Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/502

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NOTES ' AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. DEC. u, mi.

because the ecclesiastical rank of an arch- bishop is, or was, accounted in some way the equivalent to the civil or military rank of a duke. The Catholic Vicars Apostolic cer- tainly pontificated in mitres in the seven- teenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Old editions of Dr. Challoner's works have frontispieces representing that venerable bishop vested in full pontificalia, including the mitre, and holding the pastoral staff. Porny was, therefore, decidedly in error. I might add that the portraits of Bishop Chal- loner show him wearing a full-bottomed wig under the mitre.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

SNOW-FEATHERS (9 th S. viii. 403). I well remember the glee with which other children and I welcomed the first fall of big snow- flakes on a still day. " The old woman above was plucking geese "geese, I suppose, because "Michaelmas geese "were generally about due. Another saying was that " Th' owd woman at Scotland was plucking geese." THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Falling snow in Devonshire generally in- duces the juveniles to say, "Thol dummun's

pickin' 'er guze."

W. CURZON YEO.

In Nottinghamshire we used to say when it snowed that the " old woman was shaking her feather-bed " or " plucking her geese." I do not remember that we ever inquired who the " old woman " was. C. C. B.

There is a couplet which the children in- variably repeat here when it snows. It runs as follows :

See the old woman 's a-picking her geese ; She sells her feathers a penny apiece. No doubt Clare had this rime in his mind when he wrote the lines quoted by COM LINC. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

DEMON REPENTANT (9 th S. viii. 242). This note reminds me that Robert Burns, in his ' Address to the Deil,' hints at the possibility of batan's repentance, no doubt jocularly : But fare-you-weel, auld Niclie-ben '

wad ye tak a thought an' men' ! Ye aiblins might I dinna ken- Still hae a stake

1 m wae to think upo' yon den,

Ev'n for your sake !

DOLLAR. Neenah, Wis.

NEWSPAPER ERRORS (9 th S. viii. 403) The quaint mistake referred to in connexion with the Ked Mass recalls a point which may be worth noting. English Catholics use at th< present day a curious phrase, applied to th<

aymen (generally boys) who, habited in assock and cotta, officiate within the chancel >r sanctuary, whether as servers at Mass or is thurifers, torch -bearers, or the like. Such )ersons are said to be " on the altar." One f ten hears such a remark as " I know that )oy by sight ; he is on the altar at St. Mary's."

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

Some Feudal Coats of Arms. By Joseph Foster,

Hon. M.A. (Parker & Co.)

ONE of the most indefatigable of scholars and writers, Mr. Joseph Foster has taken up the )osition vacated by Col. Chester and has enriched works of established authority and recognized mportance. His 'Alumni Oxonienses ' did for Dxford University what that institution could not, Dr would not, do for itself, and what no other university, so far as we are aware, has had done ~or it by others. He now proceeds to show that
 * he twin studies of heraldry and genealogy with
 * he recognized and authorized heralds have no

monopoly of the heraldry of early times, and has compiled his new work on feudal coats of arms from sources such as the British Museum, the Record Office, the Bodleian, and the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, not dependent on the collections (now, as we are told, seriously reduced in number and importance) of the College of Arms. Mr. Foster is, of course, wholly a volunteer. His work wins no official recognition beyond an honorary degree granted by the university for which he 'has done so much ; his support comes wholly from those interested in the studies he prosecutes ; and the very nature of his labours is calculated to bring upon him much covert opposition as well as some open and avowed hostility. Not at all the man to shirk a combat is our author, and his opening words involve a direct challenge which is little likely to go unanswered. Into personal questions we shall not enter, and we refrain from dwell- ing even upon points of variance. The work is conducted on the ambitious scale to which the writer has accustomed us, and the present volume is the first of a series which will comprise ' Ancestral Families and their Paternal Coats of Arms,' and ' Ancestral and Heraldic Families,' alphabetically classified under county divisions.

Primarily Mr. Foster's latest work is a collection from the Heraldic Rolls of the names, " with the personal insignia displayed on their banners or vestments, of the combatants at the battle of Fal- kirk, 1298, and at the siege of Carlaverock, 1300, at the tournaments of Dunstable in 1308 and 1334, at the battle of Boroughbridge, 1322, at the siege of Calais, 1345-8, and before Rouen, 1418. With these have been incorporated the names and blasons

in the so-called heraldic Rolls or lists concluding

with the Arundel Military Roll, emblasoned circa Henry VI." In the case of these rolls Mr. Foster has substituted for the modern names, sometimes significant only of temporary possession, others indi- cative of their source and authority. A wish is ex- pressed by our author that he had proceeded further in this direction, as very probably in future volumes