522 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd S. X. Dec. 29. '60. 



extinct Earls of Sussex. This lady was mother 

 of the first Duke of Manchester by her first hus- 

 band, who was grandson of the first Earl by his 

 first wife Catherine, daughter of Sir Wm. Spencer, 

 and the Earl of Halifax was also grandson by his 

 third wife Margaret, daughter of John Crouch, 

 Esq., and widow of John Hare, Esq. 



Henrt W. S. Taylor. 



English Translation of Cicero (2""* S. x. 

 347,)— The work entitled " Cato Major," called by 

 the Querist " a translation of Cicero de Senectute, 

 in verse, printed in 1725," is styled in the title " a 

 Poem upon the model of TuUy's Essay on Old Age ;" 

 and in the Preface a " kind of Paraphrase " of that 

 piece. Its author was, as stated in the title-page, 

 " Samuel Catherall, M.A., Fellow of Oriel Col- 

 lege in Oxford, and Prebendary of Wells." It is a 

 curious performance, thrown somewhat into a dra- 

 matic form, in blank verse ; its matter professedly 

 drawn from other classical sources besides Cicero. 

 In point of execution it seems not destitute of merit, 

 considering the strange and unpoetical nature of 

 the undertaking. In his preface the author refers 

 to a metrical translation of the above piece by Sir 

 John Denham, whom he censures as " falling 

 below the spirit [and no wonder] of the Roman 

 orator, in his English metre." F. K. 



Bath. 



WiDERCoMBS (2"^ S. X. 447.) — Widercome, or 

 Vidrecome, was a name given by the Flemish to 

 the beautiful jugs or tankards (vessels of silver 

 gilt, highly chased, with graceful ornaments in 

 low relief), of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 

 turies, 



" Vidrecomes, habituellement consacr^s h la biehre 

 d' Alsace." ( Gerfaut, a French novel by Bernard, vol. ii. 

 p. 115. Bruxelles, ed. 1838.) 



The name is derived from loieder-hom, " come 

 again," i. e. replenish. R. S. Charnock. 



This word is usually written vidrecome, in 

 modern French, and may be found in the ordinary 

 dictionaries. In old French it was vilcom, and in 

 Italian it is vellicome. It is derived from the 

 German willko)nmen. The origin and meaning of 

 the word are explained in Diez, Romanisches 

 Worterhuch, p. 747., and in " N. & Q." 2"* S. ix. 

 240. L. 



The First Free Settler in ^J^ew South 

 Wales (2"^ S. viii. 294.) — The reference made 

 above to Geo. Barrington's History of New South 

 Wales, induces me to quote from the same curious 

 work an allusion which, at this time of day, may 

 be worthy of recording in your pages : — "In the 

 course of this month," says the ligiit-fingered his- 

 torian, viz. Feb. 1791, just three years after the 

 landing of Governor Phillip, " the first settler, 

 James Ruse, after having been fifteen months on 

 his ground, became desirous of giving up all claim 



on the public stores, as he found he could live on 

 the produce of his farm " (p. 96.). It is after- 

 wards said (p. 107.): "The Governor, in July 

 (1792), pardoned Elizabeth Perry, who came over 

 in 1790; as James Ruse, a settler, had married 

 her, which, with her own prudent conduct, added 

 to her husband's industry, procured this kindness 

 from the Governor." One other reference is made 

 to thh first settler (p. 126.), where it is recorded : 

 " Ruse, the first settler, and one Williams, having 

 imprudently sold their farms and spent the money 

 they produced, gained permission to begin new 

 ones, about twenty-four miles from Paramatta, 

 with some others who were'about settling." Jos. G. 



Blondin Outdone (2""* S. x. 406.) — One, and 

 perhaps not the least surprising, of the feats per- 

 formed by the Turk seen by Evelyn in 1657 

 (query, at Bartholomew Fair ?) was, even at that 

 time, not unprecedented. When Edward VI. 

 passed through London the day before his coro- 

 nation (19th February, 1546-7) a Spaniard de- 

 scended on a rope stretched from the battlements 

 of St. Paul's steeple and fostened to an anchor 

 near the gate of the Deanery ; " lying on the 

 rope with his head forward, casting his arms and 

 legs abroad, running on his breast on the rope 

 from the battlements to the ground, as if it had 

 been an arrow out of a bow," The same exploit 

 was repeated on the entry of Philip and Mary 

 into London^ after their marriage (19 August, 

 1554) at the same place, or, according to one 

 authority, " from the chapter-howse." The per- 

 former on the last occasion soon after wai*ds met 

 with the too common fate of such persons, and 

 paid with his life for his foolish temerity. The 

 Turk had a successor as well as these his prede- 

 cessors, a man having, about 1750, performed a 

 similar feat in] different places in the country, 

 amongst them Hertford, where his " rope was 

 stretched from the top of the tower of All Saints' 

 Church, and brought obliquely to the ground about 

 fourscore yards from the bottom of the tower. See 

 Nichols's London Pageants, 8vo. 1831 ; Chronicle 

 of the Orey Friars of London (Camden Society), 

 4to. 1852 ; and Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, in 

 which latter work many other feats of rope dan- 

 cers' dexterity are mentioned, W. H, Husk. 



Confessions in Verse (2"^ S. x. 108. 155, 

 218. 433.) — The Newry Saddler's patibulary 

 death-chant, tempore Mr, Justice Fielding, who 

 flourished more than a century ago, had probably 

 been the sessional apotheosis of Jack Sheppard 

 and of Jonathan Wild ; or of those yet earlier 

 heroes, Dick (not Archbishop) Turpin, and Claude 

 Duval, 



There were ready rhymers in those days ; 

 keeping In hand a regular supply of natal, nup- 

 tial, and threnodial poetry, fitted, mutatis mu- 

 tandis, for every occasion. Catnachian Calliope ! 



