376 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 207. 



and bricklayers are the only persons who use the 

 level. On board ship, it is the males who profes- 

 sionally attend at the poop. Our foreign-looking 

 friend rotator, at once suggestive of certain cele- 

 brated personages in the lower house, is by ter- 

 mination masculine ; and such members, in times 

 of political probation, never fail to show them- 

 selves evitative rather than plucky. 



But some words are reversible in sense as well 

 as in orthography. If a man draw "on" me, I 

 should be to blame if at least I did not ward " off" 

 the blow. Whom should we repel sooner than 

 the leper? Who will live hereafter, if he be a 

 doer of evil? We should always seek to deliver 

 him who is being reviled. Even Shakspeare was 

 aware of the fact, that it is a God who breeds 

 magots in a dead dog^m^Q Hamlet). " Cum mul- 

 tis aliis." The art of composing palindromes is 

 one, at least, as instructive as, and closely allied 

 to, that of c?e-ciphering. If any one calls the com- 

 positions in question " trash," I cannot better an- 

 swer than in palindrome. Trash ? even interpret 

 Nineveh's art! for the deciphering of the cuneiform 

 character is both a respectable and a useful exer- 

 cise of ingenuity. The English language, how- 

 ever, is not susceptible of any great amount of 

 palindromic compositions. The Latin is, of all, 

 the best adapted for that fancy. I append an in- 

 scription for a hospital, which is a paraphrase of a 

 verse in the Psalms : 



" Acide me malo, sed non desola me, medica." 



I doubt whether such compositions should ever 

 be characterised by the term sotadic. Sotadic 

 verses were, I believe, restricted to indecent love- 

 songs. C. Mansfield Ingleby. 



Birmingham. 



Detached Church Towers (Vol. vii. passim ; 

 Vol. viii., p. 63.). — At Morpeth, in Northumber- 

 land, the old parish church stands on an eminence 

 at the distance of a mile from the town. In the 

 market-place is a square clock tower, the bells in 

 ■which are used for ordinary parochial purposes. 



At KIrkoswald, in Cumberland, where the 

 church stands low, the belfry has been erected on 

 an adjoining hill. E. H. A. 



Bishop Ferrar (Vol. viii., p. 103.). — Bishop 

 Ferrar, martyred in Queen Mary's reign, was not 

 of the same family with the Ferrers, Earl of 

 Derby and Nottingham. Was your correspon- 

 dent led to think so from the fact of the martyr 

 having been originally a bishop of the Isle of Man ? 

 A Lineal Descendant of the Maetye. 



Cambridge. 



" They shot him by the nine stone rig" (Vol. viii., 

 p. 78.). — This fragmentary ballad is to be found 

 in the Border Minstrelsy. It was contributed by 

 K. Surtees of l^Iainsforth, co. Durham, and de- 



scribed by him as having been taken down from 

 the recitation of Anne Douglas, an old woman 

 who weeded in his garden. It is however most 

 likely that it is altogether factitious, and Mr. 

 Surtees' own production, Anne Douglas being a 

 pure invention. 



The ballad called " The Fray of Haltwhistle," 

 a portion of which, " How the Thirlwalls and the 

 Ridleys a'," &c., is interwoven with the text in 

 the first canto of Marmion, is generally understood 

 to have been composed by Mr. Surtees. He, 

 however, succeeded in palming it upon Scott as a 

 genuine old ballad ; and states that he had it from 

 the recitation of an ancient dame, mother of one 

 of the miners of Alston Moor. Scott's taste for 

 old legends and ballads was certainly not too dis- 

 criminating, or he would never have swallowed 

 " The Fray of Haltwhistle." Perhaps he suspected 

 its authenticity, for he says of it : 



" Scantily Lord Marmion's ear could brook 

 The harper's barbarous lay." 



T. D. KiDLEV. 



Punning Devices (Vol. viii., p. 270.). — In the 

 4tli volume of Surtees' History of Durham^ p. 48., 

 there is an account of the Orchard Chamber in 

 Sledwish Hall : 



" In the centre is a shield of the arms of Clopton ; 

 being two coats quarterly, a lion rampant and a cross 

 pattee Jitchee ; over all, a crescent for difference.* On 

 two other shields, impressed from one mould, are the 

 initials E. C, the date 1584, and a tun with a rose 

 clapt o«."f 



Old Geumbleum. 



Ashman's Park — Wingjield s Portrait (Vol. viii., 

 p. 299.). — Could any correspondent in Suffolk 

 inform me if Ashman's Park has been sold ; and 

 if the pictures are anywhere to be found, espe- 

 cially that of Sir Anthony Win^field ? The com- 

 munication of H. C. K. relative to the above 

 subject is very interesting. Q. 



" Crowns have their compass^' 8fC. (Vol. iv., 

 p. 428.). — In the well-known lines attributed to 

 Shakspeare, and quoted in the above volume, the 

 third stands thus : 

 " Of more than earth can earth make none partaker." 



I find that Quarles has borrowed this in his 

 Emblems, book i. Emblem vi. : 

 " Of more than earth can earth make none possest." 



Henry H. Breen. 

 St. Lucia. 



* This note says the arms are reversed, being im- 

 pressed from a mould. 



f " The crest of Clopton is a falcon clapping his 

 wings, and rising from a tun ; and I verily believe the 

 rose clapt on to be the miserable quibble intended." 



