246 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 175. 



but they seem to me not to testify much for the 

 authenticity of the piece. This, among many 

 publications in the World, would certainly prove 

 nothing ; but Walpole's venturing to reproduce it 

 in an acknowledged work to which he attached 

 considerable importance, is no doubt of some 

 weight. C. 



Ethnology of England (Vol. vii., p. 135.). — In 

 reference to that portion of the Query by Ethno- 

 JLOGicus which asks "Whether it is yet clearly 

 settled that there are types of the heads of An- 

 cient Britons, Saxons, Danes, and other races, to 

 be referred to as standards or examples of the 

 respective crania of those people ? " I beg to say 

 that beneath the chancel of the church of St. 

 Leonard, Hythe, there is a crypt containing a 

 vast number of skulls and other human bones, 

 which, according to Jeake, the historian of the 

 Cinque Ports, are — 



"Supposed by some to be gathered at the shore 

 after a great sea-fight and slaughter of the French and 

 English on that coast ; whose carcases, or their bones, 

 after the consumption of the flesh, might be cast up 

 there, and so gathered and reserved for memorandum." 



Speaking of these relics, Walker, in his Phy- 

 siology, says : 



" These skulls at Hythe are not of one race, either 

 Saxon or British, but of several ; two forms of skull, 

 very distinct from each other, predominate : one, a long 

 narrow skull, greatly resembling the Celtic of the 

 present day ; the other, a short broad skull, greatly 

 resembling the Gothic .... Another kind of 

 skulls, fewer in number, are evidently Roman skulls." 



RoBBET Wright. 



Drake the Artist (Vol. vi., p. 555.). — Searching 

 a series of catalogues of the Society of Artists of 

 Great Britain, from 1760 to 1780, I find that Mr. 

 Drake at York, F.S.A. (Fellow of that Society), 

 in 1773 exhibited at their New Room, near Ex- 

 eter Change in the Strand, — 



No. 89. " A Family in little." 



Is this to be interpreted by Hamlet's sarcasm 

 upon the sycophants of his uncle's court, who paid 

 *' Forty, fifty, nay, one hundred ducats, for his 

 portrait in little?"" Small full-lengths were in 

 vogue at the period, but our Yorkist has a delicate 

 diminutive of his own. Again, in 1775, we have 

 three works of Drake — 



72. " View of a Gentleman's Seat in Yorkshire, 

 with two Gentlemen going out a-hawking." 



73. " Sacarissa with Amoret and Musidora." 

 From Thomson's Seasons, 4to. edition, 1730. 



74. "A Winter Piece." 

 And in 1776 : 



23. "A Madonna and Child." Mr. Drake, 

 F.S.A., York. 



There is no trace of him at the Royal Academy. 

 Thus we have him in portraiture, in landscape, in 



sacred history, and in the poetical imaginative. 

 This is beyond what G. reckons upon ; and now, 

 having contributed thus much, 1 hope some of 

 your readers may assist in carrying the inquiry 

 further. J, H. A. 



Sparse (Vol. vi., p. 554. ; Vol. vii., p. 51.), said 

 to be an Americanism. — I have in my possession an 

 edition, printed in 1611, of the Whole Book of 

 Psalms, collected into English Metre, by Thomas 

 Sternhold, John Hopkins, and others. In the 

 paraphrase of Psalm xliv. v. 10. is the following : 



" Thou madest us fly before our foes, 

 And so were overtrod. 

 Our enemies rob'd and spoyl'd our goods 

 When we were sparst abroad," 



The word here used in 1611 was evidently no 

 American one ; and yet it is singular that neither 

 Bailey (1740), Johnson (1755), or Barclay (1800), 

 have the word in their dictionaries ; but Knowles 

 (1835) and Blackie's Imperial (1850) both men- 

 tion it ; and have sparse, sparsed, sparsedly, and 

 sparsing, all meaning " dispersed" or " scattered." 



John Algob. 



Eldon Street, Sheffield. 



Genoveva of Brabant (Vol. vii., p. 212.). — There 

 is a ballad on her legend in an obscure volume of 

 verses published by Masters, 1846, fantastically 

 entitled Echoes from Old Cornwall. Cokiolanus. 



N.B. These Echoes do not appear to have re- 

 sounded far or wide. 



God's Marks (Vol. vii., p. 134.). — In the re- 

 gister-book of St. Margaret's, Westminster, occurs 

 this entry, under the year 1556 : 



"Junii vijo die. Item, Elizabeth Helhe, of the 

 ague with Godd's marks." 



Shaksp^are adopts the saying, 



" They have the plague 

 For the Lord's tokens on you do I see." 



Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2. 



quoted in Memorials of Westminster, ch. iv. p. 152, 

 They were the first spots which showed that the 

 infection had been caught. M. W. 



Segantiorum Portus (Vol. vii., p. 180.). — I 

 know not what Pbestoniensis means by Ptolemy's 

 History of Britain, but there can be little doubt 

 as to the whereabouts of what is called, in the 

 Palatine MS., Segantiorum Portus, or Setantiorum 

 Portus in Berthius's great edition of Ptolemy's 

 Geography, ch. iii., tit. Albion, tab. 1. 



It is curious that the place immediately pre- 

 ceding in Ptolemy's Catalogue that inquired about, 

 aflFords, in the vast multitude enumerated in that 

 work, the closest approach to identity between the • 

 ancient and modern names, viz. MopiKofiS-n Etsx^cir* 



