Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/96

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. JULY 27, iwi.

coat in illustration of his reference to "la partie caudale." My father was fond of telling me of the jocular characterization by the soldiers of Napoleon's Egyptian expedi tion of the scientific experts attached thereto, and the donkeys they rode, as " savants" and " demi-savants."

THOMAS J. JEAKES.

Hone, in 'The Every-Day Book,' refers to this subject, and quotes from 'The Golden Legend ' and Porter's ' Flowers ' the follow- ing :

" St. Augustine coming [sic] to a certain town, inhabited by wicked people, who 'refused hys doctryne and prechyng uterly, and drof hym out of the towne, castyng on hym the tayles of Thorn- back, or lyke fysshes ; wherefore he besought Alrayghty God to shewe hys jugement on them ; and God sent to them a shamefull token ; for the chyldren that were born after in the place, had tayles, as it is sayd, tyll they had repented them. It is said comynly that this fyll at Strode in Kente ; but blyssed be Gode, at this daye is no such deformyte.'* It is said, however, that they were the natives of a village in Dorsetshire who were thus tail-pieced. "f

B. B.

ARBUTHNOTT (9 th S. yii. 368, 458). The spelling of this name is as uncertain as its pronunciation. The village where Dr. Arbuthnot was born in 1667 was then, as it is now, spelt "Arbuthnott," and that was the spelling used by all his ancestors (see ' Life and Works of Arbuthnot,' 1892, pp. 1-7, 171). Dr. Arbuthnot himself always used the spelling "Arbuthnott" in his letters, but, curiously enough, his name is always given as "Arbuthnot" on the title-pages of the books which he published. In the records of Marischal College, Aberdeen, the name is spelt "Arbuthnot," "Arbuthnott," and " Arbuthnet" indifferently.

GEORGE A. AITKEN.

Music PUBLISHERS' SIGNS (9 th S. vii. 507). MR. MAcMlCHAEL should refer to Mr. Frank Kidson's recent work, published by subscrip- tion for the author by W. E. Hill & Sons in 1900. It is called

"British Musical Publishers, Printers, and Engravers : London, Provincial, Scottish, and Irish. From Queen Elizabeth's Reign to George the fourths, with select Bibliographical Lists of Perio<f" Panted and published within that

EDWARD HERON-ALLEN.

ORIENTATION IN INTERMENTS (9 th S vi 167

276, 335 : vii 195, 338, 431).-There can be no

rJoubt that having a good frontage has had

much to do with the situation of modern

t "Porter's 'Flowers.'"
 * '"Golden Legend7"~

churches, and that there are many built so as X) face the road, disregarding orientation. This is the case with the modern edifice of Trinity Church at Bedford, which is built north and south, but the graves lie east and

The choir of the beautiful Abbey of Rievaulx, near Helmsley in Yorkshire,
 * ounded by Walter d'Espec in 1131, is built

nearly from north to south, a position ren- dered necessary by the site, hemmed in by a steep bank on one side and by the little river Rye on the other.

It, however, does not follow that in- terments are made in the usual manner in other correctly built churches, for Dean Stanley, on opening the vaults in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster Abbey, found coffins placed in all sorts of positions, as the room was confined. IBAGUE at the last reference speaks of " the vault of the Earls of Beyerley " at Marylebone Church, but certainly a Countess of Beverley was buried in the Percy vault in St. Nicholas's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, for a plain monumental tablet com- memorates "Isabella Susannah, wife of Algernon Percy, Earl of Beverley, who died in 1812." The removal of monuments from their original position often renders the inscriptions upon them misleading.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

"THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP" (9 th S. vii. 509). In December, 1883, the Daily Telegraph informed its readers that the house in Ports- mouth Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, "long popularly identified with ' The Old Curiosity Shop,' " was in danger of demolition. For some days afterwards the place was besieged by a crowd of eager sightseers, and many references to the subject appeared in the press. I have before me a notable article thereon from the JZcho of 31 December, 1883, which conclusively disposes of the legend that Dickens had this shop in his mind when he created " Little Nell." Introduced into the text of the article is the following letter, written to the editor by Mr. Charles Tessey- man :

"My brother, who occupied No. 14, Portsmouth Street, between 1868 and 1877, the year of his decease, had the words ' The Old Curiosity Shop ' placed over the front for purely business purposes, as likely to attract custom to his shop, he being a dealer in books, paintings, old china, &c. Before 1868 that is before my brother had the words put up no suggestion had ever been made that the place was the veritable ' Old Curiosity Shop ' immortalized by Dickens. After my brother's death in 1877 the present tenant had my brother's name painted out, but left standing the words * The Old Curiosity