Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/161

i2S.ix.Auo.i3.i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 127 of production on the wane, or have the ! lilac sprigs lost favour with the careful ( housewife ? It would be a pity if a once fertile industry were threatened with ex- ' tinction. The touch of war's cruel hand may still be heavy thereon. Let us hope it will soon be lifted. CECIL CLARKE. SEALS OF MARRIED WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Among the Additional Charters at the B.M. there is a deed (No. 53,588) of Joan, sister and heir of William Martin, who married as second wife Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, on whose decease she married Nicholas de Audley of Heley Castle, a Staffordshire Baron,. The deed (dated 13 Edw. II.) carries a seal showing the arms of the Lacys, a lion rampant purpure, impaled with the Audley fret. The legend shows that it is the lady's sigillum secretum. She styles herself Countess of Lincoln and Lady of Heley. I take it that she used the arms of her first husband as her own of right, but these are given on the dexter side, while those of her second husband, then also deceased, appear on the sinister side. I have evidence of a rather similar in- stance of a lady's seal (1 Edw. III.), which displays her father's arms on the dexter side, and her husband's, who was still living, on the sinister. Incidentally I may mention that this seal led to the discovery of the lady's maiden name, till then un- known, an example which shows how valuable Heraldry as the handmaid of History can sometimes be. May I ask if any of your readers can give other examples where the femme takes precedence of the baron on seals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ? CHARLES SWYNNERTON. THE GREAT RAIN. In this time of drought, the following information regarding a period of continual wet weather is cooling and refreshing. It will be interesting to hear if constant rain was experienced in the period named in other parts of England, and if any special record exists of what must have been the cause of much distress. The extract herewith I made when con- sulting the registers of Bicester last week. The entry is on the last leaf of the 5th vol. : 1763. June ye 19th it began Raining and Continued Mostly Wet Wether till the begining of February 1764 and A Perpetual Flood In the Most part of Novembr December January and the begining of Februy 15 Capital Weeks. HERBERT SOUTHAM. A JOHN RAPHAEL SMITH DISCOVERY. The rare and finely-engraved mezzotint numbered 155 in Chaloner Smith's catalogue is thus described : ' Mrs. Smith,' half-length oval, frame facing right, hat and feathers, hair powdered, kerchief across bosom, dark cape thrown down from shoulder. Inscription painted and engraved by J. R. Smith, published Jan. 20, 1783, by J. R. Smith, 83, Oxford Street, London. Size 12f X 10|. Thus named on authority of Brandes's catalogue, p. 610. Query if she was the engraver's second wife. Mrs. Frankau, in her catalogue of J. R. Smith's works, No. 198, 'Miss Johnstone,' says Chaloner Smith notes that he has twice met the above portrait with Miss John- stone's name upon it in pencil, and he raises the question of Miss J. being " Smith's second wife." But J. R. S. had only one wife, whose maiden name was Hannah Croome. An old and unique catalogue of J. R. Smith's publications from 1781 to 1798, given to me by Mr. J. P. Heseltine, clears up the mystery, as the print is numbered No. 44 and properly called ' Miss John- stone,' the size and date of publication being absolutely identical. ' E. E. LEGGATT. 62, Cheapside. " A NATIVE OF AMERICA. "In the Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Uplyme, Devon, there is a tablet on the north wall inscribed as follows : In the aisle opposite to this monument are deposited the mortal remains of Mrs. Ann Stuart, a native of America, and wife of the Revd. James Stuart, formerly Rector of George Town, and All Saints, South Carolina, and Chaplain to the King's Rangers in N.A. She departed this life the 12th of July 1805. In the same grave is interred the body of the above named Revd. James Stuart, born in 1743 at Boyndie, near Banff, in North Britain, and died 1809, at Newbury, Berks. J. LANDFEAR LUCAS. 101, Piccadilly. " WORD-PAINTING," " WORD -PAINTERS." Apparently these expressions were a novelty in the 'fifties of last century, as shown by the following extract from The Ceylon Times of Feb. 13, 1855 : Of late The Observer has used a new term, word-painter or word-painting, in reference to the description of the actions in the Crimea, and we find The Examiner of Saturday has the same expression. It is not, however, quite original, as it occurs in The Dublin Evening Mail.