Sept. 25. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



303 



I should be glad if Lord Braybeooke will 



kindly infonu your readers where Sir Joshua got 

 it, as the miniature is in every respect interesting. 



Francis Graves. 

 6. Pall Mall, Sept. 14. 1852. 



Proverbs (Vol.vi., p. 169.).— The first of the 

 long string of proverbs cited from the collection 

 of Thomas Fuller, M.D., is 



" A Burston horse and a Cambridge Master of Arts 

 will give the way to nobody." 



On turning to the Histoi'y of the Worthies of 

 England, by Thomas Fuller, D.D., I find, under 

 " Cambridgeshire," this proverb : 



" A Boiesten horse and a Cambridge Master of Art, 

 are a couple of creatures that will give way to nobody." 



" This proverb," says Thomas Fuller, D.D., "we 

 find in the letter of William Zoon, written to 

 George Bruin, in his Theatre of Cities. The 

 passage in Zoon's [or Soone's] letter to Bruin is 

 (being translated) as follows : 



" When they walk the streets they take the wall, not 

 only of the inhabitants, but even of strangers, unless 

 persons of rank. Hence the proverb that a Royston 

 horse and a Cambridge Master of Arts are a couple of 

 creatures that will give way to nobody. (Royston is 

 a village that supplies London with malt, which is 

 carried up on horseback.)" 



The probability is that Fuller, D.D., correctly 

 gave the proverb, but that his printer by mistake 

 substituted " B " for " R." Fuller, M.D., could 

 make nothing of "Boiesten," and so he changed 

 the word into " Burston," which is equally unin- 

 telligible, unless it could be referred to Burston in 

 Norfolk. 



Give me leave here to allude to another obsolete 

 Cambridge proverb, which I find thus mentioned 

 in an " Account of the Guildhall at Diss ; together 

 with a few cursory Remarks on the Town," com- 

 municated by Mr. Samuel Wilton Rix to the 

 Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society : 



" The town is somewhat removed from the beaten 

 track of intercourse between the chief towns of East 

 Anglia, and was formerly so little frequented by tra- 

 vellers, that it became a proverb at Cambridge, to 

 express indifference respecting trivial matters, ' He 

 knows nothing about Diss.' " — Norfolk Archmological 

 Papers, ii. 18. 



I venture to suggest that this proverb had no 

 reference whatever to the town of Diss, but related 

 to the " disses in the philosophy schools," or " the 

 Masters of Arts' disses," mentioned in a decree of 

 tlie Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Colleges, dated 

 31st January, 1630. Diss was merely an abbre- 

 viation for Disputation. (See Dr. Peacock's Ob' 

 servations on the Cambridge University Statutes, 

 Appendix, p. iv, n. 1 .) C. H. Cooper. 



Cambridge. 



Female Fecundity (Vol. v., p. 126.). — The two 

 following instances seem worthy of record. 1 . In 

 a note to Greenhill's Art of Embalming, 1705 : 



" Mrs. Greenhill, mother of the author, had thirty- 

 nine children by one husband, all born alive and bap- 

 tized, and all single births except one. Tlie author, 

 who was born after his father's death, was a surgeon in 

 King Street, Bloomsbury. Tliere was an addition 

 made to the arms of the family to commemorate this 

 extraordinary case." 



In Burke's Armory : 



" Greenhill, London, granted 1598. Crest, a demi- 

 griffin, gules powdered with thirty-nine mullets in 

 commemoration of his being the thirty-ninth child of 

 one father and mother." 



Their coat is very plain, viz. Vert two bars er- 

 mine, in chief a leopard passant, or; and would 

 have well borne the addition. But what an enor- 

 mous demi-griffin must be painted to make room 

 for powdering him with thirty-nine mullets? 

 This seems past all bearing ! 



2. From Dart's Canterbury, p. 66. (Epitaph) : 



" Here lieth the body of Catherine Drake, the wife of 

 Nicholas Drake, Esquire ; she had by her former hus- 

 band, William Kingsley, five sons and one daughter, 

 descended of the worshipful family of the Tothills in 

 Devonshire, and was the youngest of three and thirty 

 children by William Tothill, and survived them all. 

 She died at the age of seventy-four, 18 June, 1622." 



E.D. 



Dr. Euseby Cleaver (Vol. ii., pp. 297. 450.). — 

 R. S. denies that Dr. Euseby Cleaver was ever 

 Bishop of Cork and Ross ; and as he states not 

 only that he knew the bishop, but that his mother 

 was the bishop's first cousin, you would be led to 

 trust to his assertion. But what are the facts ? 

 Dr. Euseby Cleaver was consecrated Bishop of 

 Cork, in March, 1789 ; he became Bishop of Ferns 

 in June of the same year, and was translated to 

 Dublin in 1809. F. B— w. 



Armorials (Vol. ii., p. 247.). — E. D. B. desires 

 to be informed of the name of the family to whom 

 these arms belonged, viz. : Sable a fess or, in 

 chief two fleurs-de-lis, in base a hind coiirant argent. 

 There can be no doubt that these arms belonged 

 to Barow himself, as the Barrows of Kent have 

 for centuries borne a coat very similar, viz. : Sable 

 a fess ermine, in chief two fleurs-de-lis, in base 

 a hind trippant or. (See Edmonson's Heraldry.^ 



F. B— w. 



Foundation Stones (Vol. v., p. 585. ; Vol. vi., 

 pp. 20. 157.). — The following extract may per- 

 haps interest your correspondent : 



" On the 18th of May, ISOI, Mr. William Ham- 

 mond, Chairman of the Committee of Management, 

 laid the first stone of the first building erected exclu- 



