Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/406

This page needs to be proofread.

398


NOTES AND QUERIES.


ix. MAY 17, 1002.


(Middleton and Dekker, 'The Hearing Girl,' 4to, 1611). There seems to have been isome earlier authority, apparently unknown to the writers on the topography of London's environs, if one may judge from the follow- ing circumstantial description of the uses to which the marsh was put, from the Evening Mail of 17-19 September, 1800 :

" The Isle of Dogs, now converting to the first commercial purposes [the first atone of the West India Docks was laid in 1800, and the West India Dock Canal, which was cut across the peninsula, converted it into an island], derived its name from being the depot of the spaniels and greyhounds of Edward ILL as lying contiguous to his sports of woodcock shooting, and coursing the red deer at Waltham, and other Royal Forests in Essex ; for the more convenient enjoyment of which he gener- ally resided in the sporting season at Greenwich."

That the river itself was, at the time the marsh received its name of the Isle of Dogs, in the putrid condition at this spot generally associated with dead dogs is im- probable, from the fact that as late as the year 1736 a peter-boat fisherman caught a salmon 38 in. long and about 17 in. round off Cuckold's Point, which sold for thirty-six shillings (St. James's Evening Post, 30 Septem- ber, 1736) ; and between Limehouse and Deptford another fisherman caught in a common net a large salmon 34 in. long and 15^ in. round, which sold for two guineas (Grub Street Journal, 2 October, 1735). In 1754, says Mr. Marston in the Nineteenth Century, " the take of fish was so great at London Bridge that the price of salmon fell to sixpence a pound. In one day in July, 1760, 130 salmon were sent to Billingsgate Market." J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

CHESS PLAYING : A LEGEND (9 th S. ix. 248 293). Thank you for your reference to 8 th S. xii. 207, 251, 354. These do not at all answer my query as to Huxley's use of the simile, which, for the benefit of future inquirers, I may say I have found in his * Liberal Educa- tion,' the fourth chapter in the volume of his collected works i.e., the one on ' Science and Education,' p. 82. As I believe this passage of Huxley's applied to nature and man is considered the most eloquent he wrote, I make no apology for fixing the reference in 'N.&Q.'

As I do not wish to trouble you unneces- sarily, I will leave for awhile the references to which you refer, till I have searched out what I can by their help. They hardly seem, though, to say where the story really comes from ; and when we consider what the jgame of chess is, and that the stake was entirely one - sided " heads you win, tails I lose,"


almost the story is, to say the least, curious, and I should like to know how it originated.

I notice that Huxley refers to this " famous picture of Retsch," and his essay was written in 1868. In view of your references, is it not worth while to know where this picture really is ? Lucis.

Cannock.

[The reference to Huxley is supplied a/nte, p. 293.]

ARMS OF KNIGHTS (9 th S. ix. 328). I presume the Suffolk family f Esturmy, of which Sir William Esturmy was High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1214, is referred to. Sir Richard Gipps, in his 'Essay towards recovering some Account of the Ancient Families in the County of Suffolk' (British Museum Add. MS. 20,695), gives the arms of the family thus : *' They bore quarterly gules and or, upon a Bendy az. 3 Plates." And he adds a note : " Sir Roger Sturmyne, a Suffolk knight in the time of Edw. I., he bare quarterly or and gu., a bend az. bezanted." On a pedigree prepared in the Heralds' College 1 have seen the arms displayed thus : Quarterly, gu. and or, upon a bend az. three bezants ; but a note made some years ago states that the arms of the family really were Quarterly, or and gu., upon a bend az. three bezants, differing, therefore, from any of the above authorities. Your correspondent will find something re- specting the Esturmy family arms in Archoeo- logia, vol. iii. p. 26 ; copies of charters, 1330- 1334, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 24,481 ; and seal of Henry Esturmy, 1355, Brit. Mus., xliii. 189. W. A. COPINGEE.

Kersal Cell, Manchester.

WlLBRAHAM TOLLEMACHE EDWAKDS (9 th

S. ix. 308). A marriage licence was granted, in the diocese of Dublin, in the year 1797, to the above-named and Henrietta Burrowes. See the Appendix to the Twenty-sixth Re- port of the Deputy-Keeper of Public Records (Ireland). J. N. DOWLING.

67, Douglas Road, Handsworth, Birmingham.


NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The New Volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Constituting, in Continuation with the Existing

Volumes of the Ninth Edition, the Tenth Edition.

-Vol. XXV. of the Complete Work. (A. & C.

Black and the Times.)

IN these days, even of elaborate literary under- takings, the bringing up to date of the ' Encyclo- paedia Britannica' constitutes noteworthy accom- plishment. Within a space of time briefer than has ever been devoted to any similar or commen-