Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/457

 9* 8. IX. Jus* 7, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

449

The term is by some authorities said to be the siskin ; but would the siskin be singing along with nightingales and the others men- tioned ? The poet gives his assurance on the point, for he says :

And, trusteth wel, that I hem herd

Ful lustily, and wel I ferde.

Is, then, the terin the siskin ; and, if so, does it mingle its voice with those of the spring songsters in the English woodlands 1

THOMAS BAYNE.

SPIDER POISON. The poison of the spider is said by Alexander Rosse to crack glass. Is this a piece of British folk-lore, or did Rosse gather it, like so much else, from some classic source ? ' Mel Heliconium,' 1643, p. 34.

N. M. & A.

DIXON OF NEWCASTLE AND ATKIN OF NORTHUMBERLAND. Capt. James Dixon, of Newcastle, is supposed to have gone down with his vessel in Boston Deeps some time between 1823 and 1845. His mother's maiden name was Atkin, and his son James was born in 1823. Is anything known of Capt. James Dixon, his parentage, his wife's name, and anything about his mother's family 1

RONALD DIXON.

46, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.

'STRAY LEAVES.' Who was the author of 1 Stray Leaves from a Freemason's Note-book,' by a Suffolk Rector, published by Spencer, London, 1846? The work is mentioned by Lowndes, but no author given. W. B. H.

JACOBITE LINES. Will some correspondent give the exact date and authorship of the Jacobite effusion * As the D 1 was marching o'er Britain's Fair Isle '? The line

Look down on my offspring, there 's F y my son, must have been written before 20 March, 1751, and subsequent to Culloden, as G 's laudatory mention of "B y my darling" shows. W. G. BOSWELL-STONE.

Oxford.

SHROPSHIRE PLACE-NAMES. I should be glad of a reference to any recent book on this subject. More especially I desire an explanation of Ruy ton -of -the -XI. -Towns and of Eaton Constantino. Has either of these curious names been discussed in
 * N. & Q. ' ? CHARLES HIATT.

[At 5 th S. i. 275 H. W. A. gave the following quotation from Gough's manuscript 'History of Myddle, co. Salop' (1701) : "I shall sometimes men- tion the Eleven Towns. I will here give an Account of what they are, and first their names are Old Ruyton, Cotton, Shelvocke, Shottatton, Wykey, Eardeston, Tedsmeare, Rednall, Haughton, Sutton, Felton. These Eleven Towns make up the Manor

or Lordship of Ruyton, and they are an allotment in the Hundred of Oswestry." A. R. added : " All the names given by Gough remain, but some of them do not represent even villages in the present day."}

'GULLIVER': EARLY EDITIONS. Can any reader supply me with the dates of pub- lication of the early editions of 'Gulliver's Travels'? E. B.

[The first edition appeared London, B. Motte, 2vols., 1726-7, with plates by Sturt ; the second in 1727. Other editions followed in 1731, 1747, 1751, 1766, &c. Consult * Book-Prices Current.']

DESERTER AND SPY. Of whom, by whom, and upon what occasion was it said of an English public man that he had left his party as a deserter, and that they would take care he did not return to them as a spy ? I find that "He came into the Camp like a Spy, and went out of it like a Deserter," is quoted as from Town-Talk, No. IX., on the title-page of 'The

Pretender's Flight or, a Mock Coronation,'

a tragi-cornical farce by John Phillips, pub- lished by Curll in 1716. POLITICIAN.

SEA BEGGARS. In his ' Progress of South Africa' Dr. Theal, speaking of President Boshof, says, " He was wanting in that per- severance under difficulties which has always been a characteristic of the majority of the sons of the sea beggars in South Africa." Who were the sea oeggars, and why were they so called ? C. S. WARD.

Wootton St. Lawrence, Basingstoke.

[Sea beggars (Gueux de la Mer) were the seamen of the small fleet organized by William of Orange in 1572 in order to combat the Spaniards under Alva. See Ruth Putnam's ' William the Silent,' ii. 2, et seq., or Motley, passim.]

CATHERINE BABINGTON. It is stated in the Supplement to the fourth edition of Burke'a 4 Landed Gentry ' for 1863, and no other, that "William Babington, of Greenfort and Urney, co. Donegal, who died in 1710, had an eldest son Thomas Babington, born circa 1701, who died child- less, leaving Urney to his widow, who married a Mr. Pigott, and sold the estate, which thus passed from the Babingtons."

In the Dublin Diocesan Marriage Licence Bonds appears the marriage in 1740 of Cathe- rine Babington and John Pigott, evidently the same persons. Can any correspondent of of this Catherine, or say if she was a widow when married to Thomas Babington ?
 * N. & Q. kindly give me the maiden name

WM. JACKSON PIGOTT.

Dundrum, co. Down.

Box HARRY. The other day I was talking to an old woman on the subject of planting potatoes. She was telling me that she had only by her a very poor supply of seed, and