Various

Vegetable Sympathy.—I have been told that Sir Humphrey Davy asserted that the shoots of trees, if transplanted, will only live as long as the parent stock—supposing that to die naturally. How is this to be accounted for, if true?

A. A. D.

Court Dress—When was the present court dress first established as the recognised costume for state ceremonials? and if there are extant any orders of the Earl Marshal upon the subject, where are they printed?

Henco.

Dieu et mon Droit.—When was this first adopted as the motto of our sovereigns? I have heard widely different dates assigned to it.

Leicestrensis.

Cachecope Bell.—In the ancient accounts of the churchwardens of the parish of St. Mary-de-Castro, Leicester, and also in those of St. Martin in the same town, the term "cachecope," "kachecope," "catche coppe," or "catch-corpe-bell," is not of unfrequent occurrence: e.g., in the account for St. Mary's for the year 1490, we have:

"For castynge ye cachecope bell, js.

"It. To Thos. Raban for me'dyng ye kachecope bell whole, iiijd."

I have endeavoured in vain to ascertain the meaning and derivation of the word, which is not to be found in Mr. Halliwell's excellent Dictionary of Archaic Words. Can you enlighten me on the subject?

Leicestrensis.

The Image of both Churches.—A curious work, treating largely of the schism between the Catholics and Protestants in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was printed at Tornay in 1623, under the following title: The Image of bothe Churches, Hierusalem and Babel, Unitie and Confusion, Obedience and Sedition, by P.D.M. What is the proof that this was written by Dr. Matthew Paterson?

Edward F. Rimbault.

Double Names.—Perhaps some one would explain why so many persons formerly bore two names, as "Hooker alias Vowel." Illegitimacy may have sometimes caused it: but this will not explain those cases where the bearers ostentatiously set forth both names. Perhaps they were the names of both parents, used even by lawfully born persons to distinguish themselves from others of the same paternal name.

T.

"If this fair flower," &c.—Would you kindly find a place for the lines which follow? I have but slender hopes of discovering their author, but think that their beauty is such as to deserve a reprint. They are not by Waller; nor Dryden, as far as I know. I found them in a periodical published in Scotland during the last century, and called The Bee.

"Lines supposed to have been addressed, with the present of a white rose, by a Yorkist, to a lady of the Lancastrian faction.

'If this fair flower offend thy sight,

It in thy bosom bear:

'Twill blush to be outmatched in white

And turn Lancastrian there!'"

I observe that amongst the many "Notes" and quotations on the subject of the supposed power of prophecy before death, no one has cited those most beautiful lines of Campbell in "Lochiel's Warning:"

"'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,

And coming events cast their shadows before."

W. J. Bernhard Smith.

Temple.

Hugh Peachell—Sir John Marsham.—Can any of your correspondents give me information respecting one Hugh Peachell, of whom I find the following curious notice in a bundle of MSS. in the State Paper Office, marked "America and West Indies, No. 481A."

"St. Michael's Toune in ye Barbados, Sept. 30. [1670]. Jo Neuington, Addrese w. Mr. James Drawater, Merch^t at Mr. Jo. Lindapp's, at ye Bunch of Grapes in Ship yard by Temple barre.—All ye news I can write from here is, y^t one Hugh Peachell, who hath been in this Island allmost twenty years and lived w^th many persons of good esteem, and was last with Coll. Barwick. It was observed that he gained much monyes, yet none thrived lesse than hee; and falling sicke about 3 weeks since, was much troubled in his conscience, but would not utter himself to any but a minister, who being sent for He did acknowledge himself ye person y^t cut of ye head of King Charles, for w^ch he had 100^lbs and w^th much seeming penitence and receiving such comforts as the Devine, one parson Leshely, an emminent man here, could afford him, he dyed in a quarter of an hour afterwards. This you may report for truth, allthough you should not have it from any other hand. He had 100^lbs for ye doing of itt. There is one Wm. Hewit condemned for ye same, I think now in Newgate; he will be glad you acquaint him of this if he have it not allready."

Oldmixon, in his British Empire in America, mentions a Sir John Marsham of Barbados; was he a knight or baronet, and when did he die?

W. Downing Bruce, F.S.A.

Middle Temple.

Legend represented in Frettenham Church.—Perhaps some one of your numerous readers may be able to give an explanation of the following legend, for such I suppose it to be:—

In the parish church of Frettenham, co. Norfolk, several alabaster carvings were discovered some years ago, near the chancel arch, having traces of colour. The most perfect, and the one which had most claims to merit as a piece of sculpture, represented a very curious scene. A horse was standing fixed in a kind of stocks, a machine for holding animals fast while they were being shod. But it (the horse) had only three legs: close by stood a Bishop, or mitred Abbot, holding the horse's missing fore quarter, on the hoof of which a smith was nailing a shoe. Of course the power which had so easily removed a leg would as easily replace it.

The details of the story may be very safely conjectured to have been—a Bishop or high church dignitary is going on a journey or pilgrimage; his horse drops a shoe; on being taken to a smith's to have it replaced, the animal becomes restive, and cannot be shod even with the help of the stocks; whereupon the bishop facilitates the operation in the manner before described. One feels tempted to ask why he could not have replaced the shoe without the smith's intervention.

What I want to know is, of whom is this story told? I regret that not having seen the carving in question, I can give no particulars of dress, &c., which might help to determine its age; nor could my informant, though he perfectly well remembered the subject represented. He told me that he had often mentioned it to people likely to know of the existence of such a legend, but could never gain any information respecting it.

C. J. E.

King's Col. Cambridge, May 9. 1851.

King of Nineveh burns himself in his Palace.—In a review of Mr. Layard's work on Nineveh (Quarterly, vol. lxxxiv. p. 140.) I find the following statement:

"The act of Sardanapalus in making his palace his own funeral pyre and burning himself upon it, is also attributed to the king who was overthrown by Cyaxares."

May I ask where the authority for this statement is to be found?

X. Z.

Butchers not Jurymen.—

The vulgar error expressed in these lines is not extinct, even at the present day. The only explanation I have seen of its origin is given in Barrington's Observations on the more Ancient Statutes, p. 474., on 3 Hen. VIII., where, after referring in the text to a statute by which surgeons were exempted from attendance on juries, he adds in a note:

"It may perhaps be thought singular to suppose that this exemption from serving on juries is the foundation of the vulgar error, that a surgeon or butcher from the barbarity of their business may be challenged as jurors."

Sir H. Spelman, in his Answer to an Apology for Archbishop Abbott, says,—

"In our law, those that were exercised in slaughter of beasts, were not received to be triers of the life of a man."—Posth. Works, p. 112.; St. Trials, vol. ii. p. 1171.

So learned a man as Spelman must, I think, have had some ground for this statement, and could scarcely be repeating a vulgar error taking its rise from a statute then hardly more than a hundred years old. I hope some of your readers will be able to give a more satisfactory explanation than Barrington's.

E. S. T. T.

Redwing's Nest.—I trust you will excuse my asking, if any of your correspondents have found the nest of the redwing? for I lately discovered what I consider as the egg of this bird in a nest containing four blackbirds' eggs. The egg answers exactly the description given of that of the redwing thrush, both in Bewick and Wood's British Song Birds; being bluish-green, with a few largish spots of a dark brown colour. The nest was not lined with mud, as is usually the case with a blackbird's, but with moss and dried grass.

Has the egg of the redwing been ever seen in this situation before?

C. T. A.

Lyndon.

Earth thrown upon the Coffin.—Is there anything known respecting the origin of the ceremony of throwing earth upon the coffin at funerals? The following note is from a little German tale, Die Richtensteiner, by Van der Velde, a tale of the time of the Thirty Years' war. Whether the ceremony is still performed in Germany as there described, I do not know.

"Darauf warfen, nach der alten, frommen Sitte, zum letzten Lebewohl, der Wittwer, und die Waisen drei HÄnde voll Erde auf den Sarg hinunter ... Alle Zuschauer drangten sich nur um das Grab ... und aus hundert HÄnden flog die Erde hinab auf den Sarg."

J. M. (4.)

Family of Rowe.—Lysons, in his work Environs of London, gives an extract from the will of Sir Thomas Rowe, of Hackney, and, as his authority, says in a note:—

"Extracts of Wills in the Prerogative Office, by E. Rowe Mores, Esq., in the possession of Th. Astle, Esq., F.R.A.S."

Can any of your numerous readers inform me in whose possession the above now is? And whether, wherever it is, it is open to inspection?

Tee Bee.

Portus Canum.—Erim, one of the biographers of Becket, states that the archbishop's murderers (S. Thom. Cantuar., ed. Giles, vol. i. p. 65.), having crossed from France, landed at Portus Canum. It has been conjectured that this means Hythe, which is close to Saltwood Castle, where the knights were received by Ranulph de Broc (English Review, December, 1846, p. 410.). Is the conjecture right? I believe Hasted does not notice the name.

J. C. R.

Arms of Sir John Davies.—Can any of your correspondents inform me what were the arms, crest, and motto (if any), borne by Sir John Davies, the eminent lawyer and poet? In a collection which I have made of the armorial bearings of the families of Davies, Davis, and Davys, amounting to more than fifty distinct coats, there occur the arms of three Sir John Davies or Davys, but there is nothing to distinguish which of them was the Sir John.

Llaw Gyffes.

William Penn.—Will Mr. Hepworth Dixon, or some of your correspondents, be so good as to send a reply to this Query?

What was the name, and whose daughter was the lady to whom William Penn (the son of William Penn and Miss Springett) was married?

A. N. C.

Who were the Writers in the North Briton?—The AthenÆum of Saturday, May 17, contains a very interesting article on the recently published Correspondence of Horace Walpole with Mason, in which certain very palpable hits are made as to the identity of Mason and Junius. In the course of the article the following Query occurs:

"In the second Part of the folio edition of the North Briton published by Bingley, in the British Museum, are inserted two folio pages of manuscript thus headed:—

'The Extraordinary
NORTH BRITON.
By W. M.'

This manuscript is professedly a copy from a publication issued June 3rd, 1768, by Staples Steare, 93. Fleet Street, price three-pence. It is a letter addressed to Lord Mansfield, and an appeal in favour of Wilkes, on whom, the writer says, judgment is this day to be pronounced. It is written somewhat in the style of Junius. The satire is so refined that the reader does not at first suspect that it is satire,—as in Junius's Letters, wherein the satirical compliments to the King have been mistaken for praise, and quoted in proof of inconsistency.

"Who was this 'W. M.'? Who were the writers in the North Briton?—not only 'The Extraordinary' North Briton, published by Steare, but the genuine North Briton, published by Bingley. These questions may perhaps be very simple, and easily answered by persons better informed than ourselves."

As the inquiries of your correspondent W. M. S. (Vol. iii., p. 241.) as to the Wilkes MSS. and the writers of the North Briton have not yet been replied to, and this subject is one of great importance, will you allow me to recall attention to them?

F. S. A.