Minster (forty miles away) may occasionally - H. T. B. Beplies. OPEN SPACES. THIS matter evidently exercised the mind of Thomas Carlyle. In the following contemporary letter, addressed to the secretary of an institution "for the diffusion of knowledge," he contrives to annex the subject of open spaces : Chelsea, 26 January, 1843. delay to something better than neglect. SIR,-I had the honour several days ago to receive your invitation to the annual meeting of the Athenæum, for which I can now only return my thanks and regrets. The state of my arrangements has rendered it impossible for me to come, and in ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI.-In a triptychlost, so that I have too long neglected even to some accidental confusion your note itself has been recently presented to the Aberdeen Art Gal-reply. Pray accept my excuses; attribute my lery there is a figure of this saint, in which he is distinctly shown as six-toed, and, not quite so distinctly, as six-fingered. Is there any authority for this? Or could it have been that the person who commissioned the triptych had the peculiarity? The triptych is small, belongs to the Tuscan School, and is apparently of the middle of the fifteenth century. Savile Club. J. D. W. REYNOLDS'S 'INFANT ACADEMY.'-In what year, and for whom, was this picture painted? H. T. B. [See Mr. Spielmann's ' History of Punch.'] From the contagion of the world's slow stain Your institution, if I rightly understand it, is one to which all rational men will wish success. To provide the people with a place of reunion recreations, instruction; and, at all events, what is where they might enjoy books, perhaps music, dearest to all men, the society and sight of one another: this is a thing of palpable utility, a thing at once possible and greatly needed; it is a thousand pities this were not brought to pass, straightway, in all working towns! I have regretted much, in looking at your great Manchester, that I could not find, in one quarter of it, a and its thousand fold industries and conquests, hundred acres of green ground, with trees on it, for the summer holidays and evenings of your all-conquering industrious men; and for winter season and bad weather quite another sort of social meeting-places than the gin shops offered! May all this and much more be amended. May good and best speed attend you and your benevolent associates in your attempts to amend some part of it. I remain, with thanks and good wishes, Yours very truly, T. CARLYLE. been acted upon in 1843, the citizens of ManIf the prefigurement of Carlyle could have chester would have been free to-day of one of the most costly and perplexing schemes of her municipal administration. Urmston. RICHARD LAWSON. At the above reference it is said, "We have now several Open Spaces Acts, the necessity of such lungs,' as I think Charles Dickens called them, being recognized on all hands." If it is intended that the phrase originated with Dickens, this, I believe, is an error. In a debate, 30 June, 1808, four years before Dickens was born, respecting encroachments upon Hyde Park, Mr. Windham alluded to that park as "the lungs of London," although Mr. Windham, says a correspondent of N. & Q.' (8th S. viii. 507; ix. 93), assigned the origin of the phrase to Lord marriage with Queen Charlotte. CunningChatham. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. FAMILIAR FRENCH QUOTATIONS (9th S. V. 336).—Col. P. H. Dalbiac says in his preface to his Dictionary of English Quotations, "It is hoped......to complete the work with a volume dealing with modern continental writers." Wood's 'Dictionary' gives 50,000 references, many of which are to continental writers; and in a book just published, New Dictionary of Foreign Phrases' (Deacon & Co.), there are references in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. These two last-named books give the names of the authors, but do not give the chapter and verse, as in Bartlett and Dalbiac. H. T. no doubt knows of Hain Friswell's 'Familiar Words,' a book like Dalbiac and Bartlett. I have been informed that Dalbiac's new volume will not be ready until the end of the H. B. P. year. 66 Inner Temple. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY 'HISTORY OF ENGLAND' (9th S. v. 127, 189, 276).—There is a copy of Sydney's history in the British Museum Library. The date is 1775. It is folio, morocco bound, gilt bordered and lettered (the name on the back incorrectly spelt Sidney"). The book is slightly larger than Russel's, but it contains sixty-six pages less. Although Russel's history is a distinct imitation, it is not the same either as regards letterpress or cuts, though we now and then spot a sentence which has been transplanted with some trifling change. The same designs are occasionally seen, but always re-engraved, and sometimes reversed. The same map is used, but the title-page, preface, list of subscribers are different. In the Catalogue of the Library of the Boston Athenæum (1880) appears a still later edition: "Russel, Wm. Augustus. New History of England' (to 1783). London. (178-.) Fo." These histories, like their authors, seem quite forgotten now. I cannot find either Sydney or Russel in any biographical work of reference. HERBERT B. CLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane. "MAYFAIR MARRIAGES (9th S. v. 65, 137, 256). If the records of Curzon Chapel end in 1754, the later years, containing King George's name, with his brother the Duke of York as witness, must have been suppressed. I think the law against royal marriages must have had a motive. Moreover, he thought it necessary, after three of his sons had been born, to have a second ham's account of Keith's chapel is quite incomprehensible. It could not be "opposite within ten yards of it," as Curzon Street is May Fair Chapel or Curzon Chapel, and above twenty yards wide, and the house opposite is behind a garden with old trees. E. L. G. MR. G. YARROW BALDOCK rejoices that the fine old oak pulpit so long used in the doomed church known as Curzon Chapel, Mayfair, W., has been presented to the parish church of Penn, in Buckingham. He does not appear aware, however, of the shameful vandalism that made such a gift possible. Penn is visited largely — particularly by our Transatlantic cousins-from the fact that it was the old home of the Penns of Penn. There lay the bones of the ancestors of the founder of the state of Pennsylvania, and there too, in the little graveyard of the Quakers' Meeting House at Jordans, near Penn, was buried, after a somewhat sorrowful ending, William Penn himself. In the church, standing in the north-east corner of the nave, was a carved oak fifteenth-century pulpit-hexagon on plan-and at the east of the south aisle a high-backed pew of about the same date, also in carved oak, always known as the old ancestral pew of the Penn family. It will scarcely be believed that this historical pulpit and pew, together with a pulpit cloth quaintly worked by Martha Penn, and bearing the date of A.D. 1721, were actually sold last September by the present vicar, the Rev. Benjamin J. S. Kerby, to a London dealer, and by the latter duly carted away. Hence, alas! the vacancy for the Curzon Chapel pulpit. HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter. DISCOVERIES OF CAPT. EDGE (9th S. v. 209, 343).--I am obliged to MR. MARTIN for his reply. I am now desirous of biographical particulars of Edge and of knowing where he is buried. RICHARD LAWSON. Urmston. KEMPS OF HENDON (9th S. iii. 7).—The will of Richard Kempe of Wil(le)sden, which was proved in the Court of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, 9 July, 1539, mentions "Humfrey Kempe my 3rd son." It appears from the records of St. Bartholomew's Hospital that Humfrey Kempe took a lease of the manor of Clitterhouse in 1556. In 1609 the will of this Humfrey Kempe of Clitterhouse (described as in the parish of "Wilsden") was proved in the above Court (Register D, fo. 22), and in it the testator bequeaths to his "sonne Edward Kempe fforty shillings and noe more, for that I have taken him a lease in reversion after my decease of the farm called Cletterhouse where in I now dwell," &c.; he also mentions his son-in-law William Marsh, husband of his daughter Rose. In 1610 several persons were convicted for stealing a shawl and other articles from the house of this Edward Kemp (vide Middlesex Session Rolls). His will was proved 1649 (P.C.C. 184, Fairfax), and his son Thomas then held Clitterhouse till 1667 (will P.C.C. 170, Carr). The latter mentions three sons, all of whom succeeded him. Edward, the eldest, was shot by James Slader, the highwayman, while attempting to stop a gang who were eventually brought to justice and executed at Hampstead in 1674 (vide The Confession of Four Highway men,' 1674). He was buried at Hendon, and his will was proved the same year (Commissary Court, April). Thomas Kemp, the second son, died a few months later, leaving a son Thomas, who was a major in the army, of whom see later. Daniel Kempe, the third son, also succeeded to Clitterhouse in 1674. He purchased Goodyers, Hendon, in 1698, and added considerably to his freehold, copyhold, and leasehold lands. By his will, proved 1712 (Commissary Court, August), he bequeathed his lease of Clitterhouse (and other lands enumerated) to his son Daniel Kempe. The last named died in 1747, and his will (proved that year in Commissary Court, May) mentions three sons: first, Daniel, who died in 1763 without issue; second, John Kemp, who succeeded; and William Kemp. This John Kemp was an apothecary who lived chiefly at Dover Street, Piccadilly, and Knightsbridge, but retained Clitterhouse till the time of his death in 1795 (will P.C.C. 696, Newcastle). Major Thomas Kempe, of the Tower of London, died in 1727 (will P.C.C. 16, Brook) leaving six children, viz.: John Kemp, who lived to ninety years of age, and was buried at Hendon in 1788. The Rev. Thomas Kemp, D.D., Rector of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, and of Cheam, Surrey, who married Lady Mary Banff, and was buried in Cheam Church in 1769 (will P.C.C. 285, Bogg), leaving no issue. Daniel Kemp, of the Mint, Provost of the Company of Moneyers, and of the Ordnance Office, who died at Great Ormond Street, Bloomsbury, in 1797 (will P.C.C. 172, Exeter), leaving no issue, his son having been shot by a footpad in Marylebone. Elizabeth Kemp, buried at Kingsbury, Middlesex, 1782 (will P.C.C. 138, Gostling). Ellin Kemp, who married Edward Short, the secretary of the Ordnance Department. Mary Kemp, who died unmarried in 1763 (will P.C.C. 135, Cæsar). Of this family also was William Kemp, who converted the Perilous Pond into the Peerless Pool, which for many years was a fashionable resort. He died in 1756 (will P.C.C. 339, Glazier), leaving five sons and two daughters. The arms used by the family during the eighteenth century were Sable, three garbs or, but the earliest silver bears Gules, three garbs or, within a burdure engrailed, and the crest of the Kemps of Ollantigh is shown on the family tombs at Hendon; but whether Richard Kempe of "Wilsden," above mentioned, was of the Kentish stock, there appears to be no proof pro or con. FRED. HITCHIN-KEMP. Beechfield Road, Catford. MOATED MOUNDS (9th S. v. 309).-I did not see the contribution sent by the late G. T. Clark to the Archæological Journal of September, 1889. Thus I have no means of knowing whether it contains-though MR. J. A. RUTTER'S list of additions does not-any mention of the following example. Close to the village of Seckington, co. Warwick, in a field adjoining the turnpike road from Tamworth to Ashby-de-la-Zouche, and about two miles from the point at which that road passes Statfold (my native place), is a very large mound, known to all the people about as Seckington Mount, surrounded by a very well-marked moat, and having close to it a second and smaller mound. This mount is indicated, and by that name, in the Ordnance maps. EDWARD P. WOLFERSTAN. P.S.-I have searched the Journal of the Archæological Association of the date given, but do not find the contribution, &c., mentioned by MR. RUTTER, and I therefore conclude that he refers to some other publication. "NO DEAF NUTS" (9th S. v. 316).-M. C. L. desires to know what these words mean. The expression would seem to have been employed, at many times and in many languages, to denote anything of little value. Sir Walter Scott makes use of it, not only in his 'Journal,' but also in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Pirate,' where old Swertha, talking of the mysterious gold chain worn by young Mordaunt Mertoun, says that its value might mount to a hundred punds English, and that is nae deaf nuts.' Again, Lessing employs the same ex It does not seem, even yet, to be at all generally understood that the 'H.E.D.' is the right book to consult for the explanation of hard words and phrases. Yet any one who will take the trouble to consult that great work will find that the phrase deaf nut is carefully explained as being "one with no kernel," and two quotations are given of its figurative use. One of these is from Sir W. Scott himself, who, in a letter written in 1808, says: "The appointments are 500l. a year no deaf nuts." He meant, of course, that they were real and substantial, beyond suspicion of any mistake. WALTER W. SKEAT. [Similar replies received.] ARTISTS' MISTAKES (9th S. iv. 164, 237, 293; v. 32. 317).—The following may be added to the lists of the mistakes of artists which have already appeared. In 'The Life of Charles Dickens, which forms one volume of the nineteen issued by the Daily News as a "memorial edition" of the great novelist's works, there is a very beautiful engraving after Mr. Luke Fildes, R.A., of Dickens's grave in Westminster Abbey. Notwithstanding the explicit words in Forster's text opposite the picture, "Next to him lies Richard Cumberland," the artist or his engraver has placed upon the tombstone adjacent to that of Dickens the words "John Cumberland." It might have been thought that, apart from the text, the Christian name of the famous dramatist would be a matter of common knowledge. R. CLARK. BOHUN PLUGENET (9th S. v. 269).-There were only two De Pluguenets of Kilpeck, both Alans, father and son. The elder was son of Andrew de la Bere by Alice, daughter and ultimate heir of William Waleran, who married Isabella, daughter and coheir of Hugh de Kilpeck. The elder Alan had Kilpeck by gift of his cousin, Robert Waleran. Why he took the name of De Pluguenet I know not. He married a Joan perhaps she was of that family. He died 1299. His only son, Alan, died s.p., and the last Alan's sister married Edward de Bohun, but died s.p. 1327, when Kilpeck went to her cousin, Richard de la Bere. I can give G. H. R. six descents of the main line of Pluguenets, and a good deal of the Bohun pedigree. There does not seem to be much known of the Kilpeck Pluguenets save that the elder Alan was a baron and Constable of Corfe (if it was not the Alan in the main line). The younger Alan is chiefly remarkable for making a rural dean eat his bishop's letter, seal and all, when the bishop called him to account for not burying his mother in Sherborne as she had ordered. Aston Clinton. THO. WILLIAMS. In the Journal of the British Archæological Association, xxvii. 179-191, is a paper by J. R. Planché, 'The Genealogy and Armorial Bearings of the Earls of Hereford.' It appears to be the result of careful investigation. The Bohun family which I can name will be only other pedigrees of this branch of the of Buckingham,' i. 206, and Baker's History found in Lipscomb's 'History of the County of Northampton,' i. 544, ii. 239. There is, I believe, a Plugenet pedigree in the Topographer and Genealogist, i. 30. G. H. R. has, no doubt, already consulted the reference lists quoted in the Dictionary of National Biography' under Bohun and Plugenet. HERBERT B. ČLAYTON. 39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane. G. H. R. will find particulars of the Plugenets in Collinson's Hist. Somerset,' vol. ii. p. 331, under Haselbury Plucknet,' and in a recent work, 'Historical Memorials of South Somerset,' by the present writer, under 'Preston Plucknet.' J. B. ELIZABETH ALKIN (9th S. v. 355).—If ASTARTE will consult the 'Calendars of Domestic State Papers' of the years of the Dutch war she will find there references to all that is known about this excellent woman. SAMUEL R. GARDINER. sary could still be attached to the day having the same name (e.g., 25 December and other festivals), though the day thus described was not the same. Thus Lord Mayor's Day could have been kept on the same day as before, "INTIMIDATED THRONES" (9th S. v. 335).A cheap, but incomplete edition of Words-e., 9 November till 1800, 10 November till worth's poems, published without date by Gall & Inglis, Edinburgh, contains the single line, "Why do ye quake," &c., in place of the two lines beginning "Ye thrones," which I find in Moxon's edition of 1854, and which are evidently altered from an earlier edition. Wordsworth's continual revisions are, however, given in Prof. Knight's edition, which I have not seen; and DR. MURRAY may answer his own query satisfactorily by consulting that edition. 115, Albany Road, Camberwell. F. ADAMS. DR. MURRAY'S conjecture is correct. In the paragraph in the seventh book of 'The Excursion' which begins When this involuntary train had ceased, instead of the lines which now run Ye Thrones that have defied remorse and cast Pity away, soon shall ye quake with fear, the original edition of 1814 has the single line, Why do ye quake, intimidated Thrones? W. T. LYNN. Blackheath. Prof. Dowden, in his notes appended to 'The Excursion' ('The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth,' vol. vi. vi. p. 381, Aldine edition, 1893), states that the two lines (Book vii., 837, 838) quoted by DR. MURRAY were previously in one line, as given in the 'Encyclopædic Dictionary.' A. C. W. OLD AND NEW STYLE OF CHRONOLOGY (9th S. v. 268, 344).-I am much obliged to MR. LYNN for his explanation of what has happened in the case of Lord Mayor's Day. Supposing that it was formerly the festival of SS. Simon and Jude, I naturally concluded that it became 8 November on the change of style, and was automatically transferred to 9 November in 1800. As, however, the day was 29 October ("September" is, of course, a slip), it would become 9 November at once, and clearly neither has been nor will be changed. Thus the identity has been lost. I would submit that this permanent adoption of 9 November is a mistake, for, on the change of style, two perfectly logical methods of dealing with anniversaries were admissible. Either the same day could be retained with a new name or the anniver 1900, and 11 November hence till 2100; for, in order to retain what is actually the same day (29 October O.S.), it would be necessary from time to time to alter the date N.S. Or, thought to be a nuisance, it could be avoided on the other hand, if this alteration were by the second method, viz., adhering to the day called 29 October, in spite of its not being actually the same day. In the former really, in the latter case the same day case you would be keeping the same day nominally. But what has been done is to change the name, apparently with a view to keeping the real anniversary, and then stick with a superstitious reverence to the new name thus adopted, as though that were sacrosanct! From 1752 to 1800 the day called 9 November was identical with the old Lord Mayor's Day (29 October); since 1800 the identity has been lost, and the day thus kept has not been "the morrow of SS. Simon and Jude" either in name or in reality. The same mistake has been made with regard to George III.'s birthday. If he intended to stick to the same nominal date, he should have continued to keep it on If 24 May, regardless of the change of style. he wished to keep the real anniversary, he should have kept it on 5 June N.S. from 1800, and Eton should now observe 6 June as the commemoration. W. E. B. FAGGOTS FOR BURNING HERETICS (9th S. v. 269, 326).--When I was churchwarden of St. James's, Garlick Hythe, Upper Thames Street, I used to collect the rent of some premises near the river which were left by a lady for this purpose. I believe the rent is If MR. HIBGAME will communicate with the now paid to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. rector, the Rev. H. D. Macnamara, M.A., I have no doubt he will be pleased to give R. B. WARRICK. further information. VOLANT AS A CHRISTIAN NAME (9th S. v. 229, 293).--I have never known any person bearing the name of Volant, but have supposed it to be a name given to men. Should it be feminine, it may be a contraction of Violante, an Ítalian name, which, I think, is given to women, and which seems to signify the violet flower. The names Ianthe, which is classical, and Iolanthe, which does not seem to be so, may have an affinity to this name. There is also an |