66 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»"» S. VII. Jan. 22. '59. 



but by some sharp instrument. That, in spite of 

 Hen. III.'s proclamation that such should not be 

 current, the practice of dividing coin continued in 

 some parts of the kingdom during the remainder 

 of his own and the two succeeding reigns, I have 

 abundant evidence of in coins found in this imme- 

 diate neighbourhood. 



Again, may not the Saxon " feorthling," of 

 ■which numismatists confessedly have no repre- 

 sentative or specimen, have been applied to a 

 quarter of the current sceatta or silver penny ? 



H. EcROYD Smith. 



Belle Vue, Claughton, Birkenhead. 



" Ncsh." — This word, which has dropped out of 

 use except as a provincialism, as in Lancashire, 

 has been introduced by Dickens in his House to 

 Let, where, at p. 10., Mr. Chadwick says : 



" That if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen 

 the boy by a falsehood, or to make him nesh in body or 

 mind, she should go that day." 



It would be very remarkable if this expressive 

 word (the modern form of which, "nice," meaning 

 " dainty," not being half so forcible,) were rein- 

 troduced : one sees its force applied to " soft" or 

 " weak," as when Chaucer says, in the Court of 

 Love : — 



" It seemcth for love his licrte is tender and neshe ; " 

 or Gower : 



" lie was to neshe, and she to hard ; " 

 or Lydgate, when speaking of fire, says it 



" Makyth hard thyng neisshe, and also naturallj^ neisshe 

 thyng hard." 



T. W. WONFOR. 

 Brighton. 



" The Bear WojnanV — The following extract 

 from the obituary of the last number of the Wor- 

 cester Herald is noticeable from the longevity of 

 the deceased, and her instrumentality in pre- 

 serving one of the customs of " the good (?) old 

 times " : — 



" Dec. 27th (1858), aged 102, at Upper Gornal, near 

 Dudley, Catherine Dudley. She was generall}' known 

 as ' The Bear Woman,' from the fact of her having for a 

 number of years kept a Bear, which she took from wake 

 to wake for the purpose of being baited." 



CUTHBERT BeDB. 



^UtVit^, 



MADAME DU BARRY AND A PICTURE OP 

 CHARLES I. 



Sismondi, in his Histoire des Franqais, vol. xxix. 

 p. 415., A.D. 1770, x'elates the following anecdote 

 of Madame du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV. 

 The Count du Barry (he says) pretended to be of 

 the same family as Barrymore, of Scotch birth, a 

 page who accompanied Charles I. in his flight. 

 Maupeou, who also claimed affinity with the same 

 Barrymore, presented the Countess with a splen- 



did picture of Charles I. by Vandyck, in which 

 he was represented in a forest, flying from his 

 persecutors. This picture was placed in the 

 Countess's boudoir, opposite the ottoman where 

 Louis XV. was in the habit of sitting ; and when 

 the king fixed his eyes on the picture, the fa- 

 vourite would say to him, that if he allowed the 

 parliament to have their own way they would cut 

 oflf his head, as the English parliament had cut off 

 the head of Charles. 



Madame Campan, one of the authorities to 

 which Sismondi refers, states that the picture 

 was a porti'ait of Charles I., that it was purchased 

 in London, and that it was, when she wrote, in 

 the Museum. She also mentions the pretended 

 relationship with Barrymore, the page who ac- 

 companied Charles I. in his flight. (JS^Iemoires de 

 Mad. Campan, torn. i. p. 33.) 



If the picture in question was painted by Van- 

 dyck, it could not have represented Charles I. 

 flying from his enemies : for Vandyck died in 

 December, 1641 ; and it was not till 1642 that 

 the king left London for York, and preparations 

 for war were made by both parties. The de- 

 scription of the picture in Sismondi would suit a 

 picture of Charles II. at Boscobel, better than a 

 picture of Charles I. Is anything known as to 

 the history and identity of the portrait referred 

 to in this anecdote ? The ordinary books of re- 

 ference and histories of Charles I. contain no 

 mention of a page named Barrymore. The Earl- 

 dom of Barrymore was created by James I. The 

 family name was Barry ; both the earldom, and 

 the previous title of Butte van t, were in the Irish 

 peerage. This ancient family had no connexion 

 with Scotland. Qu., Where did the Count du 

 Barry, as well as Maupeou, find an account of a 

 Scotch page named Barry, or Barrymore, who 

 accompanied Charles I. in his wanderings ? No 

 person of this name is related to have accompanied 

 Cliarles I. in his flight from Hampton Court in 

 November, 1647. L. 



MANUSCRIPT OF SIR JOHN OGLANDER. 



I have lately met with a very neatly-written 

 MS. entitled, A IVaiiscf-ipt of Notes taken out of 

 an Old MS. of Sir John Oglander, by Ilichard 

 Burleigh. I should be mucli obliged to anyone 

 who would give me some information about this 

 MS. of Sir John Oglander. I wish to ascertain 

 whether it is still in existence; and if so, in whose 

 possession it is now ; or whether it has ever been 

 printed. It is largely quoted in the notes of 

 Worsley's History ^the Isle of Wight. I am in 

 doubt whether Burleigh's transcript contains the 

 whole of Sir J. Oglander's MS., or whether it 

 consists of extracts only. The original seems to 

 have been written in the time of Charles I. No 

 mention is made of any events of the civil war. 



