2"* S. VIL Jan. 29. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



89 



dote ? Now that so many years Lave elapsed, 

 and the principal parties are dead, it must surely 

 be no longer doubtful. If true, by whom was 

 the proposition made ? K. Pboctor. 



B. Salterton, Devon. 



Sir Wm. Alexander. — In Colonel Sleigh's Hac- 

 matach Clearings is an interesting story of one 

 La Tour of Cape Sable, who agreed (in conjunc- 

 tion with Sir William Alexander), to establish 

 on his Canadian property a party of Scotch emi- 

 grants. Can you or any of your readers give me 

 Colonel Sleigh's authority for this statement ? 

 And at the same time can you give me any in- 

 formation respecting the sale of Canadian pro- 

 perty to the French by Sir Wm. Alexander, as 

 stated by Urquhart ? G. H. K. 



Drury Sir Drue, of Rollesby, Norfolk, who 

 lived temp. James I., and who married Ann, 

 daughter and coheir of Thomas Lord Burgh of 

 Gainsborough, did he leave any descendants ? and 

 where did he remove to on the sale of Rollesby 

 Manor ? A. H. Swatman. 



Lynn, 



Mortuai'ij Crosses. — In Holland's Crueiana, p. 

 235., edit. 1835, is the following : — 



"This is the practice [placing niortuarj- crosses over 

 every grave] of liie Russians; and in the year 1800, 

 there were more than fifty wooden crosses of various 

 forms left in their burial-ground on their quitting the 

 island of Guernsey. These were cleared off the eq^uing 

 winter for firewood by the inhabitants of the neighbour- 

 ing cottages ! " 



Could such Vandalism be true ? Simon Waep. 



Office of Chamberlain of Giffen. — What was 

 the oflSce or rank of Chamberlain of Giffen ? and 

 if it exists now, who holds it ? and if not, how did 

 it come to an end? In Robertson's Ayrshire 

 Families, vol. iii. p. 287., Robert Dobbie is men- 

 tioned as Chamberlain of Giffen. 



His son Robert married, according to the same 

 authority, Mary Campbell, daughter of Campbell 

 of Skeldoun, who was living in 1776, and had, it 

 was said, at any rate one son at that time un- 

 mari'ied. What descendants had he, besides the 

 above-named Mary ? and did any of the family 

 get anything by one of them (Carolus, junior) 

 being named fourth in order of succession in the 

 deed of entail made by Hugh, first Lord Loudon, 

 in 1613? 



What has become of the title and estates of 

 Dominus Robertus Dobbie of Staniehill Miles, in 

 1618, indexed in the same volume as Sir Robert 

 Dobbie, who was succeeded by his son Robert in 

 1625, and who had also the lands of Monkton and 

 Blaikhope, Stainiehill and Monkton being said to be 

 near Musselburgh? What are "the late published 

 records" mentioned in the note in Robertson men- 

 tioning this person ? M. A. J. 



Elephants, Sfc. — 



" And to the end they might provoke the elephants to 

 fight, they showed them the blood of grapes and mul- 

 berries." — 1 Maccabees vi. 34. 



I should be obliged by a reference to the men- 

 tion of this custom in any other work ; and whether 

 such means of excitement. are ever now employed. 



Libya. 



Chippenham. 



Fabled Spear. — In Fielding's Temple Beau, 

 Act III. Sc. 12., occurs : — 



" Have you, then, the power of that fabled spear ; can 

 you as easily give as cure a wound?" 



Bishop Earle (1628), quoted by Hone, Table 

 Book, ii. 42., makes the spear a sword, and names 

 Telephus as its owner : — 



" And if Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even 

 Telephus' sword that makes wounds and cures them." 



Chaucer makes it a spear, and ascribes it to 

 Achilles : — 



" And fell in speech of Telephus the king, 

 And of Achilles for his quenise spere, 

 For he coude with it bothe hele and dere." 



Canterbury Tales, 10,552. 

 Can any of your correspondents give me a clas- 

 sical reference to this "fabled spear ?" Libta. 

 Chippenham. 



De Lolme. — Is there " any full and carefully 

 written life of J. L. De Lolme, the author of that 

 well-known work The Constitution of England? 

 If not, are there any materials for such biography 

 in existence ? T. C. E. 



Brest-summer. — This compound word is used 

 by architects to signify a beam laid across the 

 front of a building from wall to wall, to support 

 the upper portion of the fabric. Whence is the 

 term derived ; and is it correctly used ? May it 

 not rather be the French " Brace k mur ?" D. 



Inscription at Clifton-upon-Teme. — Can any of 

 your readers construe the following epitaph in 

 the church of Clifton-upon-Teme, Worcester- 

 shire ? It is apparently a pun on the name 

 Caldwell : — 



" Hie situs est CaldwaU, qui murus aheneus esset : 

 In tumulum morbi nulla medela valet. 

 Dejectus murus ruit in gravitante sepulchre, 

 Deformi quid homo moenia soils humo est." 



This inscription is quoted in Nash's Worcester' 

 shire, i. 249., under the collections for the parish. 



T. E. W. 



John Weir. — Looking over a curious lot of 

 Metrical Versions of the Canticles, I Lave lighted 

 upon that by John Weir, under the title of A 

 Paraphrase of the Song of Solomon, in verse, in 

 which the original text is opened with explanatory 

 and practical notes in prose, 8vo. pp. 15. Lond. 

 1765, which he enlarged to 86 pages in 1774, by 



