138 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 59., Feb. 14. '57. 



flicting opinions as to the distance of a deer's leap, 

 but it was eventually decided to dig a spit of 

 turf, as is the usual custom on such occasions, 

 twenty-four feet from the bank and wall. I have 

 it from a friend well versed in business of this 

 nature, that the distance of a deer's leap is in some 

 districts twenty-four, in others twelve feet. Per- 

 haps some legal reader of " N. & Q." may yet find 

 printed authority : I have none. 



Henry ap Wogan. 



'■^John Decasiro and his Brother Bat" (2"* S. 

 iii. 10.) — 



" The History of Mr. John Decastro and his Brother 

 Bat, commonly called Old Crabs. In Four Volumes. 

 The Merry Matter written by John Mathers; the Grave 

 hy a Solid Gentleman. Loudon : printed for J. Egerton, 

 Whitehall, 1815." 



J. M. L. will find an amusing rechauffe of this 

 novel in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1857. 

 The writer touches the work with a loving and re- 

 verential hand, and accounts for its unmerited ne- 

 glect by the Rabelaisian character of its humour 

 not according with the severer decorum of the 

 present day. He confesses himself ignorant of the 

 author of this treasure of his boyhood. 



John Pavin Phillips. 



Haverfordwest. 



Levant (2°'^ S. iii. 31.) — There was certainly 

 an ancient game called " Levant." Perhaps he 

 who threw a certain number was entitled to lift 

 the vessel under which the stakes were placed. 

 Under the word levanter, Webster says : 



"A cant name for one who bets at a horse race, and 

 runs away without paying the wager lost; hence in a 

 wider sense, one who runs away disgracefully." 



It seems to me that this is not the true origin 

 of levanter. It was probably at one time very 

 fashionable to go to the East (the Levant) : when, 

 therefore, creditors called for their money, they 

 were perhaps sometimes answered by " Oh, mas- 

 ter's gone to the Levant." R. S. Chabnock. 



Gray's Inn. 



John Weaver (2°'' S. iii. 89.) — The following 

 pantomimes, invented by Weaver, are enumerated 

 in Baker's Biographia JDramatica, edit. Reed and 

 Jones, i. 739. : 



1. "The Loves of Mars and Venus." 8vo. 1717. 



2. " Orpheus and Eurydice, D. E." 8vo. 1718. 



3. "Perseus and Andromeda." 8vo. 1728. 



4. " The Judgment of Paris." 1732. 



He was the first restorer of pantomimes, after 

 the ancient manner, without speaking, 



Thompson Cooper. 

 Cambridge. 



^'College Recollections,'' Loud., 1825 (2"'' S. iii. 

 90.) — This book was written by the Rev. Morti- 

 mer O Sullivan, D.D. It is a very strange and 

 interesting work, full of romantic adventures and 



narrations. I once had a key to most of the 

 names. Eirionnach. 



Antiquities of Tomgraney (2"'^ S. iii. 99.) — My 

 authority for stating that part of the round tower 

 of Tomgraney was in existence about fifty years 

 ago is the following passage in Dr. Petrie's work 

 on the Round Towers of Ireland : 



" This record is found in the Chronicon Scotorum, and 

 relates to the tower of Tomgraney, in the county of 

 Clare, — a tower which does not now exist, but of which, 

 according to the tradition of old natives of the place, 

 some remains existed about forty years since." 



Dr. Petrie's work was published in 1845. 



Tomgraney tower is omitted in the list given 

 by Dr. Ledwich, but so are the towers of Arboy, 

 Aghaviller, Ardpatrick, and Tory Island, all of 

 which are yet " to the fore." Like all tliat Dr. 

 Ledwich wrote on Irish antiquities, the list is in- 

 accurate, and of little value. 



Tomgraney was burned in a.d. 1084, and again 

 in 1164 (Ann. Four Mastei-s), but that the present 

 church is much older than either of these periods 

 there can be no doubt. Any student of Iri.-ih ar- 

 chitecture will at once be able to identify it as a 

 building erected earlier than the eleventh century. 



J. A. P. C. 



The First Brick Building in England (2"'' S. iii. 

 30. 95.) — I presume Mb. White confines his 

 Query to buildings erected with the modern, or, as 

 it is often called, Flemish brick, for he is probably 

 aware that the Romans made and used bricks 

 very extensively, and that it is very common to 

 find these worked up in Norman and later meiiia?- 

 val buildings erected on the site of, or contiguous 

 to, Roman remains, from whence they were taken ; 

 from numerous examples I may select Brixworth 

 Church, CO. Northampton ; the ruined church in 

 Dover Castle; St. Alban's Abbey; and St. Peter's 

 Church, Cambridge. Without pretending to give 

 the date of the first building in England erected 

 with the Flemish brick, I can mention one (the 

 earliest I have seen), at least 150 years older than 

 ■ Db. Doran's example — Hurstmonceaux Castle ; 

 and that is Little Wenhain Hall, Suffolk, the archi- 

 tectural character of which places it towards the 

 end of the reign of Henry IIL We have noble 

 examples of the brick architecture of the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries in Queen's and St. John's 

 Colleges, Cambridge ; there is a grandeur about 

 the entrance gateways of both unsurpassed, per- 

 haps unequalled, by any of their stone neighbours. 

 I see no reason why bricks should not be far more 

 extensively used than they are in our own times ; 

 they are quite as durable, and may be made as 

 eflfective as stone, and their cost is considerably 

 less. NoBRis Deck. 



Cambridge, 



The earliest brick building I know is the very 

 pretty and interesting little chapel at Little Co^- 



