April 2. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



333 



it was given was admitted into the highest friendship 

 and trust (Gen. xli, 42.). For which reason it was 

 adopted as a ceremony in marriage to denote that the 

 wife, in consideration of her being espoused to the 

 man, was admitted as a sharer in her husband's coun- 

 sels, and a joint-partner in his lionour and estate : and 

 therefore we find that not only the ring, j)ut the keys 

 also were in former times delivered to her at the mar- 

 riage. That the ring was in use among the old Ro- 

 mans, we have several undoubted testimonies (Juvenal, 

 Sat. vi. ver. 26, 27. ; Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. iii. c. i. ; 

 Tertull. Apoh, c. vi. p. 7. A.). Pliny, indeed, tells us, 

 that in his time the Romans used an iron ring without 

 any jewel ; but Tertullian hints, that in the former 

 ages it was a ring of gold." — Rational Illustration of 

 the Common Praijer, p. 390. edit. 1759.] 



AmiLsive. — Is this word peculiar to Thomson, 

 or is it made use of by other poets ? Its meaning 

 does not appear to be very definite. In the Spring 

 it is applied to the rooks, with their "ceaseless 

 caws amusive ; " in the Summer to the thistle- 

 down, which " amusive floats ; " and in the Au- 

 tumn, the theory of the supposed cause of moun- 

 tain springs is called an " amusive dream." 

 Thomson seems to have been partial to these kind 

 of adjectives, " eflusive," " diffusive," " prelusive," 



&C. CUTHBERT BeDE, B.A. 



[A reference to Richardson's Dictionary will show 

 that, however fond Thomson may have been of this 

 word, it is not one peculiar to him. Whitehead says : 



" To me 'twas given to wake th^ amusive reed," 

 and Chandler, in his Travels in Greece, speaks of the 

 wind " murmuring anmsively among the pines."] 



Belfry Toivers separate from the Body of the 

 Church. — At Mylor, near Falmouth, there is an 

 old tower for the bells (where they are rtmg 

 every Sunday), separate from the church itself 

 •which has a very low tower. Are there many 

 other instances of this ? I do not remember to 

 have seen any. J, S. A. 



[If our correspondent will refer to the last edition 

 of the Glossary of Architecture, s. v. Campanile, he will 

 learn that thougli bell towers are generally attached to 

 the church, they are sometimes unconnected with it, as 

 at Chichester cathedral, and are sometimes united 

 merely by a covered passage, as at Lapworth, War- 

 wickshire. There are several examples of detached 

 bell-towers still remaining, as at Evesham, Worcester- 

 shire ; Berkeley, Gloucestershire ; Walton, Norfolk ; 

 Ledbury, Herefordshire ; and a very curious one en- 

 tirely of timber, with the frame for the bells springing 

 from the ground, at Pembridge, Herefordshire. At 

 Salisbury a fine early English detached campanile, 

 200 feet in height, surmounted by a timber turret and 

 spire, stood near the north-west corner of the cathedral, 

 but was destroyed by Wyatt.] 



An Easter-day Sun. — In that verse of Sir 

 John Suckling's famous Ballad upon a Wedding, 

 wherein occurs the simile of the "little mice," 



what is the meaning of the allusion to the Easter- 

 day sun ? — 



" But oh ! she dances such a way, 

 No sun upon an Easter-day 



Is half so fine a sight ! " 



CuTHBERT BeDE, B.A. 



[It was formerly a common belief that the sun 

 danced on Easter-day : see Brand's Popular Antiquities, 

 vol. i. p. 161. et seq. So general was it, that Sir 

 Thomas Browne treats on it in his Vulgar Errors, 

 vol. ii. p. 87. ed. Bohn,] 



HAMILTON QUERIES. 



(Vol. vii., p. 285.) 



On reference to the Peerages of Sir Harris 

 Nicolas and Wood, I feel no doubt that the 

 father of Lqrd Spencer Hamilton, as Tee Beb 

 remarks, was the fifth Duke of Hamilton, and not 

 the third, as Collins (edition Brydges) states, who 

 misled me. Perhaps the perplexity, if any, arose 

 from Anne Duchess of Hamilton, the inheritress 

 of the ducal honours by virtue of the patent of 

 1643, after the deaths of her father and uncle 

 s. p. m., having obtained a life dukedom for her 

 husband, William Earl of Selkirk, and, subse- 

 quently to his decease, having surrendered all her 

 titles in favour of their eldest son, James Earl of 

 Arran, who was in 1698 made Duke of Hamilton, 

 with the same precedency of the original creation 

 of 1643, as if he had succeeded thereto. 



Sir William Hamilton, the ambassador, married, 

 first, Jan. 25, 1752, the only child of Hugh Barlow, 

 Esq., of Lawrenny in Pembrokeshire, with whom 

 he got a large estate : she died at Naples, Aug. 25, 

 1782, and was buried in Wales. His second lady 

 was Emma Harte, a native of Hawarden in Flint- 

 shire ; where her brother, then a bricklayer work- 

 ing for the late Sir Stephen Glynne, was pointed 

 out to me forty years ago. In Wood's Peerage it 

 is stated that Sir W. Hamilton's second marriage 

 took place at London, Sept. 6, 1794 : he died in 

 April, 1 803, and was buried In Slebech Church. 



I well remember Single-speech Hamilton, who 

 was a friend of the family, dining with my father 

 when I was a little boy ; and I still retain the im- 

 pression of his having been a tall and thin old 

 gentleman, very much out of health. He left a 

 treatise called Parliamentary Logick, published in 

 1808. The brief memoir of the author prefixed 

 to the work, makes no mention of him as a mem- 

 ber of the House of Hamilton ; but It is said that 

 he derived his name of Gerard from his god- 

 mother Elizabeth, daughter of Digby, Lord Ge- 

 rard of Bromley, widow of James, fourth Duke of 

 Hamilton, whoVell in the duel with Lord Mohun, 

 which looks as if gome affinity was recognised. 



