Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/63

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ii s. i. JAN. 15, 1910.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


during his lifetime at Diisseldorf. If MB. GILBERT would like to have copies of these pictures, I could make the necessary arrange- ments for him with one of the local photo- graphers. L. R. M. STBACHAN. Heidelberg.

" HEN AND CHICKENS " SIGN (10 S. xii. 28, 94, 215). Dr. Edmond Halley's younger surviving daughter, Mrs. C. Price, in her wiil dated 8 July, 1764, proved 14 Nov., 1765 ; P.C.C. reg. Rushworth, fo. 423, bequeaths, among other properties, the

  • ' Hen and Chickens," in Whitechapel High

Street, in the occupation of John Allen, to Mary Entwisle, Margaret Entwisle, and Jane Millikin, widow, all of Lombard Street, milliners, and immediately after their de- cease to the use of Halley Benson Millikin, son of the said Jane Millikin. The italics are mine. What do those, words signify ? Do they imply the existence of heirs of entail ? It has been thought just possible that the " Hen and Chickens n may have been at one time the seat of Humphrey Halley the elder, vintner, paternal grand- father of the astronomer. In the Middle- sex Land Registry are two records (in December, 1743, and January, 17434) of dealings with the " Hen and Chickens " by Mrs. Catherine Price.

I should be grateful for any data relating to the above. EUGENE F. McPiKE.

1, Park Row, Chicago.

PIN AND NEEDLE RIMES (10 S. xii. 409, 518). All MB. RATCLIFFE'S rimes but the third were current in South Notts when I was a boy, but in the last of them we sang

  • ' to carry my lord to London.' 1 Which is

the original version ?

I remember well, that our village shop- keeper, when unable to make up change, would say : "I haven't got a ha'penny ; I '11 give you a row of pins.' 1 C. C. B.

In my third rime (10 S. xii. 518) the second line should run

Three big beggars knockt at the door.*

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

"HuEL" (10 S. xii. 488). Huel (pro- perly hwyl} denotes the peculiar intonation, a raising of the pitch of the voice, something between speech and song, which is frequently heard in preachers and speakers in Wales. Primarily it denotes the fervour or emotion which leads to this intonation. A preacher does not begin with the hwyl, but works up to it gradually as the emotional


tension increases ; and it was no doubt this intensity of emotion of which the Archbishop of York was thinking when he declared that the hwyl " makes the speaker say he knows not what, and excites the audience they know not why. u There are few forms of human speech more beautiful in sound than Welsh spoken with a good hwyl. I have heard the word, unkindly, derived from Engl. howl, but no doubt it is simply the hwyl, which means "course"' or sail 2 *; cf. hwylio, " to sail n ; hwylbren, " a mast " ; hwylus, " orderly, n " dexterous.' 1

H. I. B,

LYNCH LAW (10 S. xi. 445, 515; xii. 52, 133, 174, 495)." As, therefore, Wirt had finished his biography " (in which the expression " Lynch law " appears for the first time) "on or before 23 Oct., 1816, while the murder of Lynchy did not take place until 1 Nov. following, it results that M.'s theory n (that the expression originated with the murder of Lynchy) " is placed out of court. n So says MB. ALBEBT MAT- THEWS, and no doubt he would be right if the facts were as represented by him. His statement, however, is not correct. All that Wirt had finished on 23 Oct., 1816, was the first rough draft of his book, and it was not submitted to Mr. Roane (whose letter cited by Wirt contains the quotation in point) until at least four, and possibly more, months after the murder. I shall now pro- ceed to prove my statement, using as my authority the same book that MB. MATTHEWS relies on, namely, ' Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt/ by John P. Kennedy. I quote from the British Museum copy, pub- lished in Philadelphia, 1850.

Wirt, writing to Richard Morris on 19 Jan., 1817, says :

" Are you not a shabby fellow, to return the manuscript, without aiding me with a single criticism ? "Vol. i. p. 367.

Again, writing to Judge Carr on 27 Feb., 1817, Wirt says :

" I carried to Washington the manuscript. . . . You must if possible see it before it goes to the press. . . .The greater part of the btDok as it now stands is the first rough draft .... I want to put a little more body and character into the work." Ib., vol. ii. p. 19.

Writing again to Judge Carr on 9 Aug., 1817, Wirt says : "I submitted the work to several old gentlemen. . . .Mr. Roane n (ib. t p. 23). The book was in fact not sent to press until 5 Sept., 1817, (ib., p. 28), and it did not appear in public until about the 1st of November, 1817 (ib., p. 29), exactly twelve months after the murder of Lynchy.