342 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 128. 



on the edge of the Downs, about four miles above 

 the road which runs from Reading in Berkshire 

 to Wallingford, through Pangbourne and Streat- 

 ley. I quite forget the name of this remote vil- 

 lage, but it is above Basildon Park and Streatley; 

 and a trip there would repay an archteologist for 

 the time and outlay. iEcROTUs. 



Cousinship. — There appear to be various ways 

 of computing relationship. The following is the 

 mode which I have usually adopted, and I should 

 be glad to know whether or not it is strictly cor- 

 rect : 



James 



John 



David 



I 

 Thomas 



Edward 



William 



I 

 George 



I 

 Henry 



Robert 



In the above pedigree Thomas and Henry are 

 second cousins ; Edward and Robert third cousins ; 

 and so on. If I am asked what relation Henry Is 

 to David, I reply they are ^rst and second cousins ; 

 or else I invert the answer, and say that David is 

 Henry's ^rst cousin once removed : on the prin- 

 ciple of making the relationship as near as possible, 

 by stating the degree of the older ascendant : in 

 other words, I do not say that Henry is David's 

 second cousin once removed. In like manner, 

 David and Robert are Jirst and third cousins ; or 

 David is Robert's /?r5f cousin twice removed. 



E.N. 



Sorrowing Days. — In a communication in 

 *' N. & Q." (Vol.v., p. 278.) regarding Sir Alexander 

 Gumming, there occurs the following statement : 



" The last three days of March are called the ' Bor- 

 rowing Days ' in Scotland, on account of their being 

 generally attended with very blustering weather, which 

 inclines people to say that they would wish to borrow 

 three days from the month of April in exchange for 

 those last three days of the month of March." 



I remember to have heard, when a child, in the 

 north of Ireland, a far more poetical, if not a more 

 rational, explanation of what is undoubtedly a 

 very common interchange of character between 

 March and April, for a few successive days to- 

 wards the close of the former, and commencement 

 of the latter, month. " Give me (says March) 

 three days of warmth and sunshine for my poor 

 young lambs whilst they are yet too tender to 

 bear the roughness of my wind and rain, and you 

 shall have them repaid when the wool is grown." 

 An attentive observer of the weather will seldom 

 find the recurrence of this accommodation loan to 

 fail. This day (the 24th) and the two last days 



have been of a temperature very unusual so early 

 in the year, and I have little doubt that before the 

 1st of May there will be a per contra of three suc- 

 cessive days of cold and bluster carried to the 

 credit side of April's account with ^olus and Co. 



McC. 

 March 24. 



Monumental Plate at Lewes Castle. — The fol- 

 lowing is an exact copy of an inscription in raised 

 characters on a plate now at Lewes Castle: — 



HER : LIETH : ANE : iORST 



R: DAVgHTER: AND: 



HEYR : TO : THOMAS 



OAYNSEOKD : ESQVIER 



DECEASED : XVIII : OE : 



lANVARI : 1591 : EEAVINg 



BEHIND : HER : H : SONES : " 



AND: V : DAVZHTERS. 



The size of the plate is three feet by two feet» 

 Can any of the readers of " N. & Q." inform me 

 whence this plate was taken, and what occasioned 

 its removal ? A. W. 



Junius and the Quarterly Review. — The writer 

 in the Quarterly Review who has attributed the Let- 

 ters of Junius to Thomas Lyttelton, seems to have 

 overlooked that passage in the Lyttelton Letters in 

 which the writer confesses his deficiency in the 

 principal " rhetorical figure," which at once ren- 

 dered " the style of Junius" so popular: 



" Irony is not my talent, and B says I have too 



much impudence to make use of it. It is a fine rhe- 

 torical figure ; and if there were a chance of attaining' 

 the manner in which Junius has employed it, its culti- 

 vation will be worth my attention." — Letter 36. p. 131. 



In my researches to " set this question at rest," 

 I have found the Discoverers of Junius invariably 

 inclined to withhold some fact or circumstance, 

 which, if published with the proofs, must have 

 overthrown their hypotheses. This may be good 

 policy in an advocate pleading before a jury, or in 

 an orator addressing a popular assembly, where an 

 object may be attained by " making out a good 

 case." On the question of Junius it is not only- 

 disingenuous, but highly reprehensible, since^ it 

 proves that the writer thinks more of gratifying 

 his own vanity, than in satisfying the public. 



W. Cramp. 



Handwriting. — In my last communication 

 (Vol. v., p. 235.), in consecutive lines, when was 

 printed where, and second was printed record. 

 This is not wholly the printer's fault : in the com- 

 mon current hands, n and re are much alike ; and 

 n and r, s and r, are like enough to cause mistake. 

 I have more than once got as far as a second 

 proof, containing what might, if it had been 

 printed, have been interpreted as a reflection on 

 the dimensions of the clergy, which was far from 

 my intention ; namely, allusion to the area of a 

 circular rector, in which the first r should have 

 been s. What I want to make a note on, is 

 this : no current hand is taught at schools : the so- 



