Volume 5 — Queries.

IS THE WALRUS FOUND IN THE BALTIC?

Is the Walrus, or Sea-Horse, ever found in the Baltic, or in the ocean near Norway or Lapland?

Mr. J. R. Forster, in his Notes on the Geography of Europe by King Alfred, appended to the edition of Orosius by Daines Barrington, says, at p. 243.:

"In the country of the Beormas he (Ohthere) found the horse-whales or the Walrus, animals which he distinguishes carefully from the whales and the seals, of whose teeth he brought a present to King Alfred, and which are found nowhere but in the White Sea, near Archangel, and the other seas to the north of Siberia. In all the ocean near Norway and Lapland, no walruses are ever seen, but still less in the Baltic."

I wish to know if the walrus is found in the Baltic, and where it most abounds, with a reference to voyages or written works of authority where it is mentioned. Personal testimony would be valuable.

THROW.

ENGLISH FREE TOWNS.

A great many of your readers are doubtless aware that there are in France a number of towns commonly known by the name of Villes Anglaises, or the English towns, and also called Bastides. Many of these were certainly founded by Edward I., and important privileges were granted to these Free Towns from motives of sound policy. These towns are all built on a regular plan, the principal streets wide, open, and straight, and crossing each other at right angles, with a large market-place, usually in the centre of the town. I have seen several of these towns, which preserve their original ground plan to the present time. I could mention other peculiarities about them; but it is not necessary for my purpose, which is to inquire whether we have any towns in England corresponding with them, of the same regular plan and arrangement. The only one I have been able to hear of is the ruined town of Winchelsea, which corresponds closely with them, and was also founded by Edward I. If any of your readers can inform me of any other town in England of the same plan, I shall be greatly obligated to them.

J. H. PARKER.

Oxford.

Minor Queries.

Bishop Hall's Resolutions.

—A small edition of Bishop Hall's Resolutions and Decisions of Cases of Conscience, printed in 1650, and consequently in the author's lifetime, has, as its frontispiece, a "vera effigies" of the venerable writer. On a fly-leaf there is, in the handwriting of the former possessor,—a man of much literary information,—this note: "The following portrait of Bishop Hall is rare and valuable." I should esteem it a favour if some one of your correspondents would inform me how far this is a correct estimate of the print.

S. S. S.

Mother Huff and Mother Damnable.

—Can any of your correspondents favour me with an account of Mother Huff? She is mentioned in Bishop Gibson's edition of the Britannia, in a list of wild plants found in Middlesex. In Park's Hampstead, p. 245., is the following extract from Baker's comedy of Hampstead Heath, 4to. 1706, Act II. Sc. 1.:

"Arabella. Well, this Hampstead's a charming place: to dance all night at the Wells, and be treated at Mother Huff's," &c.

The place designated as "Mother Huff's" was, I think, the same as that known as "Mother Damnable's." The latter personage is mentioned in Caulfield's Remarkable Characters. Who was Mother Damnable? Can any of your correspondents furnish any additions to Caulfield's account of Mother Damnable?

S. WISWOULD.

Sir Samuel Garth.

—Can any of your numerous correspondents inform me when and where Sir Samuel Garth the poet was born, or favour me with a copy of the inscription on his tomb in Harrow Church? Some say he was born in Yorkshire; others that he was born at Bolam, in Durham.

S. WISWOULD.

German's Lips.

—In Fulke's Defence of the English Translations of the Bible (Parker Society, 1843, p. 267.) he speaks thus:

"Beza's words agree to us, as well as German's lips, that were nine miles asunder."

Can you inform me who German was, and where his lips were situated?

H. T.

[In our first Vol. p. 157. will be found a similar Query, founded on passages in Calfhill and Latimer, in which the same allusion occurs, but which has not as yet received any satisfactory reply.]

Richard Leveridge.

—Some years ago, I saw an oil-painting of this celebrated singer at an auction-room in Leicester Street. Can any of your readers give me a clue to its discovery?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Thomas Durfey.

—Is there any other engraved portrait of this "distinguished" wit, besides the one prefixed to his pills?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Audley Family.

—Can any of your correspondents inform me whether there are any male representatives still existing of the family of Audley (or Awdeley) of Gransden, in Huntingdonshire; or, if not, when it became extinct?

Thomas Audley, created Lord Audley of Walden, Lord High Chancellor, and K. G. by Henry VIII., had an only daughter and heiress, married to the Duke of Norfolk. He had also two brothers, Robert and Henry. Robert was of Berechurch, in Essex; and, on the chancellor's death without male issue, inherited from him large landed property. His line flourished for several generations, and ended in Henry Audley—a weak and vicious spendthrift, who ruined himself, and died (without issue) in the Fleet Prison, in 1714, having married a daughter of Philip, Viscount Strangford. Henry, the chancellor's youngest brother, had the manor of Great Gransden, in Huntingdonshire, by a grant from Henry VIII., where his descendants were fixed for several generations. In the Visitation of Hunts, made in 1613, under the authority of William Camden (Clarencieux), there is a pedigree of the Audleys of Gransden, which comes down to Robert Audley, married to Elizabeth, daughter of John Marbury, who had two sons then living, Robert and Francis, of the respective ages of three and two (in 1613): a daughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1614, and married William Sneyd, Esq., of Keele, co. Stafford; she had issue, and died 1686, aged seventy-two.

Gransden must have passed from the possession of that family not long after this visitation; for, in Charles II.'s time, it belonged to Sir Julius Cæsar: and in the catalogue of lords and gentlemen who compounded for their estates (1655), the only Audleys of Hunts who were mentioned, are, Wheatehill Audley, of Woodhurst; and Molineux Audley, of St. Ives (both in Hunts). The parish registers of Gransden throw no light on the fate of the family. The church contains no memorials, and local tradition is silent.

Can any of your correspondents supply any information? My object is to ascertain whether the above-mentioned Elizabeth, married to Wm. Sneyd, did, or did not, become the representative of the family, by the death, without issue, of her brothers.

W. S.

Denton.

Ink.

—Can any of your correspondents enlighten me as to the nature of the ink used in the ancient MSS.; its delightful blackness, even in examples of great antiquity, is most refreshing to the eye.

W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A.

Mistletoe excluded from Churches.

—Is mistletoe excluded now from any church in the mistletoe-producing counties at Christmas? And was it ever admitted in Roman Catholic times?

T. GOLDSEER.

Blind taught to read.

—Burnet, in the postscript of his Letter from Milan, dated Oct. 1, 1685 (ed. Rotterdam, 1687, p. 114.), speaking of Mistress Walkier, who had been accidentally blinded in infancy, states, that her father "ordered letters to be carved in wood;" and that "she, by feeling the characters, formed such an idea of them, that she writes with a crayon so distinctly, that her writing can be well read." What is the earliest known instance of the blind being taught to read or write by the instrumentality of raised letters?

J. SANSOM.

Hyrne, Meaning of.

—During my recent investigations into our local history, I met with three places in this town with this word affixed—such as North Hirne, now called North Street; also Cold Hyrne, now called All Saints' Street, in South Lynn; and a place called Clink's Heven, in North Lynn.

I have also met with another village, "Guyhirn," in Cambridgeshire, of which most of your readers are aware; and my present object is to learn the meaning of this word?

JOHN NURSE CHADWICK.

King's Lynn.

The fairest Attendant of the Scottish Queen.

—Mary (of Guise), Dowager Queen of Scots, passed through England, on returning from a visit to France, in November 1551: she was lodged at the Bishop's Palace in London, and on her departure "divers lords and ladies brought her on her way; and when she came without Bishopsgate, the fairest lady that she had with her of her country was stolen away from her; and so she went forth on her journey." This passage is from The Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, now printing for the Camden Society. Can any one tell me whether "the fairest lady's" elopement has been elsewhere recorded?

JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS.

"Soud, soud, soud, soud!"

—In the Taming of the Shrew, Act IV. Sc. 1., Petruchio, on arriving at his house, says to his bride:

The word soud puzzles the commentators.

Johnson takes it for soot or sooth, sweet. Mason supposes it to denote the humming of a tune, or an ejaculation, for which it is not necessary to find out a meaning. Malone conjectures it to be a word coined to express the noise made by a person heated and fatigued.

This seems a proper subject for a Query.

T. C.

Key Experiments.

—Can some one of your correspondents afford me an explanation of the principles controlling the following experiment: Two persons, taking a large key, hold it balanced by the handle upon the forefinger of their opposite hands; the key should be tied in a thin book, with the handle projecting so far that the finger may easily pass between the book and the handle; the book serves to balance the key by its weight, and exhibits more plainly any movement of the key; both persons then wish the key to turn to the right or left, and, after a few moments, the key will take the desired direction. The earnest and united wish of the operators appears to be the motive power. The divination by "the Bible and key," given in your Vol. i., p. 413., and Vol. ii., p. 5., is evidently based on the same principles; and the mention of that superstition will be an apology for my making your pages the medium of the present inquiry, which is perhaps scarcely fitted for a publication designed for literary purposes.

J. P. Jun.

Shield of Hercules.

—In which of the English periodicals can I have met with a drawing of the Shield of Hercules, as described by Hesiod?

BATAVUS.

Amsterdam.

"Sum Liber, et non sum," &c.—

The above lines are written in the fly-leaf of a copy of the Iliad, Greek and Latin, which formerly belonged to Sir Isaac Newton, and bears his autograph. Can any of your correspondents inform me whence they are taken? or may they be considered as the original composition of Newton? The autograph is "Isaac Newton. Trin. Coll. Cant. 1661."

G. E. T.

Minor Queries Answered.

Whipping a Husband—Hudibras.

—In the first canto of Hudibras, part ii. l. 885., are these lines:

My copy of the poem, with Hogarth's plates, has no note on this passage. To whom does it refer? A Bury Guide, published in 1833, states that it occurred in that town in 1650 to a nobleman who had discovered an inclination to desert the Hanoverian cause.

BURIENSIS.

[Zachary Grey has given a long note on this passage, and states that it was William Lord M-n-n, residing at Bury St. Edmunds, whose lady, possessing the true disciplinarian spirit, tied his lordship to a bed-post by the help of her maids, and punished him for showing favours to the unsanctified Cavaliers; for which salutary discipline she had thanks given her in open court.]

Aldus.

—What was the inscription on his printing-house, requesting his friends to dispatch their business with him as soon as possible, and then go about their business?

A. D. F.R.S.

[Over the door of his sanctum Aldus placed the following inscription:

"Whoever you are, ALDUS earnestly entreats you to dispatch your business as soon as possible, and then depart; unless you come hither, like another Hercules, to lend him some friendly assistance; for here will be work sufficient to employ you, and as many as enter this place."

This inscription was afterwards adopted, for a similar purpose, by the learned Oporinus, a printer of Basil.]

"The last links are broken."

—Who is the author of "The last links are broken?" If they are by Moore, in what part of his works are they to be found?

M. C.

[This ballad was written by Miss Fanny Steers.]

Under Weigh or Way.

—Does a ship on sailing get under "weigh," or under "way?"

E. S. T. T.

[Webster and Falconer are in favour of way. The latter says, "The way of a ship is the course or progress which she makes on the water under sail. Thus, when she begins her motion, she is said to be under way; and when that motion increases, she is said to have fresh way through the water; whereas, to weigh (lever l'ancre, appareiller) is to heave up the anchor of a ship from the ground, in order to prepare her for sailing."]

The Pope's Eye.

—Why is it that the piece of fat in the middle of a leg of mutton is called the "Pope's eye?"

J. D. G.

[Boyer, in his French Dictionary, explains it: "Le morceau gras d'une éclanche ou d'un gigot de mouton." Others have derived it from popa, which seems originally to have denoted that part of the fat of the victim separated from the thigh in sacrificing; and in process of time, the priest who sacrificed.]

"History is Philosophy," &c.

—What is the exact source of the often repeated passage,

I am aware that it is commonly attributed to Bolingbroke, but a distinguished literary friend tells me that he cannot find it in Bolingbroke's writings, and suspects that, as is the case with some other well-known sayings, its paternity is unknown.

T.

[In the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, vol. ix., p. 13., this passage is attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus.]