Oct. 23. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



3S9 



England, and wife of Eric Pomeranlus, King of 

 Sweden. Cutts, in his Sepulchral Crosses, doubts 

 whether this memorial, which bears date 1430, is 

 a brass or an incised slab. Can any correspon- 

 dent say which it is ? Kussell, Gole. 



Alioquin. — Will any person kindly state by what 

 ellipse the word alioquin reached the sense of 

 otherwise ? M. A. 



The River Erethenus. — Allow me to copy the 

 following Query I made some time ago. What is 

 the course of the river Erethenus ? What is its 

 modern name ? 

 " Qua fluminc pulcher amceno 

 Erethenus fluit, et plenis lapsurus in aquor 

 j^Cornibus, Euganeis properat se jungere lymphls." 

 Hiero. Fracastorii Syphillis, lib. i. line 440. 



F. W. J. 



Dispensator, — At the Heralds' Visitation of 

 the county of Leicester, held a.d. 1619, an an- 

 cestor of the family of Gregory is described in the 

 pedijiree as Sir Francis Gregorye, Dispensator 

 to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. This 

 ancient office appears to have been a post of high 

 trust and importance in the households of the 

 great princes and nobles of England, and in some 

 respects the duties corresponded to those of the 

 grand almoner in the royal household. Can any 

 readers of the " N. & Q." oblige me with a par- 

 ticular definition of the duties of Dispensator, and 

 whether the appointment conferred rank upon the 

 holder ? Joseph Knight. 



Aylestone. 



Hollars Tree at Hampstead. — Can any reader 

 of " N. & Q." give me even one particular about 

 the great tree at Hampstead, engraved by Hollar, 

 and now, I fear, only commemorated by the very 

 rare print bearing the honoured name of Hollar ? 



Francis Graves. 



[This Query was introduced into an article by Mr. 

 Bruce in our Fifth Volume, p. 9. ; but as it has not 

 yet received an answer, we gladly repeat it. — Ed.] 



The Bell of St. Iltutus. — The bell of St. Iltutus 

 is now fixed in the clock-tower at Llantwit Major, 

 Glamorganshire, and on it is the following inscrip- 

 tion: 



" Ora pro nobis, Sancte Iltute." 



There is an account in Holingshead, and in the 

 Aurea Legenda Capgravii, of this bell ; but neither 

 of them tends to throw much light on the tradition 

 that this bell was the first ever cast in England, 

 and that it was first erected in the ccenobium of 

 St. Iltutus in A.D. 507. Can any of your readers 

 give information on this subject? There is a 

 MS. life of the saint in the Lambeth Library 

 by Johannes Tinmuthensis, which probably may 



throw some light on the point, and to which, very 

 probably, some of your readers may have access. 

 John Nicholl Carne, D.C.L. 



Dr. Wm. Read. — Can any of your correspond- 

 ents give me any information respecting Dr. Wm. 

 Read, a physician who practised at Aberystwith 

 or Pontymoile in the last century ? He was buried 

 in Trevethin Church, Monmouthshire, with the 

 following epitaph to his memory : 



" Here, underneath, in silent slumber lies 

 Read the physician, pious, meek, and wise; 

 In faith, in patience, and in hope he ran 

 His steady race, a friend to God and man." 



w. 



Singing-Bread. — What is the etymology of 

 this word, which we find used in old church ac- 

 counts, e. g. : 



" Paid for howseling brede, syngyng bredc, and 

 wyne, vcf." — Account of Pray Priori/, a.d. 1487, Dug- 

 dale, iii. p. 359. 



The howseling bread was the small bread used for 

 the communion of the people, and the singing- 

 bread was the large bread used by the priest for 

 the mass. The reason commonly given for the 

 name is " because the mass was so often sung." 

 But this seems not to be the real clue to its ety- 

 mology. I imagine the singing alludes to the 

 thinness of the bread, if not to its shape. To this 

 day in Northumberland a girdle cake is called by 

 the common people a singing hinnie. The de- 

 rivation of both terms must be the same. The 

 popular reason given for the name as applied in 

 the case of the girdle-cake, is because it sings on 

 the girdle. Some Anglo-Saxon scholar will pro- 

 bably be able to solve the difficulty, and trace its 

 root to some word meaning thin, if not also round. 



Ceyrep. 



Robert Heron. — This name appears in the title- 

 page of an edition of Junius's Letters published in 

 1802 : a work which, though over-elaborated with 

 notes and dissertations, is not without interest and 

 value ; and become remarkable by the wholesale 

 " appropriations " of Mr. Wade. Who was this 

 Robert Heron ? It is said by Watt and others, 

 that the Letters on Literature published under the 

 name of Robert Heron, were written by Pinkerton ; 

 Heron being his mother's name. And Nichols tells 

 us, that the name of " N. Burnett, M.A.," which is 

 affixed to The Treasury of Wit, is fictitious, the 

 work being also by Pinkerton ; but neither, nor 

 any one else that I know of, refers to this edition 

 of Junius, nor is there anything in Pinkerton's 

 Literary Correspondence, published by Dawson 

 Turner, that throws a light on the subject. Now, 

 with " N. & Q." in existence, do not let us leave a 

 doubt of this character to pvizzle future corre- 

 spondents. The work was printed by W. Justin?, 



