328
NOTES AND QUERIES. rn s. in. AP BIL 29, mi.
uncle and nephew the one about forty-one
years old, the other about fifteen or sixteen.
The interesting question before me is to deter-
mine which of these received the B.A. at
Oxford. I shall greatly appreciate any
information as to the ages at which men
received their degrees from Oxford in the
sixteenth century.
Early in the nineteenth century, and in the latter part of the eighteenth, many men in America graduated from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton when but seventeen or eigh- teen years old. JOHN Ross DELAFIELD.
New York.
[For instances of early graduation at Cambridge in the seventeenth century see ante, pp. 32, 75.]
THOMAS TURNER OF BALCOMBE. I wish to learn particulars of Thomas Turner, who died at Balcombe, Mid Sussex, about 1899 or 1900, aged about 101 years. He was born at Balcombe, and I think the family originated at Horsham. Horsham, Rusper, Cuckfield, Balcombe, are roughly the move- ments of the family. They were spoken and written of aa the old Sussex family of Turneurs. To. TURNEUR.
G.P.O., Brisbane.
CARLYLE AND CHARLES I. I am under the impression that Carlyle in one of his works made use of the following aphorism : "Charles I. was executed to remind kings that they have a crick in their necks." I should be glad to know the title of the work in which those words occur.
RICHARD EDGCUMBE.
Edgbarrow, Crowthorne, Berks.
MILTON IN IRELAND. Can any of your readers say if Milton ever paid" a visit to Ireland ? Some letters appeared in the Belfast paper recently to this effect, and I should like to have some confirmation of them. DUNMURRY.
MADAME VESTRIS. I recently came across a brochure entitled ' Memoirs of the Life, Public and Private Adventures of Madame Vestris,' printed " for the booksellers, 1839." I believe it is rather rare. ' I am curious to ascertain if its authorship is known, and also how much credence may be attached to the surprising narratives it contains. The writer says he was in the house (72, Dean Street, Soho) at the time of the birth of Mrs. Bartolozzi's remarkable child in 1797, and he also refers to himself as being with Capt. Thompson (who killed Mr. Jocelyn in a duel) as first lieutenant of the Clyde, and as having fought side by side with him in the Basque Roads.
I shall also be grateful for a reference to
any further literature concerning Madame
Vestris, as, with the exception of the memoirs
above referred to, all that I know about her is
gleaned from Dickens' s ' Life of Charles
Mathews ' and Planche's reminiscences,
WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK,
W. A. CLOUSTON. Wanted, references to obituary notices or other newspaper articles on W. A. Clouston, Oriental scholar and folk-lorist, a native of this town. Please reply direct. ALEX. RUSSELL.
Stromness, Orkney.
COOKERY MS., FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Dr. Pegge in his edition of the ' Forme of Cury,' 1780, reprinted (in addition to the
- F. of C.') a fourteenth-century MS., or a
portion of a collection of miscellaneous tracts, under the title of ' Ancient Cookery, A.D. 1381.' The first half commences with " Hie incipiunt universa servicia tarn de carnibus quam de piscibus," No. I. being ' For to make Furmenty.' In this portion there were 58 recipes. The second half,
- ' Hie incipit Servicium de Piscibus," con-
tains 33 recipes, and finishes up with the remark, " Explicit de Coquina quae est optima medicina."
The book containing these is " a vellum miscellany in small quarto," and at the end of one of the tracts is added : " Explicit massa Compoti Anno Dili M lo ccc mo octogesimo primo ipso die Felicis et Audacti," i.e.,. 30 August, 1381, temp. Richard II.
Dr. Pegge' s MSS. and books were sold by Sothebys, but a reference to the sale cata- logue affords no information as to where they went, beyond the purchasers' names. Such a MS. must be known, and probably well known : can any one tell me where it is ? I should be very grateful for the infor- mation. The details I have given will, I trust, be ample for its identification.
JOHN HODGKIN.
" RHUBARB " : ITS DERIVATION. In the fourth edition of his ' Etymological Dic- tionary,' under ' Rhubarb,' Prof. Skeat says : " Gr. pfjov is an adjectival form from pd the rha-plant, i.e. reubarb, which was also called Rha Ponticum, and Rha, took its name from the Kha- or Volga, the name of a river in Pontus."
The Rha is the ancient name of the Volga or Wolga ; it was not, however, in Pontus, but in Sarmatia, part of the modern Russia.
Prof. Skeat goes on to remark that the Linnsean name of the plant, Rheum Rhdponti- mm, is tautological, as Rheum itself comes
