Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/94

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NOTES * AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. FEB. i, 1902.

so steeped in " prehistoric " lore, will give us in black and white a " peep" of how it was done in those dim and distant days. I cannot ask the speaker who was the author of the couplet, for he and Gladstone, Disraeli, Forster, Lowe, Northcote, Fawcett, Hors- man, with others that might be named, All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I should like to know if the lines can be traced to any particular writer. Perhaps they are only a translation of the old proverb expressed in the macaronic distich, quoted in his ' Compitum ' (book i. chap. xi. p. 403) by K. H. Digby, who excels even Robert Burton in power of quotation :

A boire et manger exultamus, Mais au debourser suspiramus.

JOHN T. CURRY.

[MR. GRANGER HUTT stated in 5 th S. xii. 39 that " So comes a reck'ning" is from Gay's ' What d ye Call It,' Act II. sc. ix.]

" LATE." I notice that Mr. Bradley writes in the 'H.E.D.': " Late, a. 1 . ..5. Of a person : That was alive not long ago, but is not now : recently deceased." The charter of the Royal Historical Society (dated 30 July, 1889) recites that

"the said Society did also in the year 1886

appoint a committee for the due celebration of the eight hundredth anniversary of the completion of the Domesday Book of His late Majesty William the First."

I carefully sent a quotation from this to Mr. Bradley ; but I presume he judged that though a ninth-century royal charter, if not in Latin, was in English, the same reasoning did not apply to a nineteenth-century royal charter. I have no doubt that he was right ; but the painful super-accuracy of the drafts- man should be recorded in ' N. & Q.,' even it it be not worthv of note in the ' H.E.D.'

Q. V.

EARL OF CARDIGAN. The ' Dictionary of National Biography' states that James Thomas Brudenell, seventh Earl of Car- digan, was born at Hambledon, in Hamp- shire, 16 October, 1797. He was, in fact, born at Hambleden, Bucks, where his baptism is entered in the parish register as follows : " 1797. Nov. 5. James Thomas, son of Robert Brudenell, Esq., and Penelope Ann."

J. C. F.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS AND SHROVF TUESDAY. It is proper to take down Christ mas decorations at Candlemas, but thej ought to be kept till Shrove Tuesday, and then burnt in the fire over which the pancakes are fried. I have this from a Welst cousin. C. C. B.

DEATH OP AN AGED CHARTIST. It has litherto been assumed that George Julian larney, who died at Richmond, in Surrey, on ) December, 1897, was the oldest survivor of Sut it would now appear that Samuel Bartlett, who has recently passed away at the great age of ninety -three, was con- siderably his senior. Apart from the notoriety gained in the ranks of Chartism, VIr. Bartlett was noteworthy as affording another instance of the long life so often granted those who practise total abstinence, of which creed he was always a staunch advocate and disciple. CECIL CLARKE.
 * hose connected with this famous movement.

Authors' Club, S.W.

DISTRAINT ON WEARING APPAREL, 1790-4. In a case tried before Lord Kenyon the plaintiff had rented furnished rooms from the defendant. When eight weeks' rent was in arrear, the latter distrained on clothing, a part of which was in the wash. His lordship sustained the proceeding. A note says that a few years previously a landlord distrained the clothes of his tenant's wife and children while they were in bed ; and this was held good, on the ground that the things were not in actual use ! See Baynes v. Smith, Isaac Espinasse's Reports, p. 206 (Dublin ed., 1799). RICHARD H. THORNTON.

Portland, Oregon.

"LuDi MAGISTER." (See 9 th S. viii. 516.) In your review of the Northern Genealogist, edited by A. Gibbons, F.S.A., the writer asks, " What is the exact significance of ludi magister used at this period [1588] 1 Qy. schoolmaster 1 " To which I reply, Yes, cer- tainly schoolmaster. W. I. R. V.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers maybe addressed to them direct.

DRAWING-KNIFE. In a journal written in 1781 I have an account of a schooner that had come to great grief in a squall, and was lying nearly water - logged. Her crew of fifteen men were on deck, where " with the utmost difficulty they prevented themselves from being washed overboard." After some eighteen or twenty hours of this " the mate accidentally got hold of an old drawing-knife with his foot, which was in the cabin ; with this they cut away the mainmast of 16 or 17 inches, and the vessel came upon her legs,"