Z"* S. Ko C4., Mar. 21. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



227 



Derivation of the Word " Mortar." — In refe- 

 rence to tbe derivation of tbis word, as meaning a 

 cement composed of water, sand, and lime, Web- 

 ster says that '•'■ perhaps \hh name is taken from 

 beating and mixing." I think there can be little 

 doubt that it is derived from the Latin mortarium, 

 the name of the vessel in which, according to the 

 elder Pliny (xxxvi. 55.) " arenatum," or sanded 

 cement, was mixed. Henry T. Riley. 



The Tobacco Controversy. — Now that the great 

 tobacco controversy is raging in the pages of The 

 Lancet, and doctors disagree, it may not be out of 

 place to see what our ancestors thought of the 

 medicinal properties of the divine weed in the 

 time of the great plague. 1 therefore beg to for- 

 ward you the following Note, and I should have 

 been very glad if the same regulation as is therein 

 mentioned had been in force at Eton in my time ; 

 but they used to flog us for the other thing, and, 

 as appears from a recent correspondence in The 

 Times, they do so still. 



" Jan. 21, 1720-1. I have been told that in the last great 

 plague at London, none that kept tobacconists' shops had 

 the plague. It is certain that smoking it was looked 

 upon as a most excellent preservative, insomuch that even 

 children were obliged to smoke. And I remember that I 

 heard formerly Tom Rogers, who was yeoman beadle, say, 

 that when he was that year, when the plague raged, a 

 schoolboy at Eton, all the boys of that school were obliged 

 to smoke in the school everj' morning, and that he was 

 never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning 

 for not smoking." — Reliquia Hearniance, vol. ii. p. 447. 



W. R. M. 



Mr. Thacheray in the Fashion. — In Mr. 

 Thackeray's fine work. The Neivcomes, the fol- 

 lowing quotation occurs : 



" It is the fashion to run down George the Fourth ; but 

 what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for in- 

 venting Brighton ! One of the best of physicians our city 

 has ever known is kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton." 



Per contra, I read as follows in an abbreviated 

 report of Mr. Thackeray'sJecture on George IV. : 



" This George was but a bow and a grin ; he was all 

 outside, a tailor's work, fine cocked hat, nutty -brown wig, 

 coat, large black stock, under-waistcoats, more under- 

 waistcoats, and then nothing — a royal mummy ! " 



It is pleasant to think that the novel will be 

 read and remembered when the lecture will be 

 forgotten. ALrKED Gatty. 



MONUMENT WANTED. 



A few years ago a gentleman called on business 

 at an engraver's near the British Museum (since 

 removed, but whither is not known), and con- 

 versation turning on the family of AUport of Staf- 

 fordshire, the engraver stated that he had in his 

 possession a piece of glass which had been left 



with him some time previously by a Mr. AUport, 

 who was about to sail for India, but who had for- 

 gotten or neglected to call again for it. The glass 

 was about three inches square, and in the centre 

 was engraved a coat of arms, azure, a cross or, 

 between four roses ; and for a crest, on a wreath 

 a demi-lion rampant holding a mullet in the right 

 paw, and for a motto "Virtute gloria crescit." 

 Around the arms was engraved the following in- 

 scription, in writing of about Queen Anne's time : 



" Memoria! et virtutibus sacrum Johan. AUport, arm. 

 Recordatoris in hoc municipio, celeberrimi viri optimi, et 

 in humani generis delicias, decus atque exemplum nati, 

 quam summam legum peritiam, sincera in Deum pietate, 

 spectata in principem fide, eximia in omnes charitate, 

 moribus suavissimis et amatissimo ingenio, omnibus ele- 

 gantioris literaturse ornamentis exculto mirfe adornavit. 

 Quo nemo bonis vixit charior, flebilior. Hoc affectiis sui 

 conjugalis monumentum et pignus amoris aere omni et 

 marmore perennius Margeria superstes vidua gig. Oct. 16. 

 1693." 



This inscription was stated by the engraver to 

 be on a tomb in Tamworth Church, co. Stafford. 

 At Tamworth and at Bitterscote and Comberford 

 Hall in that vicinity, a branch of the Allports is 

 known to have been located from 1500 down to 

 the present time. Many of them were from time 

 to time bailiffs of Tamworth, but none of them 

 are mentioned in Palmer's History of Tamworth 

 as recorders. There is no such monument now in 

 Tamworth Church ; nor has such been known to 

 exist there for the last fifty or sixty years. In 

 the pedigree of the Tamworth Allports, there is 

 no John AUport of that date, nor is his death re- 

 corded in the Tamworth parish registers. The 

 arms are not those of AUport, but rather those of 

 Burton, of Longnor, in Shropshire, except that 

 the Burtons have the cross engrailed and not 

 plain, and they are no doubt those of the widow 

 Margeria. The variation in the arms may be 

 ascribed to the well-known heraldic carelessness 

 of the period. The words " Recordatoris in hoc 

 municipio " point to a corporate town, and that 

 particular one of which he was recorder, and in 

 which the monument was erected. Walsall and 

 Lichfield have been searched with no better suc- 

 cess. In the parish registers of all these three 

 places there was a family of Burton, which was 

 also spread extensively over other parts of Staf- 

 fordshire. In the register of St. Mary's, Lichfield, 

 there is this entry: "1646, June 12, Margaret, 

 daughter of John Burton baptized," and this, in 

 point of time, may be the widow. But there is 

 no such monument in that church now, nor any 

 knowledge of its former existence. Neither does 

 the name occur as recorder in Harwood's History 

 of Lichfield. In the pedigree of the Cannock 

 branch of the Allports in the Heralds' Visitation, 

 1664, there is a descendant of a younger son, ap- 

 parently then living, who is styled "John AUport 

 of Lichfield," but no particulars are adde(i of bis 



