Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/165

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9*s.vii.FEB.23,i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES


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ciate in 1799. In 1802 he blossomed out suddenly and splendidly as Joseph Malloro William Turner, Esq., R.A., and so he con- tinued to the end of the chapter. My additional query is this : What evidence have we that the W. Turner of 1787 was identical with the J. W. Turner of 1790 ' and the W. Turner of following years 1 I hesitate to dissent from a writer so care- ful as Hamerton, but Turner's age at the time, the address given, and the lapse of two years before his name (with the right address) appeared in the Royal Academy catalogue, make one sceptical. The diction- aries of Graves and Bryan both confirm my view. I should add that among the various Turners who exhibited towards the close of the eighteenth century there was another W. Turner, who in 1792 dwelt at No. 129, Shoreditch. G. Turner was a fre- quent exhibitor. E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN.

u To PALMER" (9 th S. vi. 470 ; vii. 52). PROF. SKEAT'S appropriate reference to the prophet Joel's mention of the palmer- worm called to my mind what Izaak Walton says in the same connexion :

"I shall tell you what Aldrovandus...and others

say of the Palmer- worm or Caterpillar that this

is called a pilgrim or palmer worm, for his very wandering life and various food ; not contenting himself, as others do, with any one certain place for

his abode, nor any certain kind of feeding, but

will boldly and disorderly wander up and down, and not endure to be kept to a diet, or fixed to a particular place."

By the light, at any rate, of this descrip- tion, the meaning of the word "palmer" is rendered plain. DOUGLAS OWEN.

" LET THEM ALL COME " (9 th S. vi. 426 ; vii. 35). An earlier anticipation of this than either of the instances pointed out by MR. ALFRED F. ROBBINS is to be found in the duet 'Let 'em Come,' by Charles Dibdin the younger, in which a British soldier and sailor express a desire for invasion, exclaiming :

Let 'em come, if resolv'd to attack ;

The best way to come they their brains needn't rack ;

They 'd much better study the way to get back !

Let 'em come, let 'em come; we their force [forces ?]

defy- Then strike hands, for together we '11 conquer or

die.

E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN.

The origin of this London catch-phrase, which was especially rampant during the latter part of 1898, can hardly be said to date from the instances given by MR. ROBBINS, one of which is " Let them all come on" and the other "Let them come," without the


"all," whereas the invariable form, if one remembers rightly, was " Let 'em all come." It is said to have originated at a London music-hall, and also from being the motto of a Hammersmith (Hd.) "Toilet Club."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD (9 th S. vi. 509 ; vii. 92). - In the account of Brasenose College given by James Ingram in vol. ii. of his 1 Memorials of Oxford ' (Oxford, 1837) is the following:

" William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, with whom the design of founding this college seems to have originated, was the fourth son of Robert Smyth of Peelhouse, in Widness [sic], a township in the parish of Prescot, in the county palatine of Lan- caster. Of the precise time of his oirth and other early particulars, notwithstanding the patient and persevering researches of Mr. Churton, no certain information has been obtained ; nor after much discussion is it known, from the number of persons of both his names, at what college, or colleges, either in Oxford or Cambridge, he prosecuted his studies. We find him, however, a bachelor of law at his institution to the rectory of Cheshunt, in

Hertfordshire, June 14, 1492 In the beginning of

the year 1508 he seems to have adjusted his plan of rebuilding Brazenose hall, and endowing it as a college, with the assistance of Sir Richard Sutton."

A foot-note says :

'The charter is dated Jan. 15, 3 Hen. VIII. ^1511-12). See a description of it in Mr. Churton's work, p. 292. There are copies of it in the Rolls' chapel, in Rymer, and in Yate." As to Smyth's death, will, &c., Ingram says : "The will of Bishop Smyth is dated 26 Dec., 1513, and the probate issued on the last day of January following. He died on the 2nd of that month, at Buckden, according to Mr. Churton ; but was buried in the nave of his cathedral at Lincoln, near the west end."

A foot-note says :

"Browne Willis says that bishop Smyth, as well as Atwater and Longland, died at the episcopal jalace at Woburn. Vide ' Survey of Cathedrals,' p. 62, Lond., 1730."

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

'LANTED ALE" (9 th S. vi. 367, 411, 493;

vii. 75). May I be allowed to add that I was once told by a monthly nurse that if ladies were to follow the custom alluded to their lands would always be soft and white, and

hey would never be troubled with chapped

ingers or chilblains ? M. B.

I have not read Bourke's 'Scatologic Rites,' but he can hardly have told there what may surprise some readers, that a strong trace of the widely diffused urine uperstition (of which the discovery of phos- phorus was one result) existed in the heart of New England forty years ago, and is, perhaps, not extinct yet. In my native town