Oct. 13, 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



283 



issued by Mr, W. A. Hamilton, of Lamb's Conduit 

 Street, I find the following : 



" Prime Ministers. Short History of Prime Ministers 

 in Great Britain, 8vo. (scarce). 2s. 1733." 



I was not aware that this is a scarce pamphlet. 

 I possess a copy. On the title-page is the follow- 

 ing apposite motto from Juvenal: 



" Nam qui nimios optabat honores, 

 Et nimias poscebat opes, numerosa parabat 

 ExcelsEB turris tabulata, unde altior esset 

 Casus, et impulsse praceps immane ruinae. 

 Quid Crassos, quid Pompeios evertit ? et ilium, 

 Ad sua qui domitos deduxit flagra Quirites ? 

 SuMMUs nempe Locus, nulla non arte petitus." 



By " prime ministers," the writer does not mean 

 what we now understand by the term premier; 

 but those favourites of royalty who have been 

 allowed to usurp to themselves a power beyond 

 the control of constitutional law. He commences 

 his history with " Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl 

 of Kent," prime minister to William the Con- 

 queror, and closes it with the Earl of Strafford. 

 His references, which are numerous, are chiefly to 

 Rennet's History of England ; and the pamphlet 

 thus closes : — 



" I shall conclude this short" abstract of history with 

 the observation of as wise a politician as ever England 

 bred : — ' That there never yet was a prime minister in 

 Britain, but either broke his own neck, or his master's, or 

 both ; unless he saved his own, hy sacrificing his master's.' 

 " As the reader may perhaps be desirous to behold, at 

 one view, the diverse casualties of the sundry prime 

 ministers above mentioned, I have here subjoined a table 

 of them : — 



" Prime Ministers. 

 Died by the halter ----- 3 



Ditto by the axe - - - - - 10 



Ditto by sturdy beggars - - - - 3 



Ditto untimely by private hands - - 2 

 Ditto in imprisonment - . . - 4 

 Ditto in exile ------ 4 



Ditto penitent ------ 1 



Saved by sacrificing their master - - 4 



Sum total of prime ministers - - - 31" 



Who is the "wise politician" whose saying is 

 here quoted ? Who wrote tiie pamphlet ? Has 

 the subject been discussed elsewhere ? if so,,where, 

 and by whom ? H. Maktin. 



Halifax. 



:^tn0r ^aitS. 



" 7?i/e," its Derivation. — Pancirollus says that a 

 kind of ink, which was used by emperors alone, 

 and forbidden to others, was called encaustum ; 

 from which he derives the Italian inckiostro. 

 From the same source we may derive the French 

 encre, and the English ink. B. H. C. 



Treacle is the modern form of " Theriaque " 

 (de Venise), a confection of viper's flesh ; and is 

 No. 311.] 



used in that sense by our old divines, and is very 

 different indeed from molasses. 



Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



" Place's Ware" — Museum of Practical Oeo- 

 logy, "Catalogue of Specimens illustrative of 

 British Pottery and Porcelain," p. 165. Francis 

 Place died in 1728, according to Walpole's Anec- 

 dotes of Paintings, Sfc, in which is a notice of him, 

 vol. v. p. 118., edit. London, 1828. In p. 120. he 

 says, from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, — 



" Mr. Place discovered an earth for, and a method of 

 making porcelain, which he put in practice at the Manor 

 House of York." 



And in a note he adds, — 



" His pottery cost him much money; he attempted it 

 solely from a turn to experiment; but one Clifton of 

 Pontefract took the hint from him, and made a fortune by 

 it. I have a coffee-cup of his ware ; it is of grey earth 

 with streaks of black, and not superior to common 

 earthenware." 



Mrs. Allan Frazer, of Hospital Field, near Ar- 

 broath, Scotland, is a descendant of Francis 

 Place, and possesses many of his papers and 

 drawings, and also a small oil portrait of himself, 

 in which he is represented with one of his brown 

 cups on the table before iiim. Mrs. Frazer has 

 one or two pieces of this ware, and there is an- 

 other in the possession of Mrs. Wyndham at 

 Salisbury, a descendant of Place's son-in-law, 

 Wadham Wyndham ; the latter article is a small 

 brown earthenware jug, made with double sides, 

 the outer case being perforated with ornaments in 

 the form of leaves, &c. Place's drawings, in pen 

 and ink, are many of them interesting, being views 

 in the neighbourhood of London, and in other 

 parts of England ; they are much in the style of 

 Hollar, of whom also there are many drawings in 

 Mrs. Frazer's collection, which had been given by 

 him to his friend Place. I looked through a 

 number of his notes in 1853, when they were 

 obligingly shown to me by Mrs. Frazer, but I 

 could find nothing in them relating to the manu- 

 facture of pottery. W. C. Tbevelyan. 



Wallington. 



Whimsical Will. — The following will in rhyme 

 was written by William Hunnis, a gentleman of 

 the chapel under Edward VI., and afterwards 

 Chapel Master to Queen Elizabeth : 



" To God my soule I do bequeathe, because it is his 

 owen, 

 My body to be laj'd in grave, where to my friends best 



knowen ; 

 Executors I will none make, thereby great stryfe may 



grow, 

 Because the goods that I shall leave wyll not pay all I 

 owe." 



G. B. 



Coffee as a Deodorizer. — Fresh roasted coffee, 

 either in the berry or ground, is a deodorizer. 



