^nd s. X. Dec. 8. '60. J 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



457 



during which time they have exercised English 

 hospitality in the spirit of the motto. (See Col- 

 lins's History of Somerset.) R. C. 



If my memory does not deceive me the couplet 

 •will be found on the doorway of Montacute House, 

 Somerset. C. J. Robinson. 



Pencil Wbiting (2"'^ S. x. 57. 255. 318.) — It 

 probably was lead. It should be remembered 

 that the lead pencil, a mere bit of lead, pointed, 

 was in use for a long period, and may have pre- 

 ceded the Hack lead, or plumbago. Perhaps the 

 very name of black lead, as applied to plumbago, 

 may have commenced when the plumbago began 

 to take the place of lead. It will easily be seen 

 that the mark of common lead, which is faint and 

 transitory, would not do for the surveyor or 

 draughtsman : hence the coal or heeler. About 

 fifty years ago, or something less, the writing 

 masters in the country used lead to rule lines with 

 for their pupils ; ruled copy books being then lux- 

 uries. They called these pencils plummets, and 

 the first scribbling machine I ever possessed was of 

 this kind, and under this name. Some years ago, 

 they sold in the shops leaden combs, the use of 

 •which was supposed to darken the hair. I cut one 

 in two, and made a couple of line rulers, one for 

 close, the other for wide lines. I could thus 

 rule a dozen lines at once, tolerably well, and 

 even without a ruler to guide the ends by draw- 

 ing the paper under the comb. A. Db Morgan. 



Clever (2"'^ S. x. 67. 138.) — Peter Pindar 

 uses this word precisely as it is, and always has 

 been, used in the United States. Speaking of 

 Charles II. he says : — 

 " And yet lie was a devilish clever fellow 



Who loved his friend and mistress and got mellow." 



Uneda. 



Philadelphia. 



Sawney Bean (2"'> S. x. 386.) ~ Tour corre- 

 spondent will find a detailed account of this 

 murderer and cannibal in Johnson's Lives of 

 Highwaymen, Robbers, and Pyrates, published 

 about the beginning of the last century, folio. I 

 <;annot now refer to the book, but I remember 

 there is an engraving of him, carrying a human 

 leg, in the work referred to. R. P. 



Ebenezer Picken (2"« S. x. 392.)— Mr. Picken 

 •was born in Wellmeadow Street, Paisley, in the 

 Barony of RenfreAv or Renfrewshire in 1769, and 

 his father was a silk-weaver. Old Picken joined 

 the small sect of religionists called the Smytanites, 

 from Mr. Smytane, minister at Kilmaurs, their 

 leader, or the Lifters, from the peculiarity of lift- 

 ing the bread at the sacrament. Ebenezer Picken 

 entered Glasgow University in 1785, at sixteen 

 years of age, and went through a curriculum of 

 six sessions. In 1788 he published an edition of 

 poems, a thin octavo volume. Another enlarged 



edition of his Poems was published at Edinburgh 

 in 1813 In two volumes, small octavo. In 1791 

 Picken became a teacher of ^a school at Falkirk, 

 and on 14th April of that year he delivered a 

 speech in blank verse in the Pantheon of Edin- 

 burgh, on the comparative merits of Allan Ram- 

 say and Robert Ferguson, when he espoused the 

 cause of the former. Sannie Wilson, a Paisley 

 weaver, and also a poet, an old companion and 

 townsman of Picken, was one of the friendly 

 rivals at the Pantheon debate, and he delivered 

 an oration in verse of extraordinary merit, called 

 " the Laurel disputed, or the Merits of Allan Ram- 

 say and Robert Ferguson contrasted." Wilson was 

 born In Paisley on 6th July, 1766. On 22nd May, 

 1792, he wrote a satire on a respectable manufac-- 

 turer, and criminal proceedings were instituted 

 against him, when he was fined, and to be Impri- 

 soned till the fine was paid. During his imprison- 

 ment the celebrated poem of " Watty and Meg" 

 was written. On his liberation he emigrated to 

 America in 1794, and became known as Alexan- 

 der Wilson, author of American Ornithology. He 

 died at Philadelphia on 23rd August, 1813, aged 

 forty-seven. Mr. Picken married in 1791 the 

 daughter of the burgher minister of Falkirk, and 

 was appointed at the end of that year teacher of 

 an endowed school at Carron, in which he con- 

 tinued till 1796, when he commenced commercial 

 pursuits, but he was unsuccessful in business. 

 He was acquainted with several languages, and 

 wrote a dictionary of the Scottish language, which 

 was published after his death. The indefatigable 

 linguist Dr. Jamieson in his Scottish Dictionary, 

 In quoting from Picken's Dictionary, committed a 

 mistake in making Picken belong to Ayrshire, in- 

 stead of the Barony of Renfrew or Renfrewshire. 



S. B. B. 

 Wit (2"<i S. x. 208. 276.) — I have no objec- 

 tion whatever to make to the opinion which your 

 correspondent Antipigtail entertains with re- 

 spect to the late Dr. Archer's wit ; neither his 

 opinion nor mine on such a subject is worth dis- 

 puting about- But a question with respect to the 

 costume or the fashions of by-gone times is just 

 one of those questions for the settling of which 

 " N. & Q." affords peculiar facilities ; and, as Anti- 

 pigtail has met my statement as to the fashion of 

 wearing the hair at the beginning of the present cen- 

 tury with aflat contradiction, I beg to reassertwhati 

 before said, in thehopethat some oneof your readers 

 who was old enough to observe fashions at that 

 period, which Antipigtail was not, may be induced 

 to settle the question. I said, on the authoritjr of 

 contemporary paintings, engravings, and carica- 

 tures, that at the beginning of the present century 

 the hair was universally (I ought perhaps to have 

 said. generally) worn so long as to roach to the 

 shoulders. By men it was put into a bag or ga- 

 thered, and tied in a queue ; in the case of youths, 



