9* s. viii. OCT. r,, INI.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
293
of patient labour must have been spent upo
them. On one bobbin is the name "Ann
and on another " Susan," done in red dot
With the set are two bodkins, both fine
worked, one marked in red and blue do
" Mary Fenemore 1830," and the other in
spiral from bottom to top " Tis hard to par
from my swethart." Between each won
are two dots, red and blue. Another interes
ing feature of this is that every bobbin an
the bodkins are " odd " no two alike in th
details of turning, carving, and other orna
mentation. THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Worksop.
Lace bobbins as described by MR. COURTE NAY are used in Bedfordshire and the sur rounding counties. They are- about fou inches long, and have a number of.colourec glass beads fastened to one end to give them the necessary weight. Some are made o bone, with names, posies, or ornaments carvec on them, others of wood, inlaid with wooc or metal in various patterns. Many of these are very old. The Honiton bobbins are, . believe, shorter and thicker. E. MEIN.
NAPOLEON'S LIBRARY (9 th S. viii. 145, 189) A cutting from the Daily Telegraph, con taining a portion of the review in that paper upon Lord Rosebery's work, says :
" He took 800 volumes to Waterloo [sic], includ ing the Bible, Ossian, Homer, Bossuet, and all the seventy volumes of Voltaire. The British Govern- ment sent him a bill for 1,400/. for books, and the sum being unpaid at his death, they sold them in London for a few hundred pounds. Napo- leon's marginal notes would have given them price- less value to-day. ' Had this asset been preserved to the nation,' says Lord Rosebery, 'we might have been inclined to shut our eyes to its history and origin.' "
GEORGE C. PEACHEY.
" SITOEHORNED " (9 th S. vii. 289, 395 ; viii. 48).
-Will some one kindly explain the following
passage in Thomas Killigrew's play 'The
Parson's Wedding' (Dodsley's 'Plays,' 1744,
p. 455)?
"Parson. Death, if I suffer this, we shall have that damn'd courtier pluck on his shoes with the parson's musons. Fine i' faith ! none but the small Levite's brew to plant your shoeing horn-seed in ? How now ? "
What were "musons," and who was the "small Levite"? Does "horn-seed" allude to the cuckold's horns ?
J. H. MAcMlCHAEL.
JOHN THORPE, ARCHITECT (9 th S. viii. 101). " Students have been accustomed to give the credit of architectural invention to the almost mytho- logical John of Padua, John Thorpe, Smithson, and Havens. Havens and his claim to the Gate of
Honour at Caius have been exploded by the
antiquarians of Cambridge. For John Thorpe the
late Mr. Wyatt Papworth undertook the task of
removing almost all authentic title to fame, and
has shorn him of so many supposed attributes, that
beyond the presumption that the signature John
Thorpe attached to certain plans in the Soane
Museum was written by a man bearing that name,
there is little glory left for his memory. John of
Padua, if he ever existed, must now be looked on
as little more than a mason with a dash of the clerk
of the works in his character, and Smithson's
credentials are ruthlessly narrowed down to the
doubtful testimony of an eulogistic tombstone."
' The Understanding of Architecture,' Edinburgh
Review, April, 1898.
JOHN HEBB. 14, Spring Gardens, S.W.
"As WARM AS A BAT" (9 th S. viii. 142). Dr. Brewer (' Handbook of Phrase and Fable ')
says that in South Staffordshire slaty coal which will not burn, but which lies in the ire till it becomes red hot, is called "bat." As warm as a toast" is still a very common
saying. Among Bohn's collection of proverbs s "As warm as a mouse in a churn"; and ' As hot as Mary Palmer " was a proverbial
simile common during the Stuart period, laving, it is said, originated in a witty
circumstance during the Commonwealth, and
used by Cavaliers to the annoyance of the ^uritans (see 'Wine and Walnuts,' vol. ii.
p. 62, foot-note). J. H. MACMICHAEL.
Many years ago I saw a brick put in a fire A\\ it was hot, then it was wrapped in several ! olds of an old blanket and put to the feet of n invalid in bed. If this was a common ustom long ago, and if a bat half a brick- nay mean a whole brick, a meaning for the )hrase is obvious. JOHN MILNE.
108, Clifton Road, Aberdeen.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S HALF BROTHERS
ND SISTERS (9 th S. viii. 199). Orderic Vital
3k. vii. chap, xvi.) calls Harlowen de Burgo
[erluin de Conteville. This place is Conte-
ille-sur-Mer, near the mouth of the Risle.
^e states that he married Harleve, and had
- wo sons. Mr. Cobbe gives him two sons,
do and Robert, and a daughter named delaide, who married Eudes de Champagne
- or her first husband, and secondlj r Lambert,
Jount of Lens. Her daughter Judith married Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria. Planche'
ays there were two daughters Emma, who
Decame wife to Richard, Viscount of the vranchin, whose son was the Earl of Chester ;
nd Muriel, who married Eudo de Capello or Chapel ; but he states in vol. i. (' Con-
ueror and his Companions ') that there was so a sister of Muriel who became the wife the lord of Ferte Mace, who was called
