18 



l^OTES AND QUEtllES. 



[S^d g. X. July 28. '60, 



*' The Duke of Dorset is almost in as bad a 

 scrape as if he had married Lady Maynard," , . . 

 and adds, as a neat illustration of the then pre- 

 vailing social manners, — " a quarter of our peer- 

 esses will have been wives of half our living 

 peers." I think this will answer W. D.'s Query 



as to the "D " in the verses quoted. 



John Doran, F.S.A. 



Army and Navy (2"* S. ix. 845.; x. 40.) — 

 I have always understood that the reason why the 

 navy has usually taken precedence of the army h, 

 that, whereas — by the theory of the constitution 

 — the na-ay is " royal" and immediately subject to 

 the sovereign, the army is essentially not " royal," 

 nor (if V, e except the household troops) in the 

 same manner subject to the sovereign's control. 

 Tills distinction may have originated, at the time 

 of the Great Rebellion, in the jealousy of the 

 Parliament against a standing army. J. Sansom. 



Babylon (2"'^ S. x. 28.) — Herodotus, an eye- 

 witness, is the best and almost the sole authority 

 for the laws, customs, habits, &c. of the inhabitants 

 of Babylon (i. 178—200., iii, 159.) Recent ex- 

 cavations have disclosed illustrations in stone, 

 which (as in paintings in the parallel case of the 

 Egyptians) furnish pictures of Babylonian life. 

 Incidental notices may be found in the books of 

 Kings, Chronicles, Isaiah, and Daniel. Berosus, 

 as quoted by Josephus and Eusebius, Diodorus, 

 Arrian, Strabo, Curtius, and Pliny, contain some 

 notices. Larcher's notes with Cooley's additions 

 on Herodotus and Rawlinson's Notes should be 

 consulted. From the researches of Chwolson of 

 Petersburg, in Arabic translations of remains of 

 old Babylonian writings, additional information 

 maybe looked for. (^Ueherreste alt Bahylonischen 

 Lit., Petersburg, 1859.) T. J. Buckton. 



Lichfield. 



Sermons by Steele of Gadgirth (2"'* S. ix. 

 244.) — The Rev. John Steele was, for about fifty 

 years, minister of the parish of Stair in Ayrshire. 

 I cannot give the exact date of his death, but it 

 must have been about 1800. He seems to have 

 been a friend of Home, the author of Douglas, 

 and is mentioned in M'^Kenzie's Life of Home, as 

 having been one of those clergymen who were 

 present at the representation of that play. 



R. Inglis. 



General Breeze ho ! (2"^ S. ix. 484.511.)— I 

 don't think this toast had anything to do with 

 the Pope's bumper {au hon Perg), or with a brisee 

 generate of the glasses. In my younger days at 

 gentlemen's dinner parties the habit was for every 

 man to drink wine with every other at the table 

 during dinner. This process being got tlirough 

 before the cloth was drawn, it was then cus- 

 tomary for the host to give " the. general," to 

 which all filled, and all drank together. My 



earliest recollection of it is at the table of an old 

 naval officer who had served in the American 

 war. On one occasion an aged military man 

 when he heard it, ejaculated " Breezo, Breezo ! 

 I thought I knew them all — what is he ? " to the 

 great amusement of the party. My impression is, 

 that it is neither Srissot, nor Breeso, nor Brisee, 

 but simply Breeze ho ! a naval signal for a general 

 fill up of the glasses. An Old Hand. 



John Amyatt of Devonshire, admitted of 

 Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1770, was, I 

 doubt not, the young man of good family and 

 connexions mentioned in Beloe's Sexagenarian, 

 i. 54., and alluded to in "IST. & Q." 2'"* S. ix. 301.; 

 X. 34.) C. H. Cooper. 



Cambridge. 



Charles II. (2°'' S. x. 29.)— There is no doubt 

 about this bribe having been offered to the Duchess 

 of Portsmouth, one of the king's mistresses. Par- 

 liament was willing to grant Charles a large sub- 

 sidy (600,000Z.) if he previously signed a bill of 

 exclusion against his brother James. The " Whig" 

 or " Protestant Party," for fear of success in their 

 means of working on the financial necessities of 

 Charles, made use of the Duchess in the way in- 

 dicated. She was ambitious enough to hope that 

 her son (Charles) might be named as successor to 

 the throne, though the party for whom she acted 

 secretly fiivoured the pretensions of another bas- 

 tard, the Duke of Monmouth. See Somers' 

 Tracts, viii. 137.; Temple's Letters, ii. 351.; 

 James' Memoirs, i. 591 — 615. ; Dalrymple's 

 Diary, 264 — 79.; MacPherson, i. 105.; Lingard, 

 ix. 470 — 82. ; Knight, iv. 356-7. James Gilbert. 



SixTiNE Edition of the Bible (P' S. ii. 408.) 

 — On looking over my " N. & Q." I see in the 

 old Series, under the above heading, " How many 

 copies of the Sixtine Edition of the Bible are in 

 existence ? " As I cannot trace any reply through 

 the succeeding volumes of both series, I venture 

 to add that Clericus (D.) will see by reference 

 to the discussion between Pope and Maguire in 

 1827, that Mr. Pope states, on the first day of dis- 

 cussion, " Clement bought up the Sixtine copies, 

 to guard, if possible, his predecessor from the 

 charge of infallibility, so that but two copies, I 

 believe, are extant." And on the fourth day he 

 farther states, " So great is the scarcity of the 

 Sixtine Bible that the Jesuit Fisher not merely 

 denied that any were in existence, but stated 

 that Sixtus V. had not published any edition of 

 the Vulgate whatever." This is not an answer to 

 the Query, but perhaps it may be of some service 

 to Clericus (D.) or others. ■* 



I would now ask, what became of the copy Dr, 

 James met with, " by God's providence, in a 

 stationer's shop " ? I presume it was the one he 

 used in working out his celebrated Bellum Papale. 



George Llotd. 



