Minor Queries.

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Ex Pede Herculem.—I shall feel much obliged if any of your correspondents or readers can inform me of the origin of the proverb "Ex pede Herculem." In what classical author is it to be found? I have looked in vain through Erasmi Adagia for it.

H. H.

"To-day we purpose."—Will any one be good enough to say where these lines (quoted by Mr. Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. ii. p. 188.) are to be found:—

"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount

To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;

Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count

His dewy rosary on the eglantine"

G. N.

"God takes those soonest whom He loves the best."—Where shall we find the origin of this expression, so frequently occurring on tombstones in almost all parts of the country? Or how far back can it be traced? The following, in Rainham church, Kent, is of the year 1626:

"Here slepes my babe in silence, heauen's his rest,

For God takes soonest those he loueth best."

T. H. K.

Malew, Man.

Quakers' Attempt to convert the Pope.—At what period, and in what author besides Veryard's Tour in the Low Countries, is the story of two Quakers being imprisoned in the Lazzaretto in Rome, for attempting to convert the Pope, to be found? Were they persons of any standing in the Society?

B. S. S.

Whychcote of St. John's.—In one of the volumes published under the foregoing title, in 1833, there is a striking story, evidently fictitious in the main, but assuming, as an element of fact, the remembered existence of a head-stone over a grave in the little burial-ground, under the shadow of the venerable ruins of Tynemouth Priory in Northumberland, containing the single word "Fanny." Does any one of the Tyneside readers of the "Notes and Queries" personally recollect the actual existence of such a memorial? Is the real name of the author of the entertaining work disclosed in any subsequent publication, or is it generally known?

J. D.

Meaning of Rechibus, &c.—Among the rights claimed by the Esturmys in Savernak forest, 8 Edw. III., occurs—

"Et omnia placita de leporibus, rechibus, heymectis, tessonibus, vulpibus, murilegis, et perdricibus:"

which I translate—

"And all pleas concerning hares, traps, hedgehogs, badgers, foxes, wild-cats, and partridges:"

but I confess I have no confidence in some of these words, as the glossaries in the British Museum Library fail to explain them. I therefore solicit your courteous assistance.

James Waylen.

Family of Queen Katherine Parr.—The pedigree of the once eminent family of Parr, as recorded in various printed works—Dugdale, Nicholls, Burke, &c., is far from being complete or satisfactory. Could any one versed in the genealogy of the northern counties supply any information on the following points?—

I. The early descent.—Dugdale in his Baronage, commences with Sir William Parr, who married Elizabeth De Ros, 1383; but he states the family to have been previously "of knightly degree." A MS. pedigree in the Herald's College also mentions Sir William as "descended from a race of knights." Where is an account of this race to be found?

II. The separation between the two lines of Parr and Kendal.—Sir Thomas Parr, father of Queen Katherine, died 1518, and his Inq. p. m. states him to have held manors, messuages, lands, woods, and rents, in Parr, Wigan, and Sutton. Ten years afterwards, 1528, Bryan Parr was found by Inq. p. m. to have held the manor, messauges, woods, lands, &c. of Parr. How was Bryan related to Sir Thomas?

III. The descendant in the fourth degree of Bryan was Henry Parr, of Parr, who was, according to a MS. in the college, aged twenty in 1621. Had he any descendants?

If no positive information can be afforded, yet a clue to where it might be sought for would oblige.

Genealogicus Lancastriensis.

Skort.

"Or wily Cyppus that can wink and snort,

While his wife dallies on MÆcenas' skort."—Hall, Satires, Book iv. Sat. 1. (Whittingham's edition, 1824.)

Of course the general meaning of these two verses is obvious enough. But how is the latter to be read? Are we to read "dallies on," as one word, i.e. keeps dallying, and "skort" (as a mere abbreviation of the Latin "scortum") as nominative in apposition with "wife?" If so, the verse is intelligible, though harsh enough even for Hall.

If not, the word "skort" must have some other meaning which I am unacquainted with. I cannot find it at all in Halliwell, the only authority I have at hand to refer to.

K. I. P. B. T.

Religious Teaching in the German Universities.—Will any of your numerous readers direct me to any book or books containing information on the present state of religion and religious teaching in the German Universities?

Rovert.

Epigram by Dunbar—Endymion Porter.—Can any of your correspondents supply the deficient verses in the following epigram, addressed by Thomas Dunbar, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum from 1815 to 1822, to Miss Charlotte Ness, who required him to explain what was meant by the terms abstract and concrete?

"Say what is abstract, what concrete,

Their difference define?

They both in one fair person meet,

And that fair form is thine.

* * * *

* * * *

For when I lovely Charlotte view,

I then view loveliness."

Can any one substantiate the local tradition the Endymion Porter was born at the manor-house of Aston Subedge, in Gloucestershire; or furnish any particulars of his life before he became gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince Charles?

Balliolensis.

Sathaniel.—Can any of your correspondents inform me in what book, play, poem, or novel, a character named Sathaniel appears? There is a rather common picture bearing that title; it represents a dark young lady, in Eastern dishabille, with a turban on her head, reclining on a many-cushioned divan, and holding up a jewel in one hand. I have seen the picture so often, that my curiosity as to the origin of the subject has been completely aroused; and I have never yet found any one able to satisfy it.

F. T. C.

The Scoute Generall.—I have in my possession a small 4to. MS. of 32 pages, entitled The Scoute Generall, "communicating (impartially) the martiall affaires and great occurrences of the grand councell (assembled in the lowest House of Parliament) unto all kingdomes, by rebellion united in a covenant," &c., which is throughout written in verse, and particularly satirical against the Roundheads of the period (1646), and remarkable for the following prognostication of the death of the unfortunate monarch Charles I.:

"Roundheads bragge not, since 'tis an old decree,

In time to come from chaines wee should be free:

Traytors shall rule, Injustice then shall sway,

Subjects and nephewes shall their king betray;

And he himselfe, O most unhappy fate!

For kings' examples, kingdomes imitate:

What he maintain'd, I know it was not good,

Brought in by force, and out shall goe by blood," &c.

It occupies about thirty lines more. At the bottom of the title, and at the conclusion of the postscript, it has merely the initials S.D. Could any of your worthy correspondents inform me who S.D. was?

The MS. is evidently cotemporary, and, according to the introduction, was "ordered to be forthwith published, MDCXLVI in apostrophus form.;" and as I cannot trace that such a production was ever issued, the answer would confer a favour on

C. Hamilton.

City Road, April 1. 1851.

Arthur Pomeroy, Dean of Cork.—Can any one of your genealogical readers assist me in ascertaining the parentage of Arthur Pomeroy, who was made Dean of Cork in 1672? He was fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in which university he graduated as A.B. in 1660, M.A. in 1664, and S.T.P. in 1676. He is stated in Archdale's edition of Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (article "Harberton") to have sprung from the Pomeroys of Ingsdon in Devonshire, and is stated to have gone to Ireland as chaplain to the Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant.

J. B.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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