198
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. iv. JutT . ms .
sister of the admiral, wife of John Poe of
Dring, co. Cavan, great - grandmother of
Edgar Allan Poe. In American biographies
of Poe, Jane Macbride is stated to have been
<j sister of the admiral, M.P. for Plymouth.
R. M. HOGG. Irvine, Ayrshire.
"'TBOUNCEB" (12S.iv. 101). In reference to this word, I have received the follow- ing from the Right Hon. G. W. Erskine Russell :
" Can the etymology be something of this kind ? When I was a boy the word to ' trounce ' was used by old-fashioned people in Bedfordshire with the specific meaning of ' flogging at the cart's tail.' It was not used of any other form of punishment, and was therefore going out of use since flogging was abolished. It has occurred to me that the ' trouncer ' the man behind the cart might be connected in some way with this verb."
Reverting subsequently to the matter, Mr. Russell wrote :
" I remember the incident perfectly well. I was a small boy, and a lady quoted from an old woman of the labouring classes. My informant liad made a rash remark about a man suspected of murder, and the old woman turned on her, saying : u Them as says such things ought to be trounced.' I had never heard the word, and asked : ' What does " trouncing " mean ? ' The answer was :
- Flogging at the cart's tail.' I presume that the
word survived the practice, and gradually lost its specific meaning."
From such an authority, this information cannot fail to interest your readers.
7^ .CECIL CLABKE.
Junior Athenaeum Club.
TRAVELS nsr SPAIN (12 S. iii. 333). Though not directly in reference to the work named in the query, the following extract from
- The Earlier 'English Water-Colour Painters,'
by Cosmo Monkhouse, 1890 (second edition, 1897), under the heading Richard Parkes Bonington (1801-28), may be of service :
" In France, as in England, there was topo- grmphical drawing to do, and no one did it BO picturesquely as Bonington. His finest work is io be found among the lithographs of Baron Taylor's ' Voyage Pittoresque dans 1'ancienne France.' "
W. B. H.
ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL : STEWARDS OF THE SCHOOL FEASTS (12 S. iv. 38, 68, 98, 139). George Morton Pitt (ante, p. 98, col. 2) was son of John Pitt, consul at Masulipatam who d. 1703, and his mother was Sarah, widow of Wavell.
George Morton Pitt's grandfather wa another John Pitt (b. 1620), who married Catherine Venables of Andover ; and his
- reat - grandfather was Edward Pitt of
Strathfieldsaye, whose wife was Rachel, dau. of Sir George Morton of Milbourne St. Andrew, Dorset.
CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Swallowfield Park, Reading.
Miss MEADOWS : DBYDEN (12 S. iv. 132). [t is Pope who mentions Miss^Meadows, in lis ' Answer to the following 'question of Miss Howe,' beginning
What id Prudery ? Lines 3 and 4 are :
'Tis a fear that starts at shadows. ' Tis (no "tisn't) like Miss Meadows. ' Works,' ed. Elwin and Courthope, vol. iv. 447 ; ed. Sir A. W. Ward (Globe ed.), p. 478.
Her name appears again in ' The Challenge. A Court Ballad,' stanza iv. :
Lika
Meadows run to sermons.
E. and 0., iv. 480 ; Globe, 477.
Miss Meadows, less elusiveTthan '"her name-
sake in ' Uncle Remus,' is identified in a
note of the first-named edition as the eldest
daughter of Sir Philip Meadows, and said to
have died unmarried in April, 1743.
The ' D. N. B.' notices a Sir Philip Meadows who lived from 1626 to 1718, and his son, also Sir Philip, who died in 1757. ' ?*?
Evelyn in his ' Diary,' under Sept. 6, 1698, mentions the marriage on Aug. 30 of " a daughter of Mr. Boscawen to the son of Sir Philip Meadows." The bride, he adds, was a niece of Lord Godolphin. It would appear that these were Miss Meadows' s parents. EDWARD BENSLY.
PAULUS AMBBOSIUS CBOKE (12 S. iv. 5, 36, 86). I should be glad to know whether there is any description of Croke's house and garden at Hackney, and any indication as to their situation. To whom did his house pass ? G. W. WRIGLEY.
258 Victoria Park Road, South Hackney.
"BUTCHING" (12 S. iv. 102). The ' N.E.D.' states that butch is obsolete except in dialects, and that it is an incorrect back- formation from butcher. The meanings given are (a) transitive, to cut up, hack (obsolete) ; (6) intransitive (northern dialects), to follow the trade of a butcher. It also givos hutching as a verbal substantive, with a quotation from Burns' s ' Death and Dr. Hornbook.'
Prof. Joseph Wright in the ' English Dialect Dictionary ' states butch to be in use in Scotland, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, and also in Somerset and Devon.
