50
NOTES AND QUERIES.
s. n. JULY IG,
query of F. B. on this subject, the latter may
care to know that the precise date upon
which the Signora Forteguerra (doubtless
the wife of Niccodemo), Signora Piccolomini,*
and Signora Livia Fausta, and their three
thousand Sienese women worked so valiantly
at the fortifications of their town was 10 August,
1554. According to Ascanio Centorio, this
veritable feminine army had organized itself
as far back as January, 1553. Niccodemo
himself had been brought in badly wounded
the day before. In the following January,
however, we find him on his feet again, and
appointed " Commissario della Republica " in
Slace of Giulio Cacciaguerra, deceased. The [archese di Marignano must have been forcibly reminded, one would think, of the similar work performed on the fortifications Of Musso on the Lake of Como, twenty years before, by his own two sisters, Clarina Altemps and Margherita Borromeo (after- wards mother of San Carlo).
ST. GLAIR BADDELEY.
A BELL WITH A STORY (9 th S. i. 406). Copper is always the larger constituent in bell-metal, which is thus defined by Dr. Murray : "An alloy of copper and tin, the tin being in larger proportion than in ordinary bronze." Sir H. Davy is cited (1812) : " Copper alloyed with from one - twelfth to one-fifth of tin forms the different species of bronze and bell-metal." According to Dr. Raven (' Church Bells of Suffolk,' p. 64) there are barely a hundred bells from the medueval Bury foundry now in existence, chiefly in Suffolk and Norfolk. We may hope that the find chronicled bv COL. MALET will be scientifically examined and taken care of.
C. DEEDES.
GENTLEMAN PORTER (8 th S. xii. 187, 237, 337, 438, 478 ; 9 th S. i. 33, 50, 450). MR. W. L. RUTTON, at the last reference, quotes the following couplet as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's, in the ' Town Eclogues ' :
At the Groom-Porter's battered bullies play ; Some Dukes at Mary-bone bowl time away.
I have not the ' Town Eclogues ' at hand, nor do I remember ever coming across them in the course of my reading; but is not 'The Basset-Table,' in which this couplet occurs, by Pope ? In Pope's ' Poetical Works,' edited by the Rev. H. F. Gary, edition 1863, the poem is given without any intimation that it is other than Pope's ; and in Mr. W. M. Rossetti's edition of Pope, published by
- Wife of Pomponio Piccolomini, captain of
mounted arquebusjers, presently killed, 5 Sep- tember, 1554.
Moxon, there is the following prefatory note
by Warburton to ' The Basset-Table':
" Only this of all the town eclogues was Mr. Pope's ; and is here printed from a copy corrected by his own hand. The humour of it consists in this, that the one is in love with the game, and the other with the sharper."
In this poem "tea" is rhymed both as " tea " and " tay." See Mr. Austin Dobson's charming poetic sketch 'A Gentlewoman of the Old School.' JONATHAN BOUCHIER.
Ropley, Hampshire.
[The lines are by Pope.]
I have referred to ' The Alchemist ' (edition 1612, Brit. Mus. 644 b. 56), and found the reference as I gave it, viz., "Act III. scene iv." I think, therefore, that you will find the foot-note correction incorrect, and that Act III. has five scenes.
WM. L. RUTTON.
[In Gifford's ' Jonson,' edition 1816, to which we referred, not having the early edition at hand, Act III. has but two scenes.]
HERALD'S VISITATION (9 th S. i. 387). In answer to MR. SCATTERGOOD'S inquiry, Mr. Walter C. Metcalfe edited the ' Visitation of Northamptonshire,' and it was published, with a plate of Northampton seals, by Mitchell & Hughes, I believe. He also produced ' A Book of Knights Banneret, Knights of the Bath, and Knights Bachelor, from Henry VI. to 28 Elizabeth, and also a List of Knights made in Ireland.' Both books are getting scarce, and the ' Visitation of Rutland,' published by the Harleian Society, has been for years out of print through the effects of a fire.
M. G.
NEW VARIETIES OF CATTLE AND SHEEP FOR PARKS (9 th S. i. 468). Indian humped cattle are kept in the park at Wentworth Wood- house, Yorkshire, and so are Wallachian sheep with four horns. What with these and red deer and fallow deer, the population of that great park is undeniably varied. General Pitt-Rivers keeps the small St. Kilda sheep in his park at Rushmere, on the Dorset and Wilts border. H. J. MOULE.
Dorchester.
At Strathfieldsaye there are (or were) llamas. A good story is told of the Duke of Wellington, that years ago the first llamas brought there were shorn, and a waistcoat made for the duke ; but a late frost set in, and they had to make flannel waistcoats for the llamas instead of their own wool.
E. E. T.
"To DIE STILLBORN" (9 th S. i. 285). This phrase is more common than many woylcl
