38G 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'"is. V. 123., Ma i' 8. '58. 



Chapman s Homer (2"'^ S. v. 330.) — Mr. 

 M'Carthy inquires whether the thin folio of the 

 " BatrachomyomacMa, Hymns, ^^c." is ever found 

 bound up with the earlier folios of the Iliad and 

 Odyssey^ as is the case with the volume in his 

 possession ? Yes. The copy in the Grenville 

 Library has all the portions of the Homer, and 

 the engraved titles to the Iliad, and the Hymns, 

 but not to the Odyssey, My friend, the Rev. Alex- 

 ander Dyce, possesses a very fine copy of all the 

 folios united, with all the engraved titles complete. 

 If it had i\\Q printed title to the Odyssey, it would 

 be the most perfect copy I have yet seen. Mr. 

 Russell Smith has a very good copy of all the 

 folios united, but it wants Pass's engraved title to 

 the Hymns. 



As all these volumes are in modern bindings, I 

 cannot say when they were put together. I con- 

 gratulate Mr. M'Carthy on the possession of his 

 interesting copy. He will, however, I am afraid, 

 find great difficulty in meeting with the detached 

 engraved titles, — that by Pass especially. 



Richard Hooper. 



P.S. I forgot to mention that my friend Mr. 

 Singer has also a fine copy of the united volume, 

 wanting, however, the engraved titles to the Odys- 

 sey and Hymns. 



Ghost Stories (2"'' S. v. 233. 285. 341.) —The 

 brief account of the Wynyard ghost story given 

 by M. E. M., corresponds far more accurately 

 with the family tradition (with which I have the 

 best possible reasons for being acquainted) than 

 that of Oraculum. 



Sir John Sherbrooke, then an untitled subal- 

 tern, has always been stated by the family chro- 

 niclers to have been alone with Mr. (afterwards 

 Col.) George West Wynyard, when the brother of 

 the latter is supposed to have been seen. Another 

 thing also is very certain, viz. that there was no 

 twin in the generation. Cognatus. 



Rev. George Whitejield (2"'^ S. v. 156. 340.) — In 

 reply to the inquiry of G. N., I beg to say that at 

 any rate all the Sermons preached by Whitefield 

 at Glasgow are not included in the volume pub- 

 lished by Baynes, 1825. 



There is a Sermon on 1 Cor. i. 30., which, how- 

 ever, beai's no marks of being a Farewell. There is 

 another on Acts ix. 22., beginning : "It is an un- 

 doubted truth, however paradoxical it may seem," 

 &c. ; and another on 2 Tim. iii. 12., beginning : 

 " When our Lord was pleased to take upon him- 

 self the form of a servant," &c. And these are 

 the only ones of which the texts are the same. 



C. W. Bingham. 



Was John Bunyan a Gipsy ? (2"'' S. iv. 465. 

 V. 15. 318.) — After reading Grellnian's Histoire 

 desBohemiens, Paris, 1810, and the English trans- 

 lation entitled Dissertation on the Gypsies, and 



Poor Hoyland's Customs, Sfc. of the Gypsies, 

 York, 1816, I unfortunately came to a decision 

 which J. S. considers to be strange in an intel- 

 ligent person — a state of mind " stupid in re- 

 gard to this gipsy question," " a person of the 

 least reflection." I have avoided much inter- 

 course with this class, fearing the fate of Mr. 

 Hoyland, who, being a Quaker, was shot by one 

 of Cupid's darts from a blackeyed gipsy girl, and 

 J. S. may do well to be cautious. My conclusion 

 is that the tribes have no more right to nation- 

 ality, race, blood, or language than the London 

 thieves have — with their slang, some words of 

 which may have their origin in the Hebrew, 

 from their dealings with the lowest order of Jews. 

 I shall look for J. S.'s projected work on the 

 gipsies with much interest, and will not refuse 

 any new light he may throw on the history of 

 these lawless people. His assertion that there are 

 gipsy barristers, clergymen, and gentlemen in 

 Scotland, and 250,000 in the British Isles, will 

 require strong proof. George OFfOR. 



Alcove (2"^ S. V. 258.) — • 



" KuBBA. A cupola, vault, dome, arch, turret. A ca- 

 thedral church, tent, tabernacle, parasol." — Richardson's 

 Arabic and Persian Dictionary, last edition, bv Johnson. 



A.B. 



Mortar-carrying, a Punishment for Scolds (2""* 

 S. v. 48.) — Is G. R. L. correct as to the wooden 

 mortar ? Was not the punishment the being 

 paraded through the town preceded by a per- 

 son beating on a hrass basin or mortar to attract 

 attention. This was common we know in the fif- 

 teenth and sixteenth centuries; and from a passage 

 in Ben Jonson's Epiccene, Act III. Sc. 6., it might 

 be inferred the barber got some remuneration for 

 the use of his basin. Perhaps G. R. L. would 

 favour the readers of " N. & Q." with his autho- 

 rities. A. A. 



Largest Parish in Ireland (2"'> S. v. 293.)— The 

 union of Ballinakill, in the diocess of Killala, is 

 probably the parish of which Abhba has heard. It 

 is forty miles long and twenty broad, — exceeding 

 in extent the county of Dublin. If lam not mis- 

 taken, an appeal was lately made by the bishop 

 for aid towards supplying the spiritual wants of 

 this large district. 



The vicarage of Kilcommon, in the same diocess, 

 and county Mayo, extending over 139,989 acres, 

 and measuring thirty miles by sixteen and a half, 

 enjoys an income of about 1501. per annum. The 

 land chiefly bog. John Ribton Garstin. 



Dublin. 



America discovered in the Eleventh Century (2""^ 

 S. V. 314.) — The evidence on which this fact 

 rests has been carefully collected and published 

 by direction of the Society of Northern Anti- 

 quaries at Copenhagen, under the title oi'Antiqiu- 



