NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL JAN. 12, 1907.
^fifties of last century most of the farm
teams had bells. They hung on a metal
frame fixed on the hames three or four
bells on each horse. Their sound was cheer-
ful, and very useful on unlighted roads and
in narrow lanes. Bells went out of use in
the sixties.
As children we ran races, and we were started with the words,
Bell-horses, bell-horses, what time of day ? One o'clock, two o'clock, three, and away ! At the last word we were off.
JOHN P. STILWELL. Hilfield, Yateley.
In parts of Kent bells are still carried on special occasions, as when the first load of hops is taken to the railway, or when on a journey beyond the immediate home dis- trict. The bells are in wooden boxes, open below, and fixed to the top points of the hames. Four, or five of the smaller ones, go to a box, and three horses are needed to carry a whole set of from thirteen to fifteen. They are the property of the waggoners (not of the farmers), and most of them are supposed to have been won in contests or given at some special time (such as com- pletion of twenty-five years' service for one master) in " the good old days." I am told that no new ones have been acquired for many years, which seems a pity, for I know nothing that sounds more charmingly rural than the bells of a fine team, walking over a firm road in the first crisp of autumn : as one may hear them around Brenchley, Horsmonden, Cranbrook, or the Faxleighs, .and even, sometimes, at Tonbridge.
H. SNOWDEN WARD. Hadlow, Kent.
LOCALITIES WANTED (10 S. vi. 430).
.All the houses mentioned in the query are "hospitals." Items 1 and 6 and probably 12, are lazar-houses. Item 7 is a " poor hospital."
I am afraid I cannot give any definite information. I suggest, however, that, with regard to item 2, as the Hospital of
- St. Laurence is said in the Patent Roll to
have been at Chippenham, Wilts, it may have occupied the site known as Monkton j there ; with regard to item 3, as the Knights j Hospitallers possessed lands at Chilcombe, Dorset, perhaps the " Hospital of St. John ' the Baptist at Clelecombe " was situate I there and belonged to them : with regard ! to item 5, as the Hospital of St. Mary, Hare- } ford, possessed lands at Stakeston, Yorks (i.e., presumably Staxton, near Willerby, [ .near Hull), Hareford is more likely to be j
Hartford (Cheshire) than Harford (Devon)
or Hereford or Hertford. With regard to
items 6 and 8, according to Tanner's
- Notitia Monastica ' there was a lazar-
house about two miles from Oxborough, on the road to Cockley Cley before you came to Langwade Cross (I have been unable to verify the reference to Blomefield's ' Nor- folk ') ; and I would note that in the ' Cal. Papal Letters,' iv. 407, mention is made of the chapel of St. Mary the Virgin at Morselet, Langford, Norfolk. With regard to item 1, the lazar-house in question was at the end of a bridge. There are Beightons in Derby- shire and Norfolk, and, I believe, one near Sheffield existed ; and there is a Beyton in Suffolk. Has one of these places an ancient bridge ? JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.
BYRON'S ' DON JUAN ' (10 S. vi. 369, 475). If I am not very much mistaken, the quotation marks are quite justified. The passage and incident is to be found, I believe, in the introduction or in the notes of one of the Waverley Novels. I have seen it during the last four or five years, but cannot just now find it again. WM. H. PEET.
MUSICAL COMPOSERS AS PIANISTS (10 S. vi. 490). I can at once think of two great composers who did not, and could not, play the piano : Louis Spohr and Hector Berlioz. WILLIAM H. CUMMINGS.
Je me souviens entre autres exemples, et bien typique celui-la, que Berlioz n'a jamais pu jouer sur le piano. Cf. ses ' Memoires ' (Charpentier editeur), ou il raconte que, lors de sa tournee en Russie, il provoqua certains doutes touchant son identite, pour avoir declar6 son ignorance sur le piano.
Au Conservatoire (Paris) Ton dit couram- ment d'un mauvais executant, " II joue comme un compositeur."
En composant Berlioz s'aidait d'une flute. Dans les ' Memoires ' il cite d' autres compositeurs aussi inhabiles que lui.
P. A. S.
' DEATH AND THE SINNER ' (10 S. vi. 388, 436, 473). At ST. SWITHIN'S request I have much pleasure in sending for the columns of ' N- & Q.' the following five verses of ' Death and the Sinner,' which I have been successful in getting through a friend from the village of Ulsta, in the island of Yell. An elderly woman, also born in Yell, but now residing in Lerwick, informs me that many years ago an acquaintance wrote out from memory for her a copy which consisted of many verses. Unfortunately, the copy
