•2*"* S. N" 32;i AtG. 9. '56.] 



NOT'fiS And QUERlfi^. 



lif 



Walpole and WhitUrigtm (2"* S. ii. S8.)_— Nd 

 account of the (JiscussiOn respectint» IVhittingtoH 

 and his Cait is given in tlie ArchcBologia ; but we 

 have the following fibtice of it ih a letter ff-Ora 

 Richard Goiigh to Michael Tyson, dated Dec. 27, 

 1771, preserved in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, 

 vol. viii. p. 575. : 



" Mr. Pe^ge gave, us next tjie History of Whittington, 

 but could maltfe nothing at all of his cat, though she is 

 his constant compaiiidh ill all statues and pictured! : and 

 I firmly belifeve, if not a rebus for some ship which mad6 

 his fortune, she was the companion of his arm-chair^ like 

 Montaigne's." 



Cole, in his unpublished letters to Walpole, 

 designates the members of the Society of Anti- 

 quaries " Whittinjitonian Antiquaries." Foote, 

 in his comedy of The Nabob, makes Sir Matthew 

 Mite, with much humour, thus address the Society 

 of Antiquaries : 



" The point I mean to clear up, is an error crept into 

 the life of that illustrious magistrate, the great Whit- 

 tington, and his no less gmirierit cat : and in this disqui- 

 sition four material points are in question : — 1^. Did 

 Whittington ever exist? 2nd. Was Whittington Lord 

 Mayor of London ? 3d. Was he really possessed of a Cat ? 

 4th. Was that Cat the source of his wealth? That Whit- 

 iington lived, no doubt can be made ; that he vfas Lord 

 Mayor of London, is equally true ; but as to his Cat, that, 

 gentlemen, is the Gordian knot to utitie. Aitd hcrei, gen- 

 tlemen, be it permitted me to define what a Cat is. A 

 Cat is a domestic, whiskered, four-footed animal, whose 

 emplo3'merit is catching of mice ; but let puss have been 

 ever so subtle, let puss have been ever so successful, to 

 what could puss's captures amount ? No tanner , can 

 curry the skin of a mouse, no family make a meal of the 

 meat ; consequently, no Cat could give Whittington his 

 wealth. From whehce then doCs this ertOr proceed ? lie 

 that my catfe to point odt. The comttietfce this Tfrorthy 

 merchant carried on was fchiefiy confined to our coasts : 

 for this purpose he constructed a vessel, which, for its 

 agility and lightness, he aptly christened a Cat. Nay, to 

 this our day, gentleimen, all our c^als from Newcastle are 

 imported in nothing but Cats. From thence it appears, 

 that it was not the whiskered, four-footed, mouse-killing 

 Cat, that was the source of the magistrate's wealth ; but 

 the coasting, sailing, coal'carrying Cat: that, gentlenieii, 

 was Whittington's Cat." 



J. Y. 



, Germination of Seeds (2°'^ S. ii. lO. 58.) — 

 £. M. notices the above in those seeds long buried; 

 Perhaps the following may interest him and other 

 botanical readers : — 



Some years agOj a portion of the park at 

 Hampton Court was ploughed up; and to the 

 surprise of every one a quantity of flowers made 

 their appearance. An account of tliis Wfent the 

 "round of the papers" sOme years back, I forget 

 the date : upon inquiry being instituted, it was 

 found that that identical spot bad been the flower- 

 garden in King Charles I.'s time. 



One of the most temarkable caseS of the titalltj^, 

 and therefore the germination of ttie seeds, oc- 

 curred to Mr. Martin F. Tupper, the well-kilbWn 

 author ; a friend of his gave him ttvelv6 grains of 



tvh^ai; taken out of a vase in a mummy pit at 

 Thebes. Mr. Tupper planted these in garden- 

 pots ; and fouP of the seeds grew, and brought 

 forth fruit. A mOst interesting account of this 

 wonder tvas published in The Gardeiiers' Chronicle, 

 Saturday, ifTovSmber 11, 1843; together with a 

 woodcut of the ear of wheat produced from one 

 of these grains. One of my intimate friends saw 

 these four plants growings and there can be nd 

 doubt of their genuine authenticity. Centceiok. 

 Athenaeum. 



Under the head of " Spontaneous Plants," I 

 have the following note from a paper of the 

 date : — 



" On boring for water lately [June 1832], at Kingstori- 

 upon-Thames, some earth was brought up from a depth 

 of 360 feet ; this earth was carefully covered over with a 

 hand-glass, to prevent the possibility of any other seed 

 being deposited on it : yet, in a short time, plants vegetated 

 from it. If quick-lime be put upon l^nd which frorii 

 time immemorial has produced nothing but hfeather, the 

 heather will be killed^ and white clover spring up in its 

 place." 



Is this latter asset-tiori a fact ? . 

 The following on the same subject is given in 

 the Magazine of Science, 1839 : — 



" After the great fire of London, 1666, the entire sur- 

 face of the destroyed city was covered with such a vast, 

 profusion of a cruciferous plant, the Sisymbrium irio of 

 LinuEfeus, that it was calculated that the whole of the 

 rest of Europe could hot contain so many plants of it. It 

 is also known, that if a spring of salt water makes its 

 appearance in a spot, even at a great distance from the 

 sea, the neighbourhood is soott cpvered with plants pecu- 

 liar to a maritiine locality, which plants have previously 

 been qiiite strangers to the country. -u ■ 



" In a Work iipon the Useful Mosses, by M. de Brebis- 

 soh, this botanist states that a pond, in the neighbour- 

 hood 6f Faiairi, having been rendered dry during many 

 weeks in the height of siimmer, the mud, ih drying; was 

 immediately covered, to the extent of many square yards, 

 by a minute, compact green leaf, formed by ati almost 

 imperceptible moss (the Phaseum axillare), the stalks of 

 which were so close to each other, that upon a square 

 inch of this new soil might be counted more than five 

 thousand individuals of this minute plant, which had 

 never previously been observed in the country." 



As slightly connected with this subject, may I 

 ask if there is any foundation for the followingy 

 quoted from St. Pierre, by Sir R. f hillips ? 



" Barley, in rainy years, degenerates into oats ; and 

 oats, in, dry seasoiis, changes into barley. These facts, 

 related by Pliny, Galen, and Mathiola, have been con- 

 firiKed by the experiments of naturalists. ' 



R. W. Hackwooi). 



Coffhr (2"^ S. ii. 69.)— In the Glossary of Air ^ 

 chitectutei vol. i., I find the ftlllbwing explanation 

 of this word : " Coffer, a deep panel in a ceiling ; 

 the same as si caisson" Cbisson was a term 

 adopted from the Ft-ehch for the Sraiall panels of 

 flat and drched ceilirigS. F. M. MibDi-BTOW. 



Ellastone, Staffordshire. ' 



