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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. i. JAN. 29, 1910.
For a purely genealogical reason I should
be glad to have the address of any member
of tfris family. A sister of John died as
recently as 1884. Please reply direct.
HENRY FISHWICK.
The Heights, Rochdale.
AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. Can any of your readers tell me where to find the ballad in which the following verse occurs ?
For sair the English bowmen galled The van that ungeared stood ; Nae thirsty shafts e'en reached the earth Unstained in [Scottish blood.
It is quoted without reference in Mr. Bradley' s - ' Romance of Northumberland, 5 and refers, he states, to the Border fight of Homilton or Humbledon Hill. I have searched for it in vain in the Percy
- Reliques l and in Scott's * Minstrelsy of
the Scottish Border.' I. M. L.
In what poem of Byron's are the following lines to be found ?
He who first met the Highland's swelling blue Will love each peak that owns a kindred hue.
They are included in Sheridan Knowles's ' Elocutionist/ but I cannot trace them in my copy of Byron. J. TRUMAN.
Combe Martin, N. Devon.
NOSEGAY IN THE PULPIT. In "A Short Narrative of the Life of John Forster, of Wintringham, in the County of Lincoln, written by himself," Colchester (1810), p. 9, I find the following curious passage :
"As my way lay by the church, and the people were assembled, curiosity tempted me to go in ; the minister was in his sermon, but instead or being a hearer, I became a spectator, and was censorious enough to fancy that he was more desirous of amusing himself with a nosegay he held in his hand than of benefiting his congregation."
The date would be about 1760. As the writer had walked from Wintringham " about six miles/ 1 the place would probably be either Appleby or Burton Stather.
Was it at all usual for ministers thus to amuse themselves (and their congregations) with a nosegay ? J. T. F.
Winterton, Doncaster.
Miss ABBOTT'S PORTRAIT BY JOHN DOWN- MAN. Can any one inform me as to the identity and family connexions of this lady, whose portrait was made by John Downman in 1793 original in the British Museum ?
G. F. ABBOTT.
Royal Societies Club, St. James's Street, S.W.
LONDON VISITATIONS. Is there any pro-
spect of the publication by the Harleian
Society, within the next couple of years or
so, of the London Visitations of 1664 and
1687 ?
It seems a little singular that the earlier of these Visitations, containing as it pre- sumably does a complete record of the gentry of the City immediately before the Plague and Fire, has not yet been printed.
W. McM.
DE QUINCE Y ON MEAT AND DREAMS. I desire confirmation of De Quincey's- statement, in the ' Confessions, 2 that Dryden and Fuseli ate raw meat to obtain splendid dreams. V. H. C.
" LE WHACOK." Where was this sign (which I find mentioned in a London will of 1404) situated ? What is the meaning of the name ? Whence is the derivation ? Was it an inn ? WILLIAM McMuRRAY.
" ALTES HAUS, FIDELES HAUS." What is the origin of the expression " altes Haus, fideles Haus^ ( = old fellow), used by German students ? Why " Haus " ?
J. R. C. H.
COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT. The origin of the name of Cowes has never yet been satis- factorily decided. The suggestions that it was derived from two coves (which are non- existent) ; from the number of cows who once frequented a well on the site of the present town ; or from two great guns placed on the two castles built by Henry VIII., " which did roar '* from opposite sides of the Medina, do not appear convincing.
I am anxious, therefore, to appeal to students of the early language of our islands for information as to whether the place- name " Cowse " is known to them as describ- ing a wooded shore.
In a recent number of Lake's Falmouth Paper I find a few ancient Cornish names and places extracted from ' The History of Cornwall, by Fortescue Hitchens. Amongst these I have been struck by the following paragraph :
'"The Grey Rock on the Wood.' The name for St. Michael's Mount when what is now Mount s Say is said to have been covered with forests.^ In ancient Cornish it was ' Caraclowse-in-Cowse.' '
Now we know that ancient woods covered the shores of the Medina and of the Solent ; and vestiges of these woods remain in the form of copses all the way from Newport down both sides of the river, and westward on the Solent shores.
