Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/224

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NOTES AND QUERIES. 19 th s. n. SEPT. 10,


German scientific periodicals are well worth studying.

I would take this opportunity of inquiring whether any one can tell me of the present resting-place of an old picture painted on panel, formerly in the possession of the late Col. Hamilton Smith, having been bought by him more than seventy years ago of a dealer at Augsburg. This was engraved to illus- trate Griffith's ' Animal Kingdom,' and a copy of the plate is given in Mr. Storer's work (p. 26). The picture is said to have borne in one corner a coat of arms and the word Thur (= Urus) in golden letters. It is thought to have been a portrait of the Urus, and perhaps the only one to be trusted, since doubt has lately been thrown on the rude woodcut in Herberstein's ' Moscouiter wunderbare Histo- rien' (Basel, 1563, p. cxxv). The rediscovery of this old picture is a matter of much import- ance.

I may, perhaps, be allowed to mention that the Zoological Museum of this University contains a fairly perfect skeleton of the Urus, which I had the good fortune to obtain some years ago from the peat of Burwell Fen in this county. It is, I believe, the only one to be seen in this country, and side by side with it are mounted skeletons of the " wild bull " of Chillingham and Cadzow, for which we are respectively indebted to the Earl of Tan- kerville and the trustees of the Duke of Hamilton. I trust that in due time a speci- men from the Chartley herd may render the group complete. ALFRED NEWTON.

Cambridge.

BRIMPSFIELD (9 th S. ii. 47). Rudder, in his 'New History of Gloucestershire' (Cirencester, 1779, p. 310), has this notice :

" Here was an ancient monastery, of the value of 78. 19s. <id. ; but being a cell to the abbey of St. Stephen de Fonteney in Normandy, as an alien priory it was dissolved by Act of Parliament, 2 Hen. V. , and the lands belonging to it were granted to the college of Windsor by King Edward IV. The priory is supposed to have been an elegant building as there were windows of polished marble dug up where it stood about the beginning of the cen- tury."

The church at Side is described at p. 662 : " The church is a small building dedicated to St. Mary, with a low tower at the west end. There was formerly a chantry in this church, which was founded by William de Side, who took his name from the parish."

ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A.

This was a Benedictine priory, a cell to the abbey of St. Stephen, Fontenay, Normandy. It was given to Eton College by Henry VI., and the grant confirmed by Edward IV. ; but the latter king is said to have afterwards pre-


sented it to the Dean and Chapter of Wind- sor, though, according to Tanner, they never had possession of it. See Dugdale, 'Mon. Ang., vol. vi. part ii. p. 1048. The history of the alien priories requires more attention than it has hitherto received. Of Brimps- field very little seems to be known.

ASTARTE.

WHAT CONSTITUTES NATIONALITY? (9 th S. ii. 29.) EVANDER questions the propriety of Mr. Gladstone being termed a "Scotchman" because he was not born in Scotland. He, however, begs the question when he states that he was " undoubtedly of English race " ; and he quotes as proof of this that his characteristics were English, and that he had " nothing of the Celt about him." Then he makes the preposterous statement that

"the Lowland Scots are really of the

Englfeh race."

Were it a mere question of ethnology, it migh* easily be proved that the Saxon, Celt, and Norman are all branches of the same Indo-European family of nations, and that consequently they all spring from a common origin ; but the question of nationality depends on other things than ethnology, or even philology it depends on history. It is history that has largely made a difference between Scotsmen and Englishmen. The Lowland Scots are not Englishmen, and never considered themselves to be such ; they always regarded Englishmen as foreigners, and the result of this was the long-continued wars between the two nations. They both spoke a Teutonic language, and both adopted customs and manners from the continent of Europe ; but historically for many centuries they had distinct sovereigns, laws, and parlia- ments, and consequently both developed into distinct nations.

Now Mr. Gladstone's family was Scottish for many generations back, and no personal Anglicization that he himself might have undergone could alter his blood and lineage.

The Lowland Scots are not English ; they are a mixed race of Celts, Norsemen, and Saxons, the two former bloods much pre- dominating. For Englishmen to attempt to claim Mr. Gladstone because he was born on their soil is to act the cuckoo's part. Eng- land can rightly claim its Cromwell, Milton, Shakespeare, and Nelson ; why not, in fair- ness, allow Ireland to claim its Burke and O'Connell, and Scotland her Bruce, Napier, and Gladstone ? GALGACUS.

EVANDER states incidentally in his query that Mr. Gladstone " was undoubtedly of English race," and that " there