354 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 128. 



to the secretary, " William Downing Bruce, Esq., 

 K.C.J., F.S.A.", United Service Institution, White- 

 hall, London," to whom all communications respect- 

 ing it were to he addressed. E, IST. 



Shortly after its establishment, I was ap- 

 pointed corresponding member to the London Ge- 

 nealogical Society, but on going to their rooms 

 one morning, found the concern had " vanished 

 into thin air." Metaouo. 



Martinique (Vol. v., p. 11.). — There must be 

 some inaccuracy in the reply of Mr. Philip S. 

 King (p. 165.) to the Query of your correspon- 

 dent W. J. C. 



A reference to the {qw authorities to which I 

 have access leads me to suppose that the period of 

 the actual discovery of this island is involved in 

 some obscurity. Washington Irving assumes its 

 identity with the island called by its inhabitants 

 " Mantinino," and that it was the first land made 

 by Columbus on his fourth voyage to the West 

 Indies in 1502. Mr. Major, in his Introduction to 

 the Select Letters of Columbus, published for the 

 Hakluyt Society, inclines to the same opinion. It 

 is extremely probable that Columbus had heard 

 reports of this island when he was among the 

 group of the Caribbees in 1493, but he does not 

 appear to have been then further south than the 

 latitude of Dominica. Peter Martyr, however, 

 alludes to Mantinino, an island of Amazons, as 

 having been passed by the admiral to the north of 

 Guadaloupe, when on his course to Hispaniola. 

 Assuming this to be an error of position, and that 

 the discovery of the island did not really take 

 place until the year 1502, the period at which 

 Columbus was there (June) could have had no 

 influence on its new name, since the days of the 

 two Saints Martin are in November. 



I am inclined to th'nk that the name " Mar- 

 tinico " may have been conferred by the Spaniards 

 at some subsequent period ; and, supposing it to 

 be a diminutive of Martin, in honour of the lesser 

 St. Martin, pope and martyr, and not him of Tours. 

 Martinique is, of course, the same word Gallicised. 



E. W. C. 



" The Delicate Investigation" &fc.(Yo\. v., p. 201 .). 

 — In answer to the Query of Elginensis, as to the 

 book which he calls The Trial of the Princess of 

 Wales, meaning, I presume, the book generally 

 known at the time by the name of The Delicate 

 Investigation, I beg to inform him, that several 

 years ago I was present when the sum of five hun- 

 dred pounds was paid for a copy of it by an officer 

 high in the service of the then government. 



H. B. 



Miserrimus (Vol. iv., p. 37.). — It may be inte- 

 resting to your correspondent F. R. A. to learn 

 that there is a notice of the demise of the Rev. 

 Thomas Maurice, not Morris, in the Gentleman's 



Magazine for 1748 ; but whether this is a typo- 

 graphical error of our old friend Sylvanus Urban 

 or not I am unable to discover, although I have 

 made every research in my power. The celebrated 

 Wordsworth, with other minor poets, have drawn 

 fanciful pictures of the old divine ; but, from what 

 little may be learned of his history in the paragraph 

 of his decease above referred to, it is quite evident 

 that all are very far from depicting the real cha- 

 racter of the individual who chose such au eccen- 

 tric epitaph as the sole word 



" MISERRIMUS ;" 



for he is there said to have been " a gentleman very 

 charitable to the poor, and much esteemed." 



The original stone which covered his remains, 

 having the word "Miserrimus" spelt with a single 

 r, being nearly obliterated, was renewed many 

 years since by, I believe, one of the gentlemen 

 connected with the cathedral. Your correspon- 

 dent is correct in stating the work alluded to as 

 being written by the late F. M. Reynolds. I 

 should feel obliged if any one could furnish further 

 particulars of this individual. J. B. AVhitbohne. 



Cynthia's Dragon-yoke (Vol. v., p. 297.). — For 

 the satisfaction of your Boston correspondent, 

 H. T. P., I have been unable to find anything but 

 the following note from Bishop Newton's edition 

 of Milton's works : — 



" Dragon-yoke. — This office is attributed to dragons 

 on account of their watchfulness." 



So Shakspeare, in Cymheline, Act II. Sc. 2. : 



" Swift, swift, you dragons of the night." 



And in Troilus and Cressida, Act V. Sc. 14. : 



" The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth." 



Milton has somewhat of the same thought again 

 in his Latin poem, In Obitum Prcesvlis Eliensis: 



" Longeque sub pedibus deam 

 Vidi triformem, dum coercebat sues 

 Fracnis dracones aureis." 



Tyro. 

 Dublin. 



I apprehend that Cynthia's Dragon-team is given 

 to her as the reward of her concern in magical 

 rites ; of which especially she is the goddess, and 

 the dragon the beast of burden and locomotion. 



Sax. 



CromwelVs Shdl (Vol. v., p. 275.).— I believe 

 that, by inquiry at Mr. Donovan's the phrenolo- 

 gist, in or near the Strand, something may be 

 heard of Cromwell's skull. I saw, sometime ago, 

 a drawing of it in his window, in a serial publica- 

 tion on phrenology with which he was concerned. 



Sax. 



Almas- Cliffe (Vol. v., p. 296.). — In the parish 

 of Innerwick, East Lothian, is a farm named 



