2'"> S. V. 123., Mat 8. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



377 



ipaX/xhs lSi6ypa<po9 tls AavlB Koi e^wOeu rov ApiOfiov, (ire 

 (fiovofj.dxn(re t^ ToXia8. From this it seems to have 

 been adopted by the Greek church, for I find it 

 in a beautiful little psalter I have, printed " Ve- 

 netiis par Melchiorem Sessa, &c. a.d. 1525." 

 The title there is, ouros 6 y\iaKfibs iSeoypcdpog rod 

 Ado' icrri, Kal t^wdev rov apW/MOV rwv eKarov irfUT7]Koyia 

 \pa\ixoi>v, Ste (vav^axv<^^ Trphs rhu ToXiaO. 



Why was not this psalm received as genuine, or 

 at any rate printed with the Apocrypha ? J. C. J. 



Heralds of Scotland. — Information is desired 

 respecting the College of Scottish Heralds. Sims 

 gives full particulars of those of London and 

 Dublin, but I can find in his book no instructions 

 for availing one's self of that at Edinburgh. The 

 " Lord Lyon King at Arms Office," I believe it to 

 be termed". A. Koy. 



Fort George, ^c. — I shall feel exceedingly 

 obliged to any of your very numerous correspon- 

 dents who will kindly aflTord me the following 

 information, viz. — 



L A list of the successive governors of Fort 

 George, with dates of appointment, &c., and any 

 other notice connected with their government, &c. 

 I mean the old citadel of Inverness, destroyed 

 after the '45, and the name of which was trans- 

 ferred to the existing fortress. 



2. The name of the engineer who planned and 

 built Fort Augustus ; a list of its governors, &c. 



3. A list of the individuals composing the gar- 

 rison of Athol House when besieged by the royal 

 forces, as well as of the non-combatants, particu- 

 larly children, if perchance any there were. 



A. C. M. 

 Baselica Equestris. — An inscription found at 

 Netherby in Cumberland, and given by Lysons, 

 p. 84., contains the above very curious expression. 

 It records the erection of what is clearly a riding- 

 house for exercising cavalry, and runs thus — " to 

 the Emperor Caes. Marcus Aurelius Severus Alex- 

 ander, &c., the cohort of the first Spanish Le- 

 gion, consisting of a thousand horsemen (M. Eq.), 

 devoted to his deity and majesty have now built 

 and finished (baselicam equestrem exercitato- 

 riam) a riding-house, begun from the ground, 

 under the care of Marius Valerian us," &c. The 

 word " basilica" is well known as applied to royal 

 palaces (the house of the king, as its Greek deri- 

 vation clearly shows), to the Roman courts of 

 justice, and also to the churches of the early 

 Christians, who having worshipped in these build- 

 ings in times of persecution, afterwards adopted 

 their forms as models of church-building, and 

 founded the most material part of their symbolism 

 thereon. Can any readers of " N. & Q." inform 

 me, first, whether they know of any instances 

 where the word has been applied to any other 

 than one of these three significations, the royal 

 edifice, the law court, or the church ? and, second, 



whether they have ever seen it spelt " baselicam," 

 i. e. with the e instead of the i ? A. A. 



Welsh Surnames, — Although the great ma- 

 jority of Welsh family names are patronymical, 

 like Jones, Williams, Evans, Davies, &c., yet 

 there are some which were originally personal 

 epithets or sobriquets. I wish some patriotic 

 Welsh etymologist would devote half a page of 

 " N. & Q." to the explanation of the latter, 



M. A. LowEE. 



The Culdees. — When and where is the last 

 mention made of these early religionists ? T. 



The Marchmont Peerage. — From which branch 

 of the Marchmont family was the late James 

 Deacon Hume, Esq., descended, and when did 

 the Marchmont peerage become extinct ? Any 

 farther particulars relating to that family will 

 oblige. A. M. W. 



Delphic Sword. — What can be the meaning 

 of this expression ? It occurs in Dryden's cele- 

 brated Hind and Panther, part iii. line 191. A. A. 



Minor ^utxiti tot'tfi Snitoerxf. 



Memoirs of Dr. Samuel Johnson. — • Who was 

 the author of Memoirs of the Life and Writings 

 of Dr. Johnson, Walker, London, 1785 ? This 

 work contains anecdotes and remarks not to 

 be found elsewhere. Elphinston, who, if I recol- 

 lect right, published an early and excellent edition 

 of the Rambler at Edinburgh, and furnished the 

 English portion of the mottos to those admirable 

 essays when they were collected into volumes, was 

 of material service in the compilation of these 

 Memoirs, but not the author. I have not seen 

 them noticed elsewhere, not even by Croker. 



E. Attwood. 



Hoxton Square. 



[This work was unknown to Watt, Lowndes, and He- 

 ber, and is not to be found in the Catalogues of the 

 British Museum, Bodleian, or Grenville Libraries. As 

 our correspondent has kindh' favoured us with a sight of 

 this literary curiosity, which had not been seen by Mr. 

 Croker when he published his " first edition " (see p. 4. 

 edits. 1847, 1853), we may be permitted to offer a conjecture 

 respecting its authorship. We seem to get a clue to the 

 writer from the concluding paragraph of the Preface, 

 which states, that " the facts relating to the Ossian Con- 

 troversy are anonymous, unless the authenticity of any of 

 them should be challenged ; in that case the author will 

 avow them, as the means of defence are fully in his 

 power." This seems unmistakeably to point to the Rev. 

 William Shaw, the author of An Enquiry into the Au- 

 thenticity of the Poems ascribed to Ossian, 8vo. 1782, who, 

 in conjunction with Dr. Johnson, was engaged at this 

 time in a keen controversy with Macpherson respecting 

 this vexata questio. Boswell tells us, that " Johnson took 

 Mr. Shaw under his protection, and gave him his assist- 

 ance in writing a Reply to Clark, who had attacked Mr. 

 Shaw's work with much zeal and much abuse." In these 

 Memoirs of Dr, Johnson, we find a more minute and am- 



