Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/40

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. JULY 12, 1902.


Robert Musgrave, Kt., of Musgrave, married Emma, daughter and heir of Thomas Sturmey, of Danby and Ormsby-upon-Swale, a state- ment which, I think, requires further proof, as I am unable to trace this Thomas in any contemporary records. H. R. LEIGHTON. East Boldon, R.S.O., co. Durham.

ROSSETTI'S ' RUGGIERO AND ANGELICA '

(9 th S. ix. 425, 476). Magicians perform their marvellous acts through the agency of spirits, and obtain their knowledge of what is and of what will be from them. They are some- times supposed to exercise their power over spirits of water by hydromancy, their power over spirits of earth by geomancy, &c. ; and their impressions on the ground may be an invocation of the earth spirits, though I think that geomancy is also used for super- natural inquiry without reference to the spirits of the earth. When lamblichus evoked daemons from fountains he may have done so through hydromancy ; for, though that sig- nifies divination by means of water, it may include the evocation of spirits from water. The classical daemons were supposed to in- habit the planets and the elements, more especially the upper regions of the air, and, though they were usually considered by the pagans benign beings, they were thought by the Christians to be actual devils. Satan in ' Paradise Regained,' addressing his com- panions, says :

Princes, Heaven's ancient Sons, etherial Thrones, Demonian Spirits now, from the element Each of his reign allotted, rightlier called Powers of Fire, Air, Water and Earth beneath.

The teraphim were connected with magical rites. So says Dr. Smith in his Bible dic- tionary. The hell-birth must mean that the ork came from hell. A devil evidently was obliged by a magician to assume this form. Perhaps Proteus was forgotten when the lines in the sonnet were written ; but 1 do not know the rest of the sonnet, and cannot say whether he is mentioned in it or not.

E. YARDLEY.

Some little time ago I had the opportunity of perusing the church books belonging to a Nonconformist community in this county. Under date 30 January, 1829, I noted that a member was dismissed for "geomancy and falsehood." JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

THE ROYAL STANDARD (9 th S. vii. 268, 353 ; viii. 313, 425). I will not enter into a dis- cussion upon MR. YARDLEY'S statement at the last reference as to the use of the lion as heraldry at or before the siege of Thebes. I will only refer him to what the late Dr.


Woodward has said so well on the subject of the alleged early origin of heraldic insignia in his work on ' British and Foreign Heraldry,' of which a new and enlarged edition was published in two volumes in 1896. (See vol. i. pp. 18-19.)

May I say that my first contribution to ' N. & Q.,' now some thirty years ago or more, was, if I remember rightly, upon the arms of Adam and Eve? J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

EXHUMATION OF HENRY IV. (9 th S. ix. 369, 433). The late Dean Saunders, of Peter- borough, wore a ring in which was a very little hair ; this, he told me, was the hair of Henry IV., taken from the coffin when the king's body was exhumed at Canterbury Cathedral. W. D. SWEETING.

Holy Trinity Vicarage, Rotherhithe.

GREEN AN UNLUCKY COLOUR (9 th S. viii. 121, 192 ; ix. 234, 490). Green has not always been regarded as an unlucky colour. Gio- vanni Aurelio Augurelli (1441-1524) dedicated his alchemical treatise ' Chrysopceia ' to Pope Leo X., who in return gave him " a large and handsome, but empty purse " ; see Roscoe's ' Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth,' 1846, ii. 149. Lacinius, in the preface to his collection entitled 'Pretiosa Margarita,' Venice, 1546, tells us what Roscoe omits, that the purse was of green silk, "which colour is commonly supposed to indicate future hope." The ecclesiastical colour for all the weeks after Trinity until Advent is green. W. C. B.

DEFOE (9 th S. ix. 207, 318). In connexion with the previous references to Daniel Defoe the following note in the Eastern Mwning News (Hull) of 8 May is of some little interest :

" We read yesterday that the remains of Miss Mary Ann Defoe, the great-great-granddaughter and last lineal descendant of Daniel Defoe, were laid to rest in Abney Park Cemetery. Like that of Sir Walter Scott, the line of Defoe becomes extinct. There is no one left to claim as a family possession the fame and glory of this great ancestor."

RONALD DIXON. 46, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.

"CIRCULAR JOYS" (9 th S. ix. 466). The suitability of the circle as an emblem of eternity is perhaps best explained by marking upon its circumference three points, which in order may be named " past," " present," "future." It is obvious that although this sequence may be repeated upon a perfectly straight line, it gains a new significance when we proceed to consider it in relation to the