Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/503

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s.i. MAY 2i, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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interest to state that in the town of Nairn there is living a lady, now in her ninety-sixth year, who when a child talked to men who had been "out in the Forty -five." In Moffat there lives a lady, now in her hun- dredth year, who can remember Waterloo, and who travelled in the stage coach with Charlotte Carpentier, Lady Scott.

W. E. WILSON. Ha wick.

DR. SAMUEL HINDS, FORMERLY BISHOP OF NORWICH (10 th S. i. 227, 351). MR. HIBGAME might like to know that the Doctor's portrait was painted by T. Wagernan in 1834, and that I have an engraving of it quite at his service should he care to see it.

HAROLD MALET, Colonel.

Radnor House, near Sandgate.

The late Canon Howell, of Drayton Rectory, near Norwich, was a near relation of this bishop. A letter to Miss Hinds Howell, his daughter, would no doubt obtain the in- formation which is required. She was living a few years since in the Close at Norwich, and may still be resident there. If not, her address would be known to the cathedral officials. W. P. COURTNEY.

Si. FlNA OF GlMIGNANO (10 th S. 1. 349).

There are two frescoes Vision and Burial. These are in the Santa Fina side-chapel in La Collegiata at San Gimignano, not far from Siena. Fina (perhaps a pet form of Serafina) was a very poor girl who suffered cruelly from disease, practically unrelieved by any healing ministry, and borne with exemplary patience. She found comfort and courage in a sense of fellow-suffering with St. Gregory the Great, whose last years had been one long torture from gout. He appeared to her, and promised her release on his day. She died accordingly on 12 March, 1253. There is a 'Life' in 'Acta Sanctorum ' (12 March, ii. 236), which is sufficiently represented in Baring-Gould's

  • Saints' ('March,' p. 239). Mrs. Jameson has

a pleasant notice of her in 'Sacred and Legendary Art,' p. 650, and assigns the frescoes to Sebastian Mainardi (?).

C. S. WARD. An account of St. Fina will be found in

  • The Story of Siena and San Gimignano,' by

E. G. Gardner (Dent & Co), one of the charming " Mediaeval Town Series."

HENRY GERALD HOPE. 119, Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.

DEAN'S YARD, WESTMINSTER, No. 17 (9 th S. xii. 265; 10 th S. i. 336). In 'Recollec- tions of a Town Boy at Westminster,


1849-1855,' by Capt. F. Markham, pp. 22-3 (London, Edward Arnold, 1903), this house is referred to as "a prebendary's residence, then occupied by the Bishop of Gloucester, who was a Canon of the Abbey."

T. F. D.

SHANKS'S MARE'(10 th S. i. 345)." Shanks's pony " is also employed. As to galloway, the word, though of course Scotch, is sometimes heard south of the Humber. Probably it was in trod uced by horse-cou pers and cattle d rovers in the days before animals were sent by rail. Many so-called Scotch words are English enough. "Bairn," for instance, has always been current so far south as Lincolnshire, at least. But some few others owe their pre- sent range to the men who used to bring herds from all parts of the Scotch Lowlands to the English fairs. Some of these people are said to have known every road and by- path from the Highland line to the Mid- lands. There is a story that the rents of the Carrs, who held property at Sleaford, used to be sent into Northumberland in the charge of a trusted drover, whom no highwayman ever suspected of carrying an important sum of money. Though shorn of much of its importance, Horncastle horse-fair is still well frequented. In the year of the Franco- German war, not only did Scotch and Irish dealers flock to it as usual, but French buyers were also in the field. It is not unusual for foreigners to frequent English fairs and to pick up our horsy words. M. P.

The slang expression current hereabouts to denote a journey performed on foot is always "Shanks's pony." Miss Baker has the fol- lowing in her ' Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases ':

"Shanks' Poney. A low phrase, signifying travelling on foot, or, as it is sometimes said, on ten toes. Hartshorne inserts it ; Moor has Shank's Nag ; Jamieson, Shank's Nagie ; and Craven Dialect, Shank's Galloway."

A somewhat similar phrase is " Shoe-cart." I was talking to a labouring man the other day about some one being unable to afford the cost of a horse and trap to take him to a certain place. "He must do as I should," said he, " go in a shoe-cart."

JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

"To shank oneself away" occurs in 'The Antiquary,' by Scott (chap, xxvii.). Similar phrases are "to borrow Mr. Foot's horse"; " to go by Walker's 'bus "; " to travel by the marrow-bone stage"; "to go on, or ride Bayard of ten toes." The "marrow -bone stage" is probably in allusion to the first