9 th S. IX. JCNE 28, 1902.)
NOTES AND QUERIES.
517
and as referred to by Spenser, " the least o
thousands," &c. A tame wagtail will be founc
on the floor of most large kitchens in Malta
<fec., to keep down the bluebottle flies, whicl
are doubtless the ftSeXXai of Herodotus.
H. P. L.
Spenser may have called the crocodile'; bird-friend a torch as a poetical conceit tha it was always near to light him from danger which it is supposed to do by its cry ; or can the word be a corrupt diminutive of tcedium which in the plural is rendered by Littleton "vemrine that breed about us and trouble us"? Ainsworth admits this meaning, bui doubtfully, being careful to add, " Litt. unde non dicit." The connexion, I allow, is some what nebulous, as the leeches of Herodotus or the gnats of modern naturalists would be the tcedia of the crocodile rather than the little plovers which come to his relief.
CHAS. GILLMAN. Church Fields, Salisbury.
STEPMOTHER = MOTHER-IN-LAW (9 th S. ix 445). Has ST. SWITHIN not given poor Smollett undeserved blame 1 There are trans- lations by other men (e.g., Malkin) mas- querading as Smollett's. The first edition (1749, anonymous) gives the passage as follows :
' ' Will you not always (said I) be mistress in my house?' 'I don't know that (she resumed), you may fall in love with some young girl, and marry her ; and then I shall be her mother-in-law ; con- sequently, we cannot live together." Vol. iv. p. 18
Q. V.
CERNEY MANOR, CIRENCESTER (9 th S. ix. 448). On referring to my Gloucestershire note-book I find that the lands of Francis Wye, a Popish recusant, in the parish of South Cerney, in the county of Gloucester, were forfeited to the Parliament and granted to Richard Mathews in 1643. This estate remained in the Mathews family until about the middle of the eighteenth century. Other members of the family held the manor of Winstone. JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.
Town Hall, Cardiff.
See Samuel Rudder's 'New History of Gloucestershire,' 1779, p. 327.
J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.
OLD WOODEN CHEST (9 th S. v. 88, 196, 275, 465 ; vi. 392). Ancient oak chests, cut out of the solid balk, are quoted by Col. Hart, of Birmingham, in a paper entitled * Oak Chests,' as existing in churches at Bickenhill, Curd worth, Lap worth, Maxstoke, Studley, and Offchurch, in Warwickshire, as well as at Bradford Abbas, Churchill, aud Ensham Gar-
way, in Leicestershire, and at St. Martin's
and at St. Margaret's in Leicester. Col. Hart
also mentions the churches at Long Sutton,
Corleton, Tettenhall, and Whitwell as pos-
sessing ancient chests cut out of the solid
oak, as well as a very curious one of the
same kind now to be seen in the kitchen of
Aston Hall, near Birmingham. This latter
is believed to have originally come from
Baginton Church, in Warwick. Yet another
of these "dug-outs "is at Spetchley Church,
near Worcester. The gallant colonel mentions
two French examples neither of them pro-
bably of later date than A.D. 800 found, re-
spectively, in the crypt of St. Etienne at
Bordeaux and in a barrow at Chalons.
HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.
LADY-DAY DAY (9 th S. ix. 447). This dupli- cation of the word " day " I used to hear regularly in Derbyshire when a lad, and I hear it here sometimes. It was "next Michaelmas-day Day," "It will be Christmas- day Day soon," " It wor on a Sat'dy-dey-dey," and so on with every ** day-day." feast-days, and ordinary days. THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Worksop.
CECIL RHODES'S ANCESTORS (9 th S. ix. 325, 436). Many inscriptions in memory of the Rhodes family are printed by Mr. F. T. Cansick in his 'Epitaphs of Saint Pancras,' 1869, pp. 49-51. W. C. B.
LAURENCE FAMILY (9 th S. ix. 290). A John Laurence, clerk, compounded for first-fruits of rectory of Gretham, co. Lincoln, 8 Feb., 1656/7, and had for his bondsmen Andrew Arnold, of Marorre in the Fen, and Robert Burrough, of Moreby, co. Lincoln, clerk
First-Fruits Composition Books,' xxii.).
A John Laurence compounded for prebend or rectory of Sutton, in Lincoln, and had as Dondsmen Cromwell Death, of Furnival's [nn, London, gent., and Rooert Stubbs, of Barnard's Inn, 1 Dec., 1668 (' First-Fruits Jomposition Books,' vol. xxiv. folio 271). The above may help MR. MARCH ANT to dentify the family of nis John Laurence.
GERALD MARSHALL. 23, Trefoil Road, S.W.
MONT PELE (9 th S. ix. 487). Surely " La Montagne Pelee," the usual local name, xplains itself. D.
MACAULAY IN GERMAN (9 th S. ix. 405). I eel ashamed to be forced to warn every Eng- ish student against the German translations >f English authors contained in Reclam's ollection, Leipzig. All that I have tested
