2"* S. X« C8., AiuujL 18. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



307 



previous to the period of Williara III. That mo- 

 nai'ch purchased the mansion of the Finches, and 

 converted it into a palace, and there Queen Vic- 

 toria held her fii'st council. As a court-suburb, 

 however, Kensington is of more remote antiquity 

 than the time of "great Nassau." Lord Camp- 

 bell, in his Lives of the Chancellors (vol. i. p. 160., 

 4th edit.), quotes the following entry from the 

 Close Roll, temp. Edward 1. : 



" On the 23rd August, in the 30th year of the King, in 

 the King's chamber nt Kensington, in the presence of Otho 

 de Grandison, Amadio, Earl of Savoy, John de Bretagne, 

 and others of the King's Council, the King's Great Seal 

 was delivered by the King's order, by the hand of Lord 

 John de Drakensford, Keeper of the Wardrobe, to Lord 

 Adam de Osgodeberg, Keeper of the Rolls of the Chancery, 

 who was enjoined to keep it under the seal of Master 

 John de Caen, and the Lords William de Birlay and 

 Robert de Bardelay, until the King should provide himself 

 with a Chancellor. The Seal being so disposed of, the 

 King set forward on his journey to Dover, hy the way of 

 Chichester." 



Was the "King's Chamber in Kensington" a 

 temporary or a permanent residence ? 



J. DOEAN. 



Souls. — What kind of moths in Gloucester- 

 shire and the neighbouring counties are called 

 " souls " ? A clerical friend told me a while ago, 

 as an instance of gross ignorance, that a Sunday 

 School child in that county being questioned as to 

 what was a soul, replied, " A little green thing 

 about as long as that," displaying at the same time 

 the first joint of his little finger. I told him I 

 thought that the child was quite correct, and that 

 a peculiar small moth or butterfly was there 

 known by the name of a " soul." I ask now 

 whether or not I was right. If I was, the resem- 

 blance to the classical Psyche and her butterfly 

 wings, and the old fancy that the soul flew away 

 from the body of the dying like a butterfly, will 

 be obvious. William Fbasee, B.C.L. 



Alton Vicarage, Staffordshire. 



Womanly Heels. — What is intended by "wo- 

 manly heels," or " ponerse en chapines," a Spanish 

 saying ? M. A. Bali,. 



Bats used in Military Operations — " To rat^'' 

 Origin and Meaning of the Term. — James, in his 

 Military Dictionary, London, 1816, has stated — 



" That rats are sometimes used in military operations, 

 particularly in enterprises for the purpose of setting fire 

 to magazines of gunpowder. On these occasions a lighted 

 match is tied to the tail of the animal. Marshal Vauban 

 recommends, therefore, that the walls of powder maga- 

 zines should be made very thick, and the passages for 

 light and wind so narrow as not to admit them." 



Can any instances be given of powder magazines 

 having been exploded in the manner above de- 

 scribed ? Doubtless, they did occur, or Marshal 

 Vauban would not have recommended that such 

 precautions should be taken in their construction. 



While writing of rats, it may not be out of place • 

 to remark, that the expression, " To rat," is a 

 figurative term "applied to those who at the 

 moment of a division" desert or abandon any par- 

 ticular party or side of a question. The term 

 itself comes from the well-known circumstance of 

 rats running away from decayed or falling houses." 



w. w. 



Malta. 



Lukin of Essex. — Burke, in his Landed Gentry, 

 states that General Windham (the Crimean hero) 

 is a direct descendant of Geoffrey Lukyn, of 

 Mashbury, co. Essex. Can anyone supply me 

 with the connecting links ? General Windham's 

 father assumed that name in place of Lukin, on 

 inheriting the property of his connection, William 

 Windham, the statesman. Dunelmensis. 



" Esemplastic." — What is the etymology of 

 this word coined by, and said to have been a fa- 

 vourite of Coleridge ? B. 



Portrait of Ascham. — Is any portrait of Roger 

 Ascham, tutor to Queen Elizabeth, known to 

 exist ; and if so, where? C. J. D. Ingledew. 



Sleep. — Dr. Millingen in his Curiosities of 

 Medical Experience states that Cabanis, in his in- 

 vestigations on the mind, has endeavoured to fix 

 the order in which the different parts of our or- 

 ganisation go to sleep, viz. First the legs and 

 arms, then the muscles that support the head and 

 back ; the first sense that slumbers, that of sight, 

 followed in regular succession by the senses of 

 taste, smell, hearing and feeling. The viscera he 

 says fall asleep one after the other, but with dif- 

 ferent degrees of soundness. 



Have any others investigated this subject ; and 

 if so, with what result? R. W. Hackwood. 



Singular Coincidence. — In Matthews' very in- 

 teresting Diary of an Invalid (vol. ii. p. 301.), there 

 is the following paragraph : — 



" It has been stated, as a singular coincidence, that a 

 deaf and dumb pupil, being asked to define his idea of 

 the sound of a trumpet, compared it to the colour red ; as 

 Sanderson, the famous blind Mathematical Professor, 

 used to explain his idea of the colour red, by likening it 

 to the sound of a trumpet." 



By whom " stated " ? Abhba. 



Thomas Warton. — It has been frequently said, 

 or assumed, that Thomas Warton was educated at 

 Winchester College, but the best authorities tell 

 us that this is an error. In the Rev. Mackenzie 

 \A^alcott's History of William of Wykeham and the 

 College (p. 197), however, is a poem signed "T. 

 Warton," which seems to afford evidence that 

 Thomas Warton was a Wykehamist. It is en- 

 titled "The Happy Junior of Sixth Chamber," 

 and describes very minutely the writer's experi- 



