Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/96

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

Pieter Markoe was the commandant of that island towards the close of the eighteenth century, and presumably under English rule. Family tradition as to Nevis says that a Markoe was a member of the island council. In Santa Cruz the family were among the leading planters, and thence a branch came to Philadelphia and founded a noted American family. Were any records removed from the above islands by the naval or military autho- rities, and are any such to be found in any repositories of records in England ? Any information will be gratefully acknowledged.

STUART C. WADE. 121, West 90th Street, New York.

CORBYN FAMILY. Can any correspondent give information about the family of William Charles Corbyn ( ? of Manchester), who by Elizabeth his wife had a son Frederick, born in Manchester 11 May, 1791, and baptized at St. Giles's-in-the-Fields 24 April, 1807 1 He had other sons distinguished in the navy and elsewhere. SIGMA.

AUTHOR OF POEMS WANTED. I should be pleased if any reader could give me the author of two poems entitled 'Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land,' to which is added 'The Tempest,' Lond., 1817; and 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage to the Dead Sea,' Lond., 1818. S. J. KIRK.

e CLIIL I should be glad to obtain addi- tional instances of the ecclesiastical number 153, at which Dean Colet fixed the free scholars of St. Paul's School. The traditional (and no doubt correct) reference is to the number of fishes in the miraculous draught, as typical of all the various kinds of fishes, arid there- fore of "all nations and countries," to which Dean Colet expressly threw his school open. But I also find that St. Augustine tells us that the martyrs of Utica numbered 153 those martyrs who were thrown into a lime- kiln, and whose remains are consequently styled the "white mass." Are there any other instances of this particular number that might have more particularly appealed to Dean Colet? R. j. WALKER.

FIREPLACES IN CATHEDRAL CHURCHES. - At Lincoln, Hereford, and Durham fireplaces have been inserted in the west walls of the south transepts. They have been supposed to be for heating obley-irons, and for .supply- ing the thuribles with burning charcoal. But is anything really known about their former use, and are there other examples of ^replaces in the same situation ? That at Lincoln is not in the great transept, but in

the eastern south transept, in the place with a lavatory known as "Ancient Choristers' Vestry." See Murray's 'Cathedrals: Lincoln,' p. 311, and No. 26 on the plan, p. 263.

J. T. F.

Durham.

BERANGER : ' LE Eoi D'YVETOT. ' In * Cham- bers's Concise Gazetteer,' 1895, it is stated, s.v. 'Yvetot,' that Beranger's well-known song was a satire on Napoleon. Was this really the case 1 A satire, however charge, must have some sort of resemblance to the person satirized, or it would be unrecog- nizable ; but what resemblance is there between the King of Yvetot, " dormant fort bien sans gloire," who

Sur un ane, pas a pas,

Parcourait son royaume,

and him who, like a thunderbolt, Scoppio da Scilla al Tanai, DalP uno all' altro mar ?

It is true that Beranger's song, in my edition, is dated " Mai, 1813," shortly after the Russian debacle, which might, by a very far-fetched u gloss," account for the " sans gloire " and " peu connu dans 1'histoire." But had Beranger any thought at all of Napoleon when writing his song 1 Besides, was not Beranger a great admirer of Napoleon ? One would naturally think so, judging from his touching song ' Les Souvenirs du Peuple.' If 'Le Roi d'Yvetot' is really a satire on the great captain, what is the evidence on the point? JONATHAN BOUCHIER. Ropley, Hampshire.

WIMPOLE STREET EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. Can any one say what was the maximum rent of a house in Wimpole Street about the year 1816, when Miss Austen wrote ' Mansfield Park '? We know that it was then a fashionable quarter, but it is difficult to suppose the rents so high in those days as the novel suggests in a passage in a letter from Miss Crawford to Fanny Price :

"Mrs. Rushworth will open one of the best

houses in Wimpole Street Henry [Crawford]

could not have afforded her such a house. I hope she will recollect it, and be satisfied, as well she may, with moving the queen of a palace, though the king may appear best in the background." Yet Henry Crawford, we are told, had 4,0001. a year. My recollections of Wimpole Street go back more than fifty years. In 1849 my father became tenant of a comfort- able house in it at 120/. a year, and some seven years later of another (I should think nearly as spacious as any in the street) at 160., taking over an old lease. When did the value of houses in Wimpole Street decline