2»'» S. X. Aug. 4. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



87 



shop hard by I remember finding, nailed up, a 

 printed bill announcing the performance of a play 

 by the "young gentlemen." During Mrs. Bar- 

 bauld's residence at Palgrave, her mother ,_ Jane 

 Aikin (nat. Jennings) died there. A stone in the 

 churchyard still marks her grave. The family 

 left Palgrave in 1785, and the school waned. It 

 was, however, carried on for many years by Dr. 

 Phillips, the Rev. John Tremlett, and Dr. Lloyd 

 successively. From 1815 to 1818 the Rev. John 

 FuUagar, since of Chichester, occupied the house. 

 Afterwards it was variously tenanted, and at last 

 as a ladies' boarding-school, under the name of 

 " Barbauld House." Having been purchased by 

 the owner of an adjacent residence, every vestige 

 of the buildings has been swept away. A thriving 

 young plantation and a luxuriant crop of corn 

 grow where the scions of the Selkirk and Tem- 

 pleton families. Chief Justice Denman, and Sir 

 William Gell, Dr. Frank Sayers, and William 

 Taylor of Norwich, as well as many other less 

 notable but not less honourable persons, passed 

 some of the sunny years of early life. Such a 

 house should not pass away unnoted. What is 

 become of the heraldic memorial of the sturdy 

 Nonjuring prelate? It may be a more hopeless 

 query. Is there a pupil of Mr. or of Mrs. Bar- 

 bauld still living ? S. W. Rix. 

 Beccles. 



A Pacificatory Precedent. — I believe it is a 

 part of your plan to eschew politics ; and it is 

 only under the present peculiar circumstances 

 that I would trench, and that as briefly as I can, 

 on your very judicious resolve. Mr. Gladstone has 

 made a heavy pull on our purses on account of 

 the " monstrum horrendum " on the other side of 

 the Channel, and in addition we are now threat- 

 ened with the dissensions of the Houses of Par- 

 liament. I hope, however, the latter may be 

 arranged ; and I beg to point out an instance of 

 former discord which terminated in a renewal of 

 harmony, and which perhaps may have been over- 

 looked in the " search for precedents." It is with 

 much diffidence, and the greatest deference, I 

 venture to quote from the London Gazette, No. 

 446., of Thursday, 24th February, 16f§, when 

 serious disputes between both Houses of Parlia- 

 ment are stated to have been reconciled. The 

 London Gazette has always been the official regis- 

 ter of the documents of the existing government 

 since its commencement in 1665 : — 



" Whitehall, Feb. 22, 1669-70. This day the two houses 

 of parliament did, at his Majesty's gracious recommenda- 

 tion, come to an happy agreement in the matter in dif- 

 ference between them, to the great joy and content of all 

 that wish well to the prosperity of His Majesty's govern- 

 ment, and the publick quiet of this his kingdom." 



CoNCtLIATOR. 



Distinction by Lines of Colours in Arms. — 



Several inquiries have been made in " N. & Q." 

 respecting the first use of these distinctions, and 

 perhaps the following citation may be interesting 

 to your readers : — 



" For the better bearing in memory the impressed sig- 

 nature for distinction of colours in Arms, which was de- 

 vised by the Keverend Father S. de Petra Sancta, I 

 have composed these verses : — 



[Here is inserted the diagram of seven colours.!! 



" Aurum puncta dabunt ; Argentum parmaq-, simplex ; 



Fascia Carulceum ; palaris linea Rubrum ; 



Obliquus tractus Viridetn ; Nigrumq; calorem 



Transversum filum dabit, et palare vicissim ; 



Tractibus obliquis fit Purpura nota sinistris. 



" Or the fourth verse thus : — 



" Ductus transversi dant et perpendiculares." 

 Gibbon's Ititroductio ad Latinam Blasoniam, 

 1682, p. 162. 



Lancastriensis. 



Bishopric of Norwich : Conge d'elire. — 

 The absurd practice of granting leave to elect and 

 tyrannically limiting the choice of chapters in 

 the election of bishops in this kingdom, seems to 

 have been pursued in the time of Henry VI., as 

 appears by the following extract from the Con- 

 gregation Books of the municipality of Lynn 

 (where the proceedings of a meeting of the cor- 

 poration, held on the 8th day of June, 3rd Hen. 

 VI., are recorded) : — 



" Et ib'm sigillata fuit una I'ra clausa sub sigillo coi 

 direct* consilio Regis ad instantia Thome Wursted* p' 

 filio suo electo in Epm' Norwic' cujus copia reman' penes 

 Co'm Cle'cum." 



The circumstances attending this case seem 

 worthy of note and inquiry, especially as Wur- 

 sted's son, notwithstanding the testimonial, did 

 not succeed to the vacant chair. 



AiiAN Henry Swatman. 



Lynn. 



Char : Charwoman. — I am not* aware that 

 any satisfactory explanation has yet been given of 

 the origin or derivation of the word char, which we 

 find only in composition, and that too I believe biit 

 in one word, viz. char-woman. It has struck me 

 very forcibly that this monosyllable is merely a 

 corruption of the participle "chartered :" so that 

 just as a vessel or a conveyance is chartered for a 

 particular object or purpose, and as soon as that 

 object is attained, or that purpose completed, is 

 restored to its owner, &c., so for the execution of 

 some particular or extra-dotaestic work a woman 

 is chartered or hired — not being in the regular 

 service of the hirer — and having done what was 

 required of her returns to the place whence she 

 came. The word char, therefore, owes its mean- 

 ing (if this suggestion of mine be correct) not so 

 much to the strictly proper as to the conventional 



* This Thomas Wursted was one oi the jurats or alder- 

 men of Lynn. 



