Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/286

 $78

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. APRIL 5, 1902.

published a copy of the bill of fare of " William Mingay, Esq., Mayor of Norwich, at which he feasted the Duke of Norfolk, the Lords, Knights, and Gentry of the County," A.D. 1561, in which 34 eggs were charged at Is.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

Bay has the proverb "You come with your five eggs a penny, and four of them be rotten." According to" Mr. Sidney Lee, money had in Shakespeare's time eight times its present purchasing power ; but this is hardly borne out, I think, by the accounts given in Mr. Hubert Hall's ' Society in the Elizabethan Age ' of Will Darrell's expenses in London in 1589. These, however, do not enable us to do more than guess roughly at the price of eggs. There are such entries as the folio wing :

Munday dyner Junij 9. Egges at Brekefast ...... j d

2 peces bief ............ ij s ij d

A loyne of Veale ......... xxij d

A Rabbett ............ viif

A quart of Strawberries ...... vj d

And so on. Again :

Supper eodem. Egges ............... ij d

A Shoulder of Mutton ...... xviij d

And so on. We are not told how many partook of these meals ; but since we find in other of Darrell's accounts " 20 hens and 1 cock " valued at 5s., and " 6 geese and other poultry " at 2s. 4c?., we may safely conclude that one egg for a penny would be a very bad bargain. C. C. B.

At Canterbury, in 1536, the price of eggs was fixed by the Corporation : " No person allowed to buy or sell less than six eggs for a penny, on pain of 12d" (Goulden's ' Guide to Canterbury,' p. 68). KNOWLER.

Paul Delahay must not be taken too literally. "Five eggs a penny and four of them addle" is an old saying. See the

J. DORMER.

PICTURE RESTORING IN FRANCE UNDER NAPOLEON I. (9 th S. ix. 184).-My first visit to London was made for some law matters in June, 1864. On that occasion private circumstances took me to the rooms of one who was then a well-known picture-restorer. This person succeeded his father in the busi- ness, and he worked for many distinguished owners of pictures, a vast number whereof passed under his hands. He had a very com- petent knowledge of schools and styles, and his judgment was often sought at sales. The minute and scrupulous care with which he restored the decayed portions of valuable

pictures was, I believe, exemplary. I noticed that the backs of the panels and canvases of most of the important specimens were either sealed with the owners' private signets or bore autograph signatures. In this way some pictures had their pedigrees traced on them. No such tricks as shaving the back or stripping the canvas could be attempted in these cases without either permission or discovery. Part of his business was to supply copies of pictures submitted to his charge. These were sometimes so well executed that on an occasion or two the copy, by mistake, found its way for a time into the gallery of the owner of the original. The man of whom I write died in 1887. W. C. B.

"OLIVER" (9 th S. ix. 127, 194). Probably there are not now " clivers " in the hand- nailmaking trade. The "oliver" was used in striking the heads of hob-nails. These nails, when made by hand, were the work of girls and women, and the celerity with which they turned out nails was marvellous. Hob- nails were made out of very slender iron rods, and each girl had half a dozen irons in the fire in a literal sense. The rods were whipped out of the fire to the " stiddy " (small anvil), three or four deft blows formed the "shank," then a cut-off blow, the shank placed in a small hole in the stiddy, and down came the "oliver," in which was a matrix forming the head, and a touch on a spring jerked out the finished "hob." The "oliver" was worked with the foot, and every time it came down seemed to be within an inch of smashing the worker's head.

THOS. KATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

BARON DE GRIVEGNEE AND POWER (9 th S. vii. 409, 476; viii. 170; ix. 91). Can your correspondent MR. SCOTT give me any infor- mation as to the daughters of the Baron de Grivegnee other than Fanny, who married William Kirkpatrick, and as to the baron himself, with his wife's names and some dates ? I possess a copy of the * Chronicles of the Kirkpatrick Family,' by Capt. Alexander de Lapere Kirkpatrick, who in October, 1901, was at Fourteen Streams, Warrenton, South Africa.

REGINALD STEWART BODDINGTON.

15, Markham Square, Chelsea.

DALRYMPLE ON THE FUR TRADE (9 th S. ix. 87). 'Plan for promoting the Fur Trade and securing it to this Country by uniting the Operations of the East India and Hudson's Bay Companies,' 1789, 4to.

JOHN RADCLIFFE.