270 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 203. 



more correct usage, for " what," say they, " is a 

 wheel without spokes ? " I inquired of an intel- 

 ligent lady, of long American descent, in what 

 way she had been accustomed to hear the phrase 

 employed, and the answer was : " Certainly as a 

 help : we used to say to one who had anything in 

 hand of difficult accomplishment, ' Do not be 

 faint-hearted, I'll give you a spoke.' " 



Dr. Johnson, in the folio edition of his Dic- 

 tionary, 1755, after defining a spoke to be the 

 "bar of a wheel that passes from the nave to the 

 felly," cites : 

 " . . . . . . All you gods, 



In general synod, take away her power, 

 Break all the spokes aiul fellies to her wheel. 

 And bowl the round nave down the hill of Heaven." 



Shakspeare. 



G. K. 



Sir W. Hewit. — At p. 159. of Mr. Thoms's 

 recent edition of PuUeyn's Etymological Compen- 

 dium, Sir W. Hewit, the father-in-law of Edward 

 Osborne, who was destined to found the ducal 

 family of Leeds, is said to have been " a pin- 

 maker." Some other accounts state that he was 

 a clothworker ; others again, that he was a gold- 

 smith. Which is correct ; and what is the 

 authority ? And where may any pedigree of the 

 Osborne family, previous to Edtuard, be seen ? 



H. T. Griffith. 



Passage in Vii-gil. — Dr. Johnson, in his cele- 

 brated Letter to Lord Chesterfield, says, in refe- 

 rence to the hollowness of patronage : " The 

 shepherd, in Yirgil, grew at last acquainted with 

 Love ; and found him a native of the rocks." To 

 what passage in Virgil does Johnson here refer, 

 and what is the point intended to be conveyed ? 



K.. FlTZSIMO'S. 



Dublin. 



Faunileroy. — In Binns' Anatomy of Sleep it is 

 stated that a few years ago an affidavit was taken 

 in an English court of justice, to the effect that 

 Fauntleroy was still living in a town of the 

 United States. 



Can any of your con-espondents refer me to the 

 circumstance in question ? C. Ci-ifton Barry. 



Animal Prefixes, descriptive of Size and Quality. 

 — Will somebody oblige me by pointing out in 

 the modern languages any analogous instances to 

 the Greek ^ov, English /(orse-radlsh, dog-rose, bull- 

 finch, &c. ? C. Clifton Barry. 



Punning Devices. — Sir John Cullum, in his Hist, 

 of Hawsted, 1st edit. p. 114., says that the seal 

 of Sir William Clopton, knight, t. lien. VII., was 

 " a ton, out of which issues some plant, perhaps a 

 calti'op, which might be contracted to the first 

 syllable of his name." This appears to be too 



violent a contraction. Can any of your readers 

 suggest any other or closer analogy between the 

 name and device ? " Buhiensis. 



" Pinece ivith a stinJi." — In Archbishop Bram- 

 hall's Schism Guarded (written against Serjeant) 

 there Is a passage in which the above curious 

 expression occurs, and of which I can find no sa- 

 tisfactory, nor indeed any explanation whatever. 

 The passage is this (Works, vol. 11. p. 545., edit. 

 Ox.) : 



" But when he is baffled in the cause, he hath a re- 

 serve, — that Venerable Bede, and Gildas, and Foxe in 

 his Acts and Monuments, do brand the Britons for 

 wicked men, making them ' as good as Atheists ; of 

 which gang if this Dinoth were one,' he ' will neither 

 wish the Pope such friends, nor envy them to the Pro- 

 testants.' 



" Wliat needeth this, when he hath got the worst of 

 the cause, to defend himself like a pinece with a stink ? 

 We read no other character of Dinoth, but as of a pious, 

 learned, and prudent man." 



Can any of your readers furnish an explanation? 



R. Blakiston. 



Soiled Parchment Deeds. — Having in my pos- 

 session some old and very dirty parchment deeds, 

 and other records, now almost illegible from the 

 accumulation of grease, &c., on the surface of 

 the skins, I am desirous to know if there be 

 any "royal road" to the cleansing and restoration 

 of these otherwise enduring MSS. ? T. Hughes. 



Chester. 



Roger Wilbraham, Esq.^s Cheshire Collection. 

 — Can any of your correspondents say where the 

 original collection made by the above-named 

 gentleman, or a copy of them, referred to In Dr. 

 Foote Gower's Sketch of the Materials for a 

 Cheshire History, may now be met with ? 



Cestriensis. 



Cambridge and Ireland. — In the first volume 

 of the Pictorial History of England, p. 270., it is 

 stated that — 



" Martin skins are mentioned in Domesday Book 

 among the commodities brought by sea to Chester; 

 and this appears from otlier authorities to have been 

 one of the exports in ancient times from Ireland. No- 

 tices are also found of merchants from Ireland landing 

 at Cambridge with cloths, and exposing their mer- 

 chandise to sale." 



The authority quoted for this statement is Turner, 

 vol. Hi. p. 113. 



On referring to Turner's Anglo-Saxons, I find 

 it stated : 



" We read of merchants from Ireland landing at 

 Cambridge with cloths, and exposing their merchan- 

 dise to sale." 

 Mr. Turner refers to Gale, vol. il. p. 482. 



I do not know to what work Mr. Turner refers, 

 unless to Gale's Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores Ve- 



