346
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL MAY i, 1000.
-vinism ; or that the use of long words
connoted any particular physical condition.
One imagines that " purfly " Dr. Johnson,
his antetype Holof ernes, and many another
must have felt what this implies. Of a
certain dignitary I heard it remarked that
he never used a word of five syllables when
he could find one of six. ST. SWITHIN.
" ALDRESS." The earliest illustrative quotation for aldress in ' N.E.D.' is dated 1608, and hails from York ; but there are earlier to be found. A striking example is furnished in the Lincoln municipal records, as calendared by the Historical Manuscripts Commission in its Fourteenth Report, Ap- pendix, Part VIII., for in an account of " The cummynge of the King to this citie " on 9 Aug., 1541, Henry VIII. being accom- panied by his fifth wife, Katherine Howard, there is the note :
" To the Queen's grace. Please it your grace that the mayoress and her sisters, aldresses of _your city of Lincoln, do present your grace towards your welcome into this your city with this present following, First, in pikes, 11, [Item.] breams 8, Cltem.] tenches, 6, price 71." P. 37.
The word was locally employed as lately s 1724, for on 26 May of that year it was ordered that the seats of the mayor, alder- men, and common council men, and also those of the " aldresses " in St. Peter's Church, should be lined (p. 116).
ALFRED F. BOBBINS.
VALLE CBUCIS ABBOTS. In the list I have I do not find Abbot Robert given. He was in office in 1528.
JOHN HATJTENVILLE-COPE.
ROGER WILLIAMS or RHODE ISLAND : A STRANGE TRANSFORMATION. The following example of a strange transformation seems worthy of being preserved in ' N. & Q.' It is contributed by Dr. A. P. Reed to The American Antiquarian, January February, 1909, pp. 8-9 :
" In the museum of Brown University may be seen the roots of an apple tree, having a history that perhaps makes this tree quite as notable as the cherry tree cut by the boy Washington."
The Puritan Roger Williams, founder of the State of Rhode Island, died at Provi- dence in 1683, and was buried on his own estate.
"Many years later some of his descendants decided to erect a monument over the graves of Williams and his wife Mary. The graves were
found and investigated In close proximity
to the graves stood an apple tree, the largest root of which had wormed its way to the precise spot occupied by the skull of Roger Williams. Turning,
- t had passed around the skull with its fibres,
pushed on down the line of the spinal column to the hips, here dividing, sending one branch along each leg to the heel, where the roots turned upward in the direction of the toes, thus outlining a human form very strikingly, and showing how the flesh and bones of the resolute Roger Williams had been transformed into wood."
G. L. APPERSON.
WE must request correspondents desiring in-
formation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that answers may be sent to them direct.
' MEMOIRES DE M. DE LAGE DE CTJEILLY.'
I greatly wish to buy, or borrow, or receive
as a present a copy of the ' Memoires de
M. de Lage de Cueilly, Capitaine des Vais-
seaux du Roy d'Espagne ' (Amsterdam,
1746). I should be very grateful to any
one who would help me to the attainment
of my wish ; or, failing that, tell me of a
library in this country where there is a copy
of the booklet. J. K. LAUGHTON.
9, Pepys Road, Wimbledon.
COVENTRY PATMORE AND SWEDENBORG. I once saw, in a copy of Coventry Patmore's ' Angel in the House ' (I believe the first edition), a prefatory note to this effect : " The writer is indebted, for some of his ideas, to the distinguished author of ' De Amore Conjugiali ' " meaning, of course, Emanuel Swedenborg. Can any one tran- scribe the exact words, with date of edition ? The note has disappeared from subsequent editions. ALBERT J. EDMUNDS.
Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
1300, Locust Street, Philadelphia.
SHAKESPEARE'S DESCENDANTS. Reference was made at 3 S. v. 341 to the double coincidence of name and feature apparent in the case of a youth noticed by William Howitt at the National School at Stratford- on-Avon, and mentioned in the latter's 'Visits to Remarkable Places' (1840) and ' Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets ' (1847). At 5 S. vii. 475 the REV. JOHN PICKFORD quoted Hewitt's regret at the failure of " his efforts in en- deavouring to enlist the sympathies of influential people in favour of the boy." Since 1877, when MR. PICKFORD recalled this, many discoveries have been made with regard to Shakespeare's family and the local surroundings of Stratford ; and I am induced to ask if Hewitt's attribution to the school- boy of nearly seventy years since of a
