11 S. X. JULY 11, 1914.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
MERCHANT ADVENTURERS : MUSCOVY COM-
PANY. Can any of your readers tell me
where to find an account of the Company
of Merchant Adventurers and the Muscovy
Company of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries ? I should like especially to find
some lists of names of members. B. M.
[Several works on the general history of the Muscovy Company were named at 10 S. vi. 252.]
FILDIEU. At the French Be volution a Madame Fildieu with two sons and two daughters fled from France and landed in Devonshire. The family in England would be very glad to obtain any information possible as to the origin and history of the Fildieu family. Beplies may be sent direct' (Mrs. ) FILDIEU SARGENT.
32, Annandale Road, Chiswick, W.
WALL-PAPERS. Can any one refer me to any sources of information concerning the first designers of wall-papers in France and England, and also concerning the firms who first produced them ? Is it known whether any of the earliest French designs are preserved ? If so, where may they be seen ? HYLLARA.
" THERE 's SOME WATER WHERE THE STAGS DROWN." A friend of mine recently quoted this proverb with the meaning " There is no smoke without fire." She has been familiar with it since her early cliildhood, which was spent under South Yorkshire and Hampshire influences. I desire to know whether the proverb is generally known.
If only local, is it current in the neighbour- hood of the New Forest, or in the district round Wakefield, which was once a wood- land forming part of Bobin Hood's country ?
M. P.
FOLK-LORE QUERIES. 1. Bobins. A countrywoman tells me that robins have a bad name in this neighbourhood (Bucking- hamshire). People believe that the young ones, when ready to fly, peck the mother- bird's eyes out. Is this belief generally known ? and if so, what traditional foundation for it is there ?
2. Swallows. I was told not long ago by a farmer's daughter that, if a swallow's nest on a farm be taken, and the young destroyed, the cows on the farm will give no milk or yield blood instead of milk. She related an instance of this in her own home. Can any reader tell me of other recent cases of belief in this superstition ?
PEREGRINUS.
AUTHOR WANTED. Who was the author
of
- ' Civil Polity : a Treatise concerning the Nature
of Government, wherein the Reasons of that Great Diversity to be observed in the Customs, Manners, and Usages of Nations are Historically Explained : and Remarks made upon the Changes in our English Constitution ; and the differing Measures of our several Kin^s " (London, 1703) ?
DAVID SALMON.
Swansea.
ALEXANDER INNES, D.D., was Preacher Assistant at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and published in 1728 ' An Enquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue. He was asso- ciated with George Psalmanazar, and it is stated that he was " Chaplain to a British Begiment in the pay of the Du'ch, and sta'ioned at Sluys." W T ho was he ?
A. N. I.
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY SEAL. The seal of Thomas Jekes, clerk, of Surrey, 1362, shows a shield with a cross paty accompanied by five roses. The legend is [DAT CRUCE
CRjUX BINA CRISTUM ROSA VULNERA QUINA.
The letters in brackets are broken away. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' explain the legend and indicate its origin ?
DONALD L. GALBREATH. Montreux.
FREDERIC CHAPMAN. ' He was the founder of The Fortnightly Review, and is said to have been born in Cock Street, Hitchin, in a house reputed to have belonged to his collateral ancestor, George Chapman the poet.
Where can I obtain further particulars concerning him ? W. B. GERISH.
[Frederic Chapman died 1 March, 1895. There are accounts of him in the First Supplement to the ' D.N.B ' and in Boase's ' Modern English Biography,' Supplement, Vol. I. Both give the place of his birth as Cork Street, Hitchin.]
THE FAMILY OF CHILDE OR CHILD. A reference was made to a William Child of Blockley, Worcestershire, in the interesting letter from Sir Bobert Thrpckmorton (US. ix. 405). The family of Child seems to have settled at Northwick, near Blockley, in 1320, and continued to reside there, cer- tainly till 1679, for in that year Thomas Child of Northwick was buried at Blockley. About that time they sold the manor, or more probably the lease of it, to Sir James Bushout, Bart. Can any of your readers k ndly tell me whether William Child (born at Bristol), au eminent doctor of music in the reign of Charles II., belonged to the Northwick family ? and also what connexion
