170
NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. i. FEB. 26, m
those of Sir Walter Scott, and arrived at the
conclusion that they may be safely put into
the hands of young people, but that a caution
should be given, as Sir Walter seems to make
it almost impossible for one of his heroes to
refuse to accept a challenge.
A curious instance of the casuistic niceties which affect some intellects occurs to me in relation to this magazine. A lad with whom I was intimately acquainted was just emerg- ing from the stage wherein all books connote only things employed in education, when he was given by an aunt the two volumes com- posing this work. They were unbound : the first volume in the yellow monthly covers, the second in weekly numbers, without wrappers. The boy's tutor, who was a strict Sabbatarian, ruled that on Sundays he might read the yellow -covered numbers, because they were magazines, but that the coverless weekly issues might not be touched on " the Sabbath," for they were newspapers.
ASTARTE.
May I add the following to my list at the above reference?
' Castle Dangerous.' Sir John de Walton and the Black Douglas.
JONATHAN BOUCHIER.
SCAFFOLDING IN GERMANY (8 th S. xii. 509 ; 9 th S. i. 72). I quote the following from 'The Sacred Tree,' by Mrs. J. H. Philpot (London, Macmillan & Co., 1897), p. 156 :
" The custom so often met- with on the Continent of attaching a young sapling or a branch to the roof of a house newly built, or in process of erection, is another survival, descended, no doubt, from the ancient belief in the benign influence of the tree- inhabiting spirit. In some places it is usual to decorate the bough with flowers, ribbons, and strings of eggs, to symbolize the life-giving power assumed to be the spirit's special attribute.
H. ANDREWS.
KEMP FAMILY OF ESSEX (8 th S. xii. 309). Wm. Hunter, alderman and sheriff of Lon- don, 1814-15, impaled with his arms those of Kemp, in right of his wife Eliza, daughter of John Duraval Kemp, of Southchurch, and afterwards Prittlewell, Essex. How was John D. Kemp descended from the Spains Hall family? THREE GARBS.
KENTISH MEN : MEN OF KENT (9 th S. i. 8). According to the ' Saxon Chronicle ' there is no difference in the meaning of the above terms. It states as follows : " A. 865. This year the heathen army sat down in Thanet and made peace with the men of Kent, and the men of Kent," &c. See also A.D. 853. Again, in " A. 902, and that same year was the battle at the Holme between the Kentish-
men and the Danish-men." They refer to
the men who lived in Kent (now a county),
which from 473 to 805 had been a kingdom.
JOHN RADCLIFFE.
This question has been so often discussed at considerable length in the pages of 'N. & Q.,' the following references will suffice : 1 st S. V. ; 3 M S. vii., viii. ; 5 th S. iv. ; 8 th S. viii. Allow me to correct an error at p. 9 of the current volume. For "8 th S. v. 400, 478," read 6 th S. iv., &c.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.
This is one of ' N. & Q.'s ' perennials. See 1 st S. v. 321, 615; 2 nd S. viii. 377, 425, 539 ; 3 rd S. vii. 324, 423; viii. 92, 131 ; 4 th S. i. 342, 404; vi. 370; 5 th S. iv. 400, 478 ; xii. 467 ; 6 th S. i. 144 ; ii. 58 ; 8 th S. viii. 467, 512. W. C. B.
This is called "a distinction without a difference " in some remarks upon the subject in 'Archseologia Cantiana,' ix. 119.
EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.
Hastings.
PHILIP, DUKE OF WHARTON (8 th S. xii. 488 ; 9 th S. i. 90). In St. Paul's Church, Wooburn Green, Bucks, is a stone inscribed : D. Philippi Wharton Baronis de Wharton quod mori potuit hie molliter quiescit u aurem viator cineribus parcas et abeas.
The space denoted by a dash is covered with the jamb of the vestry door; indeed, the stone is laid across the doorway. Can any contributor suggest what the obscured letters are likely to be? JOHN ROBERT ROBINSON. Cricklewood, N.W.
At 8 th S. x. 448 is a review of a biography of this dissolute peer much later than those referred to by your correspondents. Can this have escaped research or notice?
INDICATOR.
ANCESTORS (8 th S. xii. 65, 133, 211, 332, 475). Passing by any meaning peculiar to Black- stone, as pertaining exclusively to legal technicalities, it is evident, I think, that Lord Macaulay erred in changing Her Majesty's " ancestor " into " predecessor," since, as both words mean primarily the same thing (viz., he who goes, or has gone, before), an alteration of term was unnecessary. In fact, this word " ancestor " is remarkable for having applied to it a meaning at variance with its original one ; for in its primal Latin form (antecessor) it signifies merely "he who goes before." Now it not only means this, but it also means a progenitor.
This last definition, although false and
