506 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d s. V. 129., June 19. '58. 



where he will find "how to write a letter secretlie 

 that cannot easilie be discovered, or suspected." 

 There is an interesting article on Cipher in the 

 last completed volume of The Leisure Hour. 



Of books on Cryptography, I have only Fal- 

 coner's Cryptomenysis Patefada, 1685, and Wil- 

 kins's Mercury, 1694. C. Mansfield Inglebt. 



Colonel John Howard Payne, Author of " Home 

 Sweet Home'''' (2"^ S. iv. 10.) — I have been re- 

 cently informed by Colonel Chandler, the present 

 United States Consul- General at Tunis, that the 

 place of Mr. Payne's birth, as stated in the Me- 

 moirs, to which reference has been made in "N. 

 & Q." of July, 1857, is incorrect; he having been 

 born in the town of East Hampstead, Long Is- 

 land, and in the State of New York, on June 8, 

 1792. 



Colonel Chandler has also kindly informed me 

 that the following appropriate and beautiful lines, 

 from the pen of R. S. Chilton, Esq., have been 

 added to the inscription, which has already ap- 

 peared in " N. & Q." : — 



" Sure when his gentle spirit fled 



To realms beyond the azure dome, 

 With outstretched arms God's angels said, 

 Welcome to Heaven, ' Home Sweet Home.' " 



An able writer is now engaged in writing a life 

 of Howard Payne, and from the many original 

 manuscripts of this well-known poet, tragedian, 

 and writer, which he holds in his possession, an 

 interesting work may be shortly expected. 



William Winthrop. 



Malta. 



Mother Carey's Chickens (2"^ S. v. 317.) — 

 Knapp, in Knowledge for the People, gives the fol- 

 lowing reason why the petrels were thought to 

 predict a storm : — 



" Because they seem to repose in a common breeze ; 

 but upon the approach or during the continuation of a 

 gale they surround a ship, and catch up the small animals 

 which the agitated ocean brings near the surface, or any 

 food that may be dropped from the vessel. Whisking 

 liiie an arrow through the deep valleys of the abyss, and 

 darting awa}^ over the foaming crest of some mountain 

 wave, they attend the labouring bark in all her perilous 

 course. When the storm subsides they retire to rest, and 

 are no more seen. Our sailors have from very early times 

 called these birds ' Mother Carey's Chickens.' '.' 



R. W. Hackwood. 



Old Seal of the London Bridge Estate ; and 

 Thames Frozen (2"^ S. v. 414.) — Consult Chroni- 

 cles of London Bridge, by an Antiquary (2nd 

 edit., London, Tegg, 1839), for an account of the 

 memorable "frost fair" on the Thames in 1814; 

 and the Rev. Dr. Rock will probably find among 

 the numerous illustrations an engraving of the 

 seal which he wishes to see. 



Who was the author of this book ? * It seems 



[* Richard Thomson, Esq., the respected librarian of 

 the London Institution.] 



the result of much archaeological research, and 

 bespeaks an author familiar with such studies. 



In my copy of Howell's Londinopolis I have 

 noted that in pp. 315 — 7. of the Chronicles there 

 is a bibliographical notice of that work. 



John Ribton Garstin. 



Dublin. 



Antiquarian Relic (2"^ S. v. 411.) — Cups inlaid 

 with coins are not particularly rare in England, 

 and collectors can generally obtain them in Lon- 

 don from the dealers in curiosities and old conti- 

 nental plate. They are regarded as convivial and 

 not as church plate here. That described by J. 

 H. A. B. is, however, an uncommonly large one, 

 as ten inches is above the usual height, and the 

 coins are rarely as large as dollars. P. P. 



Children's Games (2°'' S. v. 415.) — Your cor- 

 respondent, Mr. Offor, will find, in Halliwell's 

 Dictionary of Archaisms, the following description 

 of the game of cobnutte : — 



" A game which consists in pitching at a row piled up 

 in heaps of four, three at the bottom and one at the top 

 of each heap. AH the nuts knocked down are the pro- 

 perty of the pitcher. The nut used for pitching is called 

 the Cob. It is sometimes plaj-ed on the top of a hat with 

 two nuts, when one tries to break the nut of the other 

 with his own, or with two rows of hazel nuts strung on 

 strings through holes bored in the middle. The last is 

 probably the more modern game, the first-mentioned 

 being clearly indicated by Cotgrave in v. Chartelet : ' the 

 childish game cobnut, or (rather) the throwing of a ball 

 at a heape of nuts, which, when done, the thrower takes 

 as many as he hath hit or scattered.' It is also alluded 

 to in Florio, ed. 1611, pp. 88. 333.; Clarke's Phraseologia 

 Puerilis, 1666, p. 322." 



What the quayting, or, as Mr. Offor, quoiting, 

 may have to do with the game of cobnut, I cannot 

 conceive. J- M. G. 



Roman Catholic Geography (2"'' S. v. 436.) — 

 Under this title, evidently not intended to be com- 

 plimentary, a correspondent inquires for the re- 

 spective situations of four ancient Catholic colleges 

 in Scotland : Meupel, Samalaman, Scalan, and 

 Lismore. When it is recollected that the Catholics 

 were obliged to lie hid from persecution in their 

 mountain fastnesses, it is only wonderful that 

 schools or colleges could have been established any- 

 where. Before the appointment of the first Catho- 

 lic bishop, after the Reformation, in 1694, a school 

 had been established in the mountains, and this 

 perhaps was at the spot called Meupel ; but where 

 it was, I am not able to state. Scalan was a small 

 Catholic seminary near Presholme in the Enzie, 

 in a deep valley, so encompassed with hills as to 

 be almost without sunshine. The seminary was 

 transferred from Scalan to Aquhorties in Aber- 

 deenshire by Bishop Hay, July 24, 1799. Sama- 

 laman must have been near Scalan. Bp. Alex- 

 ander Macdonald died there Sept. 9, 1791. The 

 island of Lismore, on the western coast of Scot- 

 land, is well known. F. C. H. 



