Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/505

This page needs to be proofread.

. ii. NOV. 19, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


417


more generally accepted idea is that Bark- ham (not Bareham) himself produced it, using the pseudonym " John Guillim.'

I. C. GOULD.

It is stated in Lower's 'Curiosities of Heraldry' (London, 1845, p. 261) that Anthony a Wood asserts that the real author of the 'Display of Heraldrie' was John Barkham (not Bareham), rector of Booking, in Kent, who composed it in the early part of his life, and afterwards, thinking it some- what inconsistent with his profession to publish a work on arms, communicated the manuscript to Guillim, who gave it to the world with his own name. Lower, however, does not seem to attach much importance to Wood's statement, which he regards as unfounded. T. F. D.

JACOBITE VERSES (10 th S. ii.288, 349). At the former reference it is suggested that the date of a certain song was 1718 ; at the latter, that the date requires the 10th of June to be a Tuesday. But the 10th of June was really a Tuesday in that year, the Sunday letter being E. The " Tuesday " became " Monday " five years later, in 1723. There is another point as to the date ; for the opening lines of the song are a close parody of the opening lines of

  • Sally in our Alley,' written by Henry Carey.

According to Dr. Brewer, this song was not published till 1737, but it must have been previously well known, for George I. died ten years earlier on 11 June. James Stuart was born 10 June, 1688. WALTER W. SKEAT.

The song quoted at the second reference under the title 4 The Sow's Tail to Geordie ' is in Hogg's ' Jacobite Relics of Scotland,' i. 91. In a discursive explanatory note Hogg says that the unsavoury allusions are to the relations of George I. with the Countess of Platen, who was created Countess of Darling- ton, and ultimately married Lord Viscount Howe. "All this gibing and fun," says the genial editor, "that runs through so many of the songs of that period, without explana- tion must appear rather inexplicable ; but from whatever cause it may have originated, it is evident that the less that is said about it the better." He adds that in his boyhood he frequently heard the song from an old woman, a determined Jacobite, who always explained when she rehearsed it that " it was a cried-down sang, but she didna mind that."

THOMAS BAYNE. [T. F. D. also refers to Hogg.]

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S ARMS (10 th S. ii. 527). The arras which General Washington would be entitled to bear are those of his


ancestors as found on their tombs in the churches of Brington and Sulgrave, in North- amptonshire, and also in other places. They are Argent, two bars gules, and in chief three mullets of the second. Your correspondent may be interested to know that an illustrated article of two and a quarter columns, entitled 'The Washington Arms and the United States Flag,' by Dr. Moncure D. Conway, appeared in the Graphic of G May, 1893. I copy thence the following important para- graph :

"The earliest description of the Washington arms with which I am acquainted is in the Dods- worth MS. (Bodleian, 118, fol. Ill b). We there find Walterus de Wessington, 'miles,' A.D. 1306. He was the son of ' Willielmi Domini de Wessyng- ton,' his wife was named Dionesia, and he is one of the witnesses to a charter of Richard, Bishop of Durham, 1311, where he is styled ' D'no Waltero de Wessington.' There is little doubt that the estates of these Washingtons named the present village of Washington in Durham. Their earliest arms are 'Gul., on a barre argt. 3 cinquefoiles of ye first.' When ' Wessington ' changes to * Weshyngton ' the arms are * G., on a fesse sa. 3 mullets g. With the first appearance of 'Washington' the arms are ' Argt., 2 barrs, and in cheife 3 molets gules.' These last have remained the Washington arms for more than five centuries."

JOHN T. PAGE.

A good cut of the arms appears at the end of chap. i. of the first volume of Irying's ' Life of Washington ' in one of the editions I possess, namely, " The Kinderhook Edition," G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, n.d. ; pub. circa 1890 (?). The same chapter, by the way, gives many interesting particulars of Washington's ancestry. I have previously cited in these columns (ante, p. 64) a genealogical account by Washington him- self ; the article is accompanied by a facsimile of his manuscript (cp. New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, xxxiii. 200, 208).

The statement has been made to me that there is a striking similarity between Washington's arms and those borne by an English family surnamed Denton, which is supposed to have descended from the ancient family of Denton described in Burke's ' Landed Gentry,' ii.. Appendix, 100 (London, 1850). Some of Washington's ancestors resided in Yorkshire, in which county there have also been Dentons, for my late respected father-in-law, Mr. John Denton, sen., born at Beverley circa 1822, was of Yorkshire parentage: doubtless, a mere coincidence, but I should be glad of further light on the point above raised. Will a correspondent learned in heraldic matters be good enough to supply some data ?

EUGENE FAIRFIELD McPiKE.

1, Park Row, Room 006, Chicago.