Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/504

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498


NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. x. DEC. 19, wu.


"TARTS" (11 S. x. 449). Your corre- spondent MR. J. J. FREEMAN has appa- rently not looked up the passage in my latest edition of Byron's works, as he will there find what I believe to be a correct explanation. It was a common joke a hundred years ago to say that a book would soon find its way to the butterman or the pastrycook to wrap up his wares.

JOHN MURRAY.

50, Albemarle Street, W.

To make sense the next line must be added to the one quoted :

Behold ! ye tarts ! one moment spare the text, Hayley's last work, and worst, until his next.

Byron implies that very soon Hayley's last work will be sold to the confectioners, and asks the tarts about to be wrapped in its leaves to spara it one moment. Cf. :

" Some of the well-puffed fashionable novels of eighteen hundred and twenty-nine hold the pastry of eighteen hundred and thirty ; and others, which are now extolled in language almost too high-flown for the merits of Don Quixote, will, we have no doubt, line the trunks of eighteen hundred and thirty one." Macaulay's ' Essay on Robert Montgomery.' Also

F. Is praise an evil ? Is there to be found One so indifferent to its soothing sound As not to wish hereafter to be known, And make a long futurity his own ; Rather than

P. With 'Squire Jerningham descend

To pastrycooks and moths, " and there an end ! " Gifford's ' Baviad."

It is interesting to note that Byron in his satire mentions Gifford several times, and always with commendation.


Swansea.


DAVID SALMON.


LORD : USE OF THE TITLE WITHOUT TERRITORIAL ADDITION (11 S. x. 448). MR. THORNTON quotes only the abbreviated style of Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. The full titles are Earl Roberts of Kandahar, Pretoria, and Waterford ; and Viscount Kitchener of Khartoum.

The practice of bestowing upon dis- tinguished soldiers and sailors titles which combine their family surname with the scenes of their victories is, of course, of long standing. I do not know of any peerages of England or the United King- dom which carry a title repeating the peer's surname without a territorial or topographic addition. The disappearance from the surname of the possessive prefix " de " frequently masks its territorial origin; e.g., the case of the Barony of Stourton (the oldest surviving barony created


by letters patent). The present Lord' Mowbray, Segrave, and Stourton's family name is now Stourton, but was formerly written " de Stourton."

In the Scottish peerage it is sometimes difficult to trace to a territorial origin the titles conferred on peers when these are synonymous with the family surname ; but even in obscure cases, such as the ancient baronies of Sempill and Sinclair (St. Clair), the surname almost certainly originated in the possession of land either in Britain or on the Continent. HERBERT MAXWELL.

Monreith.

" In the eleventh year of his reign Richard II.. created by letters patent John Beauchamp, Lord de Beauchamp and Baron of Kydderminster. The grant rested wholly on the grace and favour of the Crown, and was a personal reward for- services rendered. Here there is a barony entirely a personal dignity and quite uncon- nected with land." ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' art. ' Peerage.'

This would appear to be the first instance of a surname being used as a peerage title.

" Rules or considerations as generally applied! to the selection of Peerages. Every peer must be-

described in his patent as of (somewhere),

usually the principal seat of the recipient, or some- place with which he has definite connection. A surname may, if desired, always be adopted as a title." ' Debrett's Peerage.'

Hence the territorial designation does not necessarily imply the possession of land,, but rather a place of abode. In some peer- ages conferred for naval or military services,, the surname being used for the title, the recipient is described as of a place where h& has become famous.

In recent creations the name of a wife's family accounts for the title of " Selby," that of an ancestor for " Sydenham," and political connexion with a town for " Read- ing." J. D. C.

"PLATOON" (II S. x. 447). The original! military significance of this newly revived word was a small body of soldiers formed up in hollow square, or square horseshoe formation. It now means a regular or irregular number of trained men, such as a firing unit, generally less than a company. Up to recent years a body of recruits in training was termed a " squad," hence " awkward squad." The word " squad " is now dismissed from use in favour of the term " section." Fuller information on " platoons " will be found in the War Office- manual of ' Infantry Tra ; ning, 1914.'

WM, JAGGAJEOX. Stratford-on,-Avon.