Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/305

 9* s. ix. APRIL 12, IMG.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

297

Jervaulx Abbey, near Middleham, are buried there, as Henry FitzHenry, who died in 1352, and Henry, Lord FitzHugh, who fought at Agincourt and died in 1424. It is evident that the prefix merely meant originally son, as "filius naturalis" merely signified at one time a legitimate son.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

MONTGOMERY MSS. (9 th S. ix. 208). About the year 1850 the late George Stephenson, seneschal of Hillsborough, co. Down, placed in safe keeping the Magennis patent, or, more properly speaking, the confirmatory grant to McKowrie Magennis. MR. FITZPATRICK, I think, errs in assuming that this document had only an antiquarian value, as, previous to its being deposited in new hands, eminent counsel had given a decided opinion to the contrary ; and this opinion was the chief reason which induced the late George Stephen- son to hand over the deed to the predecessor of the present custodian. J. P. S.

Automobile Club, Paris.

SIBYL OR SYBIL (9 th S. vii. 200, 317, 455). 1 perceive that it was usual in those who must have known the right spelling to spell the word wrongly. Dr. Johnson, in the second edition of his 'Dictionary,' under the word as, quotes Dryden thus :

As many voices issue, and the sound Of Sybil's word as many times rebound.

Young, in his first epistle to Pope, wrote Sybil, if I may trust a late edition of his poetry. In an old edition of the Spectator, in a paper that was certainly written by Addison, I meet with Sybil. In a note to ' Macbeth,' in the edition of 1821, which has the notes of various commentators, Malone, after quoting the Latin, "Tres adolescentes concinno Sibyllarum habitu induti," proceeds to say in English, " three of whom personated the Sy bills, or rather the Weird Sisters." In a translation of Juvenal's Satires, with notes, by Madan, 1807, the translator in a note says, "Juvenal here humorously parodies that passage in Virgil, relative to the Sybil." I ought, however, also to say that in another note he has Sibyl.

E. YARDLEY.

BIRTHPLACE OF LORD BEACONSFIELD (9 th S. viii. 317, 426, 512 : ix. 15, 297). I regret to dis- agree with MR. THOMAS, but I contend that, though a tablet may not improve a street, putting up one serves to notify to passers-by the natal locality of great men. Had it not been for some such tablet I had not known where Scott was born save through Lock-

hart and others. MR. THOMAS'S logic is at fault when he alleges as his reason for such negligence that the place was quite different a hundred years ago. That, inter alia, is precisely what we want to know. The tablet to Mr. Gladstone's memory in Rodney Street, Liverpool, is no degrada- tion to the locality now, nor will it be a century hence. Let us have more of such reminiscences of our great dead, and not fewer. J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

SMALLNESS OF THE INFANT JESUS (9 th S. ix. 149). There was a common belief that the Mother of our Lord was quite a girl at the time of His birth. In 1874 I saw among Dr. Routh's books, in the University Library at Durham, an old treatise which dealt with this subject, and gave on one page a woodcut showing the small size of her foot.

W. C. B.

' LES LAURIERS DE NASSAU ' (9 th S. viii. 464 ; ix. 157, 192). The information sent respect- ing the above was copied from *A New Method of studying History, Geography, and Chronology, with a Catalogue of the Chief Historians of all Nations, the Best Edition of

1615, is only a translation of the last piece from the Dutch edition 'Nassaure Laure- krans,' by Jo. Jans Orlers ende Henrich van Haustens, Ley den, fol., 1610. I am unable to give any opinion as to the work being of authority. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

WEEKS'S MUSEUM (9 th S. ix. 8, 97, 212). Richard Rush, the Minister from the United States from 181 7 to 1825, in his book 'The Court of London,' records a visit to this museum on 5 March, 1819, pp. 19-22. He states that it consisted chiefly of specimens of ingenious mechanism singing birds, "human figures of full size playing on musical instruments, in full band," mice made of pearl, <fec.

" The outside of this museum looks like a common shop for umbrellas and other small wares ; as in

fact it is in front It may be taken, perhaps, as

one of the evidences of the immensity of London, that although I occasionally spoke of this collection in society afterwards, I hardly met with any one

who had as much as heard of it The interior

mechanism of the little spider was said to be com- posed of more than one hundred distinct pieces."

B. W. DEXTER. 59, Princess Road, Kilburn, N.W.

ST. ANTHONY (9 th S. ix. 69). There are two popular saints of this name St. Anthony, the third - century abbot, whose day is