Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/237

 9-8.ix.MABCH22,i902.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

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(related to the Montrose family), and another sister lived with Mrs. Graham at Barnstaple, Devonshire, for years. Papers relating to this family were unfortunately mislaid. I should also like to know particulars of the Sir Samuel Brown who built the old pier at Brighton. E. C. WIENHOLT.

6, Girdler's Road, W.

EAST WIND IN WELSH. A writer in a Welsh newspaper states that "in some parts," presumably of Wales, "the east wind is called Gwynt traed y meirw" that is, " the wind of the feet of the dead." He suggests that the origin of this may be that as a rule the dead are buried with their feet towards the east. What is the origin of this saying, and is the suggestion pro- bable? JEANNIE S. POPHAM.

62, Rutland Gate, S.W.

ITALIAN QUOTATION. Where does the following Italian quotation occur?

L' astro che in sul mattin lieto scintilla, Annunziator dell' alba desiata.

Is it from Metastasio? Can any of your readers kindly tell me? S. M.

LLYN COBLYNAU : KNOCKERS' LLYN. Can any one identify this Snowdonian lake, men- tioned in 'Aylwin'? It might be Glaslyn, but I am pretty well acquainted with Snow- don after fifty ascents, and I never heard of Knockers' Llyn until I read 'Aylwin.' Mr. Watts-Dunton says it is also called "Kissing Llyn." E. W.

" CHAMPIGNY " : " BUGGY."

" He expressed his fear that the terrific rattling

of barouches curricles, tandems, buggies, full,

half, or sweep-panelled, and champignys, would unquestionably, by their irresistible concussion, destroy the ramparts of Fort William !" Lieut. - Col. Davidson, 'Travels in Upper India,' ii. 209, published 1843.

What kind of carriage was a champigny ? I do not find it in the ' N.E.D.' What is the distinction between the different kinds of wggy noted above ? W. CROOKE.

Langton House, Charlton Kings.

MATHEWS OF TRURO. I beg to be allowed to repeat a quer} 7 propounded in these columns some seventeen years ago, to which the reply is still wanting. Is anything known about Thomas Mathews, of Truro, in the county of Cornwall, yeoman, who died there in the year 1788? In 1772 he purchased the small estate of Pithenlew, on which Truro's suburb of Ferristown now stands. He was a renowned nurseryman gardener, and is said to have introduced into

Cornwall the culture of turnips as a field crop. According to the family tradition he came from Norwich, but careful search there and in the county of Norfolk has failed to discover his parentage. His third son, Wil- liam Mathews, was baptized at Truro in 1747 ; and previous to that date nothing is known of the family. Wills and parish registers in Cornwall and Norfolk have not helped. Any information will be most grate- fully appreciated.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Town Hall, Cardiff.

THE AUTHOR AND AVENGER OF EVIL.

(9 th S. ix. 22.)

SOME points in the note under this heading confessedly stand in need of further elucida- tion, so I will not apologize for the following remarks.

The "confused ideas with regard to the role acted by " the Evil One are due, in a great measure, to the various sources from which the popular notions of the devil are derived, being not only the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, but also ancestral tradition not only ecclesiastical teaching, but poetry and folk-lore as well. The ordinary Englishman has formed his "confused" picture of the Prince of Darkness from Milton (gener- ally second hand), Bunyan, and the opera of Bible. In the Bible itself the evolution of Satan from an agent of disease and death, who receives a direct commission from the Almighty, into "the irreconcilable foe of God and man" is a gradual one ; and the systematic divine naturally finds it difficult to harmonize the "Adversary" of the book of Job with " the Prince of this World " as presented in the fourth Gospel.
 * Faust,' rather than from a study of his

As to the personal appearance of the devil, it is probable that he owes more in popular Delief to Teutonic or Keltic than to Greek or Roman elements. The cunning and malicious Loki, whose name is still a common one for Satan in Norway, is the prototype to some extent of the wily tempter of mankind. Skratt, the shaggy spirit of Scandinavian wastes and forests, has left his name, in the form of " Old Scratch," to his semi-Oriental upplanter, no less than his hairy hide ; for Pan and Faunus had their representatives in Northern lands, and Dutchman and Italian can visualize the arch-fiend in much the same way. Minor differences, indeed, occur even between Germans and ourselves in diabolical