n s. XL JAN. 9, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
27
undecked boat, and now a small wooden com-
partment in the bows or stern of a boat to
serve as a cupboard. The derivation of
tille, according to Littre, is the same as
that of tillac, a sea -term for the bridge of a
ship, and at one time for the deck of a ship.
Panurge was prostrate on the tillac during
the storm described in the eighteenth
chapter of the fourth book of Rabelais.
The etymology given of tillac is : Spanish
tilld, Portug. ttthd, Anc. Scandin. thilia,
Swed. tilja, Anglo-Saxon thille. The II in
tillac and tille should be " mouillees et non
' ti-yak,' ' ti-ye.' "
On the other hand, Skeat (1882) insists that the proper sense of the word till (a shop's till) is something that can be pulled in and out ; and, while stating that the origin is obscure, and the root uncertain, suggests words giving the idea of something that is moved an idea quite contrary to Littre. It is noteworthy that none of the cognate w r ords mentioned by Littre" is noticed by Skeat, and vice versa.
J. J. FREEMAN.
Shepperton-on-Thames.
EXTRAORDINARY BIRTHS. (See 4 S. viii. 369; ix. 53, 127, 165, 204. ) Whatever scepticism there may be in connexion with other recorded instances, there seems no reason to doubt the particulars described on a memorial tablet on a house in Hameln, in Westphalia the Hamelin of Pied Piper fame. This ' Denkstein der Siebenlinge ' depicts the kneeling figures of the father, mother, two sons, three daughters, and the seven swaddled babies. It bears the follow- ing inscription :
ALHIEB BIN BURGER THIELE R(jMER GENANNT SBINE HAUSFRAU ANNA BREyERS WOHL BEKANNT
ALS MANN Z^HLTE 1600 IAHR
DEN 9TEN IANUARIUS DBS MORGENS 3 UHR WAR VON IHR ZWEY KNABELEIN UND PcJNF M^DELEIN
AUF EINE ZEIT GEBOHREN SE N
HABEN AUCH DIE HEILIGEN TAUF ERWORBEN
FOLGENDS DEN 20TEN 12 UHR SEELIG GESTORBEN
GOTT WOLLE IHN GEBEN DIE SJE^LIGKEIT
DIE ALLEN GL^EUBIGEN 1ST BEREIT OBIGES ORIGINAL-DENKMAL HAT DURCH DIE G[JTE DBS HERRN BROGERMEISTER DOMEIER, DER IETZIGE BESITZER DIESES DAMAHLS RuMERSCHEN HAUSES GERICHTSSCHREIBER HOPPE, WIEDER ERHALTEN UND AUFGESTELLET IM IAHRE 1818.
LEO C.
- ECHOES FROM THE CLASSICS ' : BARTEN
HOLYDAY. The editor of ' Echoes from the Classics,' one of the latest of the " Oxford Garlands " Series, attributes the lines, But I a looking-glass would be, &c. (pp. 12, 13), to M. B. Holliday, adding the following note on p. 116: " Holliday After Anacreon.
Quoted by Burton in his ' Anatomy of
Melancholy,' but that is all I know of him,"
One can see how the error arose. Burton's
marginal note, as late as the third edition
of his 'Anatomy' (1628), p. 486, is "Eng-
lished by Mr. B. Holiday in his Technog.,
Act I. Seen. 7." In the fourth edition (1632)
the name is spelt " Holliday." In the fifth
(1638) we get " M. B. Holliday." But
Barten Holyday (1593-1661) and his ' Tex-
voya/ua; or, The Marriages of the Arts,
a Comedie,' to say nothing of his translations
of Juvenal and Persius, are pretty well
known by name at least. There are
articles on the play in Isaac D'Israeli's
' Curiosities of Literature ' and vol. viii.
of The Retrospective Review, and a Life of
the author in the ' D.N.B.'
EDWARD BENSLY.
DESCENDANTS OF ERNEST AUGUSTUS, DUKE OF CUMBERLAND. On 22 March, 1863, Lord Brougham, then in his eighty-fifth year, sent Mr. S. N. Cattley an order on Ban- some's bank for 51 , to assist a needy gentle- man whose name is not given. Mr. Cattley preserved the accompanying letter, and wrote a memorandum stating that it referred to the following incident :
" When the late Duke of Cumberland, son of George III., was at Rome, he fell in love with, and privately married, a nun, daughter of Lladislaus [Stanislaus ?], the last King of Poland, whose son was lost at the battle of Dresden. She had a daughter, and on her was settled a large sum, of which Lord B[rougham] was one of the trustees. Mr. Binks was a servant of the Crown, an ' ob- server ' at foreign Courts. He married the daughter of the nun's daughter. The trust money was never really conveyed, and was lost. His wife died, and at my request Sir John Lubbock [the late] put Mr. Binks into Morden [?] College, where he also died a year or two ago."
This memorandum, dated 30 March, 1875, is addressed to C. Wollston, Esq. Both it and Lord Brougham's barely legible letter are in my possession.
RICHARD H. THORNTON.
8, Mornington Crescent, N.W.
SHAKESPEARIANA : ' MEASURE FOR MEA- SURE,' V. i. 293.
Duke. Respect to your great place ! and let
the devil Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne !
Surely this is a reminiscence of a passage in the Epistle of Jude, w, 8, 9, which I give in the words of the version which Shake- speare most frequently quotes. The writer is speaking of certain lawless persons, and says :
" [They] despise government, and speak evil of them that are in authority : yet Michael the Arch-
