ii s. iv. JULY 29, ion.]- NOTES AND QUERIES.
87
by saying : " Plume was doubtless using
the new style, which was eleven days behind
the new " (sic, also in reissue). No doubt
he used the old style, then universal in
England, and it is very unlikely the register
is otherwise, so that the mistake must be
of another kind. The difference between
the styles would be not eleven, but ten days
in the seventeenth century ; and 7 August by
old style would be 17 August by new. In
Morant's history of Essex the date is given
correctly as 7 August, 1630.
W. T. LYNN. Blackheath.
WE must request correspondents desiring in-
formation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that answers may be sent to them direct.
THEBMOMETEB. I shall be glad of help
in fixing the first appearance of this word in
English, French, Italian, or modern Latin.
Our first English instance at present is
from Sir Thomas Browne, ' Vulgar Errors,'
1646, p. 227 ; but it ought to occur earlier.
The earliest French example in Hatzfeld-
Darmesteter is of 1667, which one would
say cannot be the first. The instrument is
variously said to have been invented by
Cornelius Drebbel of Alkmaar, by Galilei,
and by Santorio of Padua in 1600.
Drebbel is said to claim it for himself in his
- Commentaries on Avicenna,' 1626. The
name may therefore have been given in mod. Latin or in Italian. Florio's Italian Dictionary of 1611 has no termometro. In the case of telescope, the Latinized telesco- pium occurs as early as It. telescopic, and it may have been the same with thermome- trum, especially if Drebbel's claim holds good. A search through the new edition of the works of Galilei ('Galilei Opere,' 1901) ought to show whether the instrument is mentioned there. Help in any of these directions will be thankfully received.
J. A. H. MUBBAY. Oxford.
KING GEOBGE V.'s ANCESTOBS. Who were the parents and grandparents of (1) Ernest I., Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and {2) Louisa his wife (the parents of Prince Albert, King George's grandfather) ?
Who were the parents and grandparents of (3) Duke Wilhelm of Schleswig-Holstein- Sonderburg - Gliicksburg and (4) his wife,
Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel (the paternal
grandparents of Queen Alexandra) ?
Who were the parents and grandparents of (5) Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel and (6) his wife (the maternal grandparents of Queen Alexandra) ?
The forbears of Queen Victoria are named atllS.iii. 438, 471; iv. 12.
F. A. EDWABDS.
KNIGHTS HOSPITALLEBS IN KENT : CLAY- PANS. Is the house of the Knights Hos- pitallers of St. John in Kent, sometime called Claypans, and earlier Turk's House and Monk's Place, still in existence ? There are various allusions in print to it as being in Wrotham, but that parish was formerly larger than at present, and there is no house in present-day Wrotham which seems to answer to Claypans. C. F. YONGE.
Bishop's Lodge, Wrotham.
' TWEEDSIDE,' SONG AND METBE. In
Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd' (1725) there occurs a song which is stated to be to the " tune " of ' Tweedside,' and which begins :
When hope was quite sunk in despair, My heart it was going to break. Ramsay's ' Poems,' Paisley, 1877, ii. 113.
This three-foot anapaestic metre was rather popular in the eighteenth century, being used by, among others, Howe, Shenstone, Byrom, and Cowper. Perhaps the example best known to-day is Cowper's poem on Alexander Selkirk :
I am monarch of all I survey ; My right there is none to dispute.
In Irish also the metre (with the usual Irish employment of assonance instead of rime) was somewhat of a favourite in the ighteenth century. I could mention at least ten Irish songs written in this metre, hardly any of them, however, composed before 1735 or 1740. Among them is a song, in Irish and in English, written about the latter date by a co. Cork poet, Eoghan an Mheirin) Mac Cartha, in praise of the river Lee. The first stanza of the English version may be worth quoting here, inas- much as it makes reference to an Anglo- Scotch song (or songs) in praise of the Tweed :
Ye bright Caledonians that write And sing of the Tweed in your lays, My theme should your fancies excite, The Lee should engross all your praise ; Whose crystal meanders are graced With all that kind Nature bestows The soul and the senses to feast, Where Nature and Bounty o'erflows.
Royal Irish Academy, MS. 23 C. 33, p. 290.
