2nd s. No 91., Sept. 26. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



249 



like most country churches, and the inscription is 

 in Gothic characters, in black paint. 



"Hie est ille dies renovante celebrlor anno . . . . . 

 Quern facit et proprlo signat amore Deus. . . .* Chris- 

 toferus Philipson, Junior, Generosus, 1629." 



Perhaps some of your readers can give a more 

 satisfactory account of what struck me as being a 

 sincrular inscription for the walls of a church than 

 I have been able to obtain from any of the parties 

 to whom I have spoken concerning it here. 



JULFATCH. 



Bownese, Windermere. 



W. S. Landors Ode.— Can any of your classical 

 readers inform me what incident W. S. Landor 

 refers to in the last two lines of the second stanza 

 in the following ode, which was written "on 

 hearing that the last shell fired at Inkermann had 

 blown to pieces the horse of Major Paynter, com- 

 manding the artillery" ? — 



" Perfusa quanto sanguine Ilyems tepet 

 Britannico de fonte ! Virilium 

 Semper fuisti victimarum 

 Prodiga, Taurica Chersonese. 



" Quis vulneratum deferet auribus 

 Nuper relictEe celsi animi virum? 

 Pallebit ut conjux sub H»mo 

 Vipereo moritura morsu." 



W. II. 

 HuU. 



^' The Nine Gods" — 



" Lars Porsena of Clusium, 



By the Nine Gods he swore : 



" By the Nine Gods he swore it." 



Macaulay's Ballads. 



Will some one of your classical correspondents 

 tell me who and what they were? I presume 

 they were peculiar to Etruria, but have not been 

 able to obtain any distinct information respecting 

 them. S. S. S. 



Stvartz, the Missionary. — A greajt favour will 

 be conferred by pointing out to me the volume 

 and page in Lord Wellesley's Dispatches or Cor- 

 respondence, in which he bears^a high testimony in 

 favour of Swartz, as a most useful and effective 

 mediator with the native princes in cases of ex- 

 treme difficulty. Clericus (D.) 



St. Peter as a Trojan Hero. — Gibbon, in a 

 note on his Decline and Fall, chap, xv,, says : 



"According to Father Hardouin, the monks of the 

 thirteenth century, who composed the ^neid, repre- 

 sented St. Peter under the allegorical character of the 

 Trojan hero." 



To what composition does this allude ? I 

 quote from the edition of 1788. T. D. 



[* The passage omitted does not seem to hav0 been ac- 

 curately transcribed. — Ed.] 



Epigram by Sir Walter Scott. — On turning 

 over the Catalogue of Sir Walter Scott's Liht-ary 

 at Abbotsford, edited by Cochrane, and published 

 by the Abbotsford Club, I noticed the following : 



" Room, Charles. — Herculaneum and other Poems ; 

 with MS. Epigram by Sir Walter Scott." 



Can any of your readers furnish a copy of this 

 epigram, with any particulars respecting this work 

 and its author. An Old Subscbibek. 



Sienhoh, a Chinese Bird. — In the recently pub- 

 lished Life in China, by the Rev. W. C. Milne, I 

 find the following extraordinary statement. It 

 refers to a mode of self-desti-uction, in vogue with 

 the aristocracy of China ; which, if not to be re- 

 jected as fabulous, deserves to be recorded for its 

 ingenuity : — 



" There is a bird called the Sienhoh, on the crown of 

 whose head there is a beautiful scarlet tuft of down, or 

 velvet skin, to which, the natives believe, the poison of 

 the serpent it is fond of eating determines. This downy 

 crest is often formed into a bead, and that bead is con- 

 cealed in the ornamental necklaces of the high officers 

 for a suicidal purpose, in case of imperial displeasure, 

 which (as report goes) is easilj' effected by merely touch- 

 ing the venomous bead with the tip of the tongue, when 

 death follows instantly." 



Can any reader establish, by argument or evi- 

 dence, the truth or falsity of this assertion ? How- 

 ever disposed we may be to assign it to the class 

 of vulgar errors, it ought not, without inquiry, to 

 be pronounced ridiculous and impossible. 



J. H. G. 



Sandlins. — From a local newspaper of a few 

 weeks old I cut out the following paragraph : 



" The ' Sandlins.' — For some nights during the week 

 our juveniles have enjoyed excellent sport on the land- 

 side of the Annat Bank catching sandeels. On Wednes- 

 day there was more than the usual turn out of old and 

 young, armed with every kind of instrument that could 

 be applied to turn over the sand ; and hearty was the 

 laughter, but rude the imprecations, as the slippery and 

 lively denizens of the deep eluded the grasp, and slipped 

 through the sand with the rapidity of lightning. The 

 beds were actually swarming with fish, and many a 

 basket and pitcher was so well filled that the captors had 

 difficulty in carrying their prey home." 



Would you, if in your way, inform me if the 

 sandlins, or rather sandeels, for I am inclined to 

 suppose that sandlins is a corruption, is that de- 

 scription of little fish so well known and so much 

 valued in the metropolis under the name of white- 

 bait, and jocularly supposed by a writer of the 

 day to have no inconsiderable influence over the 

 ministerial policy for the time being, in conse- 

 quence, as it is observed, of Ministers partaking 

 largely of the dish at the prorogation of Parlia- 

 ment." True it is, and of verity, it is universally 

 admitted that food for the body physical ex- 

 ercises a certain power over the mind, and who is 

 there so bold as to contend that our future rela- 

 tions with foreign powers, and the course adopted 



