ii s. i. MAY 21, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
407
- Dictionary J gives of the word is from
Lyte in ' Dodoens,' 629: "This herb [candy Thlaspi] is called .... in Latine Arabis and Draba. n (ann. 1578). Phillips also, in 1706, has " Arabis, a sort of Water- cress calPd candy Thlaspy. n These quota- tions suggest another query : What does Thlaspi or Thlaspy mean ?
W. T. LYNN. Blackheath.
KELLEBMAN THE ALCHEMIST. Is any- thing known of this man other than that recorded by Sir Richard Phillips in his
- Personal Tour through the United King-
dom ' ? He has been termed the "last of the alchemists," and is reputed locally {he lived at Lilley in Hertfordshire) to have had extensive dealings with the Evil One. He is said to have disappeared suddenly, leaving one to infer that it was by diabolic agency:
As I am desirous of putting together a few notes upon this person, to be read at an archaeological excursion in June, replies direct will oblige. W. B. GEBISH.
Bishop's Stortford.
" SAUNTER." In Isaac D'Israeli's ' Curi- osities of Literature * We are told that the Marquis of Halifax, in his character of Oharles II., exhibited a trait of that monarch ; that trait is "sauntering/ 1 The noble writer thus expresses himself :
" There was as much of laziness as of love in all those hours which he passed amongst his mistresses, who served only to fill up his seraglio, while a bewitching kind of pleasure, called sauntering, was the Sultana queen he delighted in. The thing called ' sauntering ' is a stronger temptation to princes than it is to others. The being galled with importunities, pursued from one room to another with asking faces ; the dismal sound of unreasonable complaints and ill-grounded pretences ; the deformity of fraud ill-disguised : all these would make any man run away from them, and I used to think it was the motive /or making him icalk so fast."
Is it possible that the verb " to saunter,' 1 which Johnson denned as "to loiter, to linger," had a different signification in the seventeenth century ?
RICHARD EDGCUMBE. Edgbarrow, Crowthorne.
[The derivation given by Prof. Skeat in his 4 Concise Etymological Dictionary,' 1901, seems suitable. It is to adventure oneself, the s standing for ex, out.]
MASONIC EMBLEMS AT ' THE TIMES.' Masonic emblems, formed by cobble stones, are placed in the open space in front of the principal entrance to the Times office, Print-
ing House Square, E.G. Can any reader
say who was responsible for the formation
of these which occurred, I should think, in the
early eighties ? CHARLES S. BUBDON.
BIBLIOGBAPHY OF LONDON. Has any bibliography of London ever been published, or attempted ? The subject is no doubt a colossal one, but one would think it worth undertaking. I have myself collected some thousands of titles on the subject, and should be glad to know what has hitherto been done in this direction.
FBEDK. A. EDWABDS.
39, Agate Road, Hammersmith, W.
THOMAS DAWSON BOWKEB. Information is required as to the parentage of Thomas Dawson Bowker of Hatfield, Yorkshire, who married there, 21 Aug., 1811, Elizabeth Steer of the same parish, and lived after- wards at Campsall in the same county. I also wish to know the date and place of death of the said T. D. Bowker.
As I am going back shortly to Australia, I shall be glad of early replies. G. E. R.
"PULL"=A FIT. Can any one explain this word, apparently meaning some kind of fit, and occurring in a Devon inquest, 1651 ? A man was beside a stream, and, "being taken with a pull," suddenly fell in and was drowned. A friend aptly reminds me of Goethe's "Fischer" and the literal "pull 22 he got from the Water-pixie with the same result--' ' Halb zog sie ihn, halb sankerhin." OLD SABUM.
RICHABD MABTIN, HUMANITABIAN. I should be glad to hear who the good man was of whom Heine in his 'English Frag- ments * writes :
" When I was a boy, I was accustomed to seek under the head ' Great Britain ' whether Richard Martin had not presented a fresh petition to Parliament for the more humane treatment o poor horses, dogs, and asses."
M. L. R. BBESLAB.
Percy House, South Hackney.
[" Humanity Martin " (1754-1834) was a large landowner in Ireland, and one of the founders of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. See the life in the ' D.N.B.' There are many references to him in the Seventh Series of ' N. & Q.']
ASCOUGH FAMILY. John Ascough was described in 1650 as " gentleman, late of Leyland n in the county of Lancaster. His daughter Alice married a few years before this date James Fishwick of Leyland, gentleman, and was buried in Selby Abbey Church in 1698. To what branch of the
