens to be right on this particular point, the talk about " esoteric symbols " with which his book abounds is wholly without foundation. It is evident that he "got up" his hiero- glyphics in the most hasty manner. For instance, he gives an impossible explanation of the common group seten, "king" (p. 71), and he confuses the circle which represents the sun's disc with the circle used to write the letter kh (p. 86). F. W. READ.

ROBERT SHIRLEY (9 th S. viii. 244). Sir Robert Shirley was the youngest of the three adventurous sons of Sir Thomas Shirley, of Wiston, Sussex, by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Kempe, and was of the same family as Shirley, Earl Ferrars. He accom- panied his brother Sir Anthony Shirley to Persia when he went to offer his services to the Shah Abbas the Great, and remained there after his brother had left, ultimately becoming the medium through which Abbas cultivated the friendship of the nations of Europe. In 1609 he was sent as ambassador to Rome, in the pontificate of Paul V., by whom he was treated with* great distinction, and in 1623 he returned to England as am- bassador. He died in Persia in 1627.

Abbas gave him as wife a relation of his own, a beautiful Circassian lady called Teresia, and the Mohammedan monarch stood sponsor to their firstborn. There is a very scarce engraving of Robert Shirley, which has the following inscription: "Robertus Sherley, anglus, Comes Csesareus, eques aura- tus," and under it, "Magni Sophi Persarum Legatus ad Sereniss. D.N. Paulum P.P.V. cseterosque Principes Christianos. Ingressus Romam, solenni pompa, die 28 Septemb. 1609, 8e tat. suse 28. G. M. f. (Romae) 8 V0 ."

The brothers Shirley formed the subject of a play written by John Day, called 'The Travels of the Three English Brothers.'

CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield, Reading.

CROSSING KNIVES AND FORKS (9 th S. viii. 325). It does not require any very great acquaintance with Russian life to be aware that before dining the Russians are in the habit of taking an appetizer or zakuska, as it is called which is set out on a side table,