2°'J S. N" 104, Dec. 26. '57,] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



511 



whilst Frazer had with useless pains been looking 

 for the book for twenty-two years. — Prior's MS. 

 Essay on Opinion, quoted in Mus grave's Adver- 

 saria. J. Y. 



Snipe- shooting : Lord Ellenhorough and Hodg- 

 son, the County Historian. — The following anecdote 

 of Mr. Law (afterwards Lord Ellenborough) and 

 young Hodgson, the future .historian of Northum- 

 berland, may not be of much value to the youngest 

 of our present sportsmen, but will interest those 

 to whom the names of the parties are familiar : — 

 When Hodgson was a boy at Bampton schooli 

 Westmerland (for so he always wrote it), 



" Mr. Law often came, when on the circuit, to Bampton, 

 and once Mr. Bowstead [the schoohnaster] sent him with 

 that gentleman to shoot snipes at Bampton Mires, as the 

 likeliest lad in the school to be of use. It was blowing 

 full from the west, and Mr. Law went with his face full 

 to it, but could not kill a bird. My father [it is Hodg- 

 son's son who relates the anecdote] told him he must not 

 do so, but that he must begin with his back to the wind. 

 He could not at first see the reason, but gave the gun to 

 my father, who, when a snipe rose, waited till it turned 

 to the wind, and then shot it. The fact is, that from the 

 nature of its feathers, the bird cannot fly with the wind, 

 but turns to face it, ceasing for a while from its zig-zag 

 motion ; and that is the time to shoot it. . . . The 

 future Lord Chief Justice was so pleased wjth the boy and 

 his intelligence, that he invited him to join him a few 

 days afterwards at Appleby during the Assizes; and, 

 upon his appearing, placed him upon the bench near the 

 judge." — Memoir of the Rev. John Hodgson, by the Rev. 

 James Maine, vol. i. p. 7. 



Y. B. N. J. 



General PFoZ/e. — Thomas Wilkins, M. D., Gal- 

 way, died, aged one hundred and two years, in 

 Feb., 1814. Gen, Wolfe died in his arms. (Jn?j. 

 Meg. Ivi. 141.) 



At Hackney, in 1807, died James Lack, who 

 reached the same advanced age. He served in the 

 German Wars of Geo. I. and II., and attended 

 Wolfe in his last moments. (lb. xlix. 601.) 



Mackenzie Walcott, M, A, 



English Surnames derived from the Romans. — 

 In the last Quarterly Review there is a very inter- 

 esting article upon the ancient and present state 

 of the county of Cornwall ; wherein, speaking of 

 certain descents in that county, the probability of 

 a family name having proceeded originally from 

 a Iloman, is thus alluded to : " The Vivians of 

 Truro are derived by certain genealogists from one 

 Vivianus Annius, a Roman general, and son-in- 

 law to Domitius Corbulo." This reminds me that 

 some years ago, being in the neighbourhood of 

 Stow-on-the-Wold, I was told of a most respect- 

 able farmer whose family name was Wilifer, and 

 who resided close to what is now the Addlestrop 

 Station of the Oxford and Wolverhampton Hall- 

 way, and whose name was supposed to be deduced 

 from the Latin " Aquilifer;" and certainly, as far 

 as the trifling alteration is concerned, it is not 

 rendered altogether improbable. Perhaps some 



reader of " N. & Q." may somewhat elucidate this 

 subject. Delta. 



caucrteji. 



HERALDIC QUERIES. 



1 . Suppose the case of a person whose family has 

 never borne arms being anxious to assume them, 

 what reason is there (I am aware there is no law) 

 why he should not take any he pleases without 

 application to the Heralds' College, so long as the 

 coat that he assumes is constructed according to 

 the rules of the science of heraldry, and is not 

 borne by any other family ? It is clear that arms 

 were assumed in this manner in the first instance, 

 and that the practice was not discontinued at that 

 period when heralds' visitations were taken. Many 

 families occur to me which, I could prove, bore 

 coat armour in the reign of the two earlier Stuarts, 

 whose names are in no visitation book. 



2. It is stated frequently by persons learned in 

 heraldic science, and in many modei-n treatises, 

 that a husband cannot quarter his wife's arms if 

 she be not an heiress. Is this so ? I think not. 



3. Suppose the case of a person who has no 

 arms, but whose mother, grandmother, or any 

 more remote female ancestress had a right to bear 

 them, can he assume such arms as his own? If 

 not, as he has no coat of his own, must he quarter 

 leaving the dexter blank ? 



4. Supposing the case of a family having emi- 

 grated to America, the sole remaining representa- 

 tive of it, in England, being a lady who is not an 

 heiress, can her husband quarter her arms as 

 though she were an heiress, if indeed it be the 

 rule that none but heiresses bear arras ? 



Glis p. Templ. 



Minat ^xttvitS. 



Ancient Signet-Ring. — l have been told that 

 within the last few years a sexton, in digging a 

 grave in or near the city of Ripon, discovered an 

 ancient signet-ring, on which was engraved a 

 dormouse coiled up in sleep, and inscribed around 

 it, in black-letter characters, " Wake me no man." 

 About the same time it is said that a ring with a 

 similar device and inscription was turned up in a 

 churchyard near Scarborough, Is it possible that 

 these rings have been purposely buried with the 

 dead ? We know that the early Christians looked 

 on the " somniculosi glires " as emblems of the 

 resurrection ; and it has been suggested that in 

 the middle ages it was sometimes the practice to 

 put on the finger after death, and to bury with 

 the corpse, a signet bearing the hope of the rising 

 from the dead thus symbolised. Is there any 

 proof of the discovery of any of these rings ? and 

 if so, is there any evidence that they were used 

 for such a purpose ? Glis P. Templ. 



