NOTES AND QUERIES: 



A MEDIUM OP INTER-COMMUNICATION 



FOB 



LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTiaUARIES, GEPv^EALO GISTS, ETC. 



" 'Wisen founai make a note of." — Captain Cuttlk. 



No. 214.] 



Saturday, December 3. 1853. 



f Price Fourpence. 



I Stamped Edition, 5<f> 



CONTENTS. 



iTEs : Page 



refer Brett -------533 



Richard's " Guide through France," by Weld Taylor - 634 

 Women and Tortoises . _ - - - 634 



Weather Rules, by W. Winthrop ... 635 



Occasional Forms of Prayer, by Kev. Thomas Lathbury 535 



MiNon Notes : — Chair Moving — Epitaph on Politian 

 in the Church of the Annunciation at Florence- 

 Epitaph in Torrington Churchyard, Devon — The 



early Delights of Philadelphia — Misapplication of 

 Terms — " Plantin" Bibles in 1600 — Ancient Gold 



Collar found in StafTordsiiire 

 'Queries : — 



Pictures in Hampton Court Palace 



. 537 



538 



Minor Queiites : — Helmets — The Nursrow — City 

 Bellmen — Pope's Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady — 

 " 'foo wise to err, too good to be unkind " — Passage 

 in the "Christian Year" — David's Mother — Em- 



blejns "Kaminagadeyathooroosoomokanoogonagira" 



"Quid facies," &c Will of Peter the Great — 



H. Neele, Editor of Shakspeare— MS. by Rubens on 



, Painting — Peter Allan — Hasrhisch or Indian Hemp 



Crieff Compensation — Admission to Lincoln's Inn, 



tlie "Temple, and Gray's Inn — Orders for the House- 

 hold of Lord Montagu - -, - - - 538 



Minor Queries with Answers: — Cateaton Street — 

 Portrait of Lee, Inventor of the Stocking-frame — 

 Cocker's Arithmetic — Lyke Porch or Litch Porch — 

 Henry Burton — British Mathematicians — " Les 

 Lettres Juives" ------ 510 



Heplies : — 



Attainment of Majority ----- 541 



Lord Halifax and Mrs. Catherine Barton - - 543 



Milton's Widow, by T. Hughes . . - - 544 



Anticipatory Use of the Cross, by J. W. Thomas and 



Eden Warwick - - - - - - 545 



Decorative Pavement Tiles from Caen, by Albert Way 



and Gilbert .1. French ----- 847 



Mottos of the Emperors of Germany - - - 548 



Photographic Correspondence : — Simplicity of Calo- 

 , type Process^Albumenized Paper — New Developing 

 Mixture — Queries on the Albumenized Process - 548 



Heplies toIVIinor Quebiks: — Poems in connexion 

 with Waterloo — Richard Oswald — Grammont's 

 Marriage — Life — Muscipula — Berefellarii — Har- 

 mony of the Four Gospels — Picts' Houses and Argils 

 — Boswt'U's "Johnson " — Pronunciation of " Hum- 

 ble " — Continuation of Robertson — Nostradamus — 

 Quantity of Words — " Man proposes, but God dis- 

 poses "—Polarised Light - - . - 549 



Miscellaneous : — 



Notes on Books, &c. 

 Books and Odd Volumes wanted 

 Notices to Correspondents 

 Auvertisemenls , - 



- 652 



- 653 



- 553 



- 554 



iiattS. 



PETER BRETT. 



Vol. VIIL — No. 214. 



Your correspondent T. K. seems to think that 

 Scotchmen, and Scotch subjects, have an undue 

 prominence in " N. & Q. : " let me therefore in- 

 troduce to your readers a neglected Irishman, in 

 the person of Peter Brett, the " parish clerk and 

 schoolmaster of Castle-Knock." This worthy seems 

 to have been a great author, and the literary 

 oracle of the district over Avliich he presided, and 

 exercised the above-named important functions. 

 His magnum opus appears to have been his Mis- 

 cellamj ; a farrago of prose and verse, which, to 

 distinguish it from the herd of books bearing that 

 title, is yclept, par excellence, Brett's Miscellany. 

 When Mr. Brett commenced to enlighten the 

 world, and when his candle was snuffed out, I 

 know not. My volume of the above work pur- 

 ports to be the fifth : 



" Containing above a hundred useful and entertain- 

 ing Particulars, Divine, Moral, and Historical ; chiefly 

 designed for the Improvement of Youth, and those who 

 have not the Opportunity of reading large Volumes. 

 Interspersed with several Entertaining Things never 

 before printed. Dublin, 1762." 



The parish clerk's bill of fares is of the most 

 seductive kind. Under all the above heads he 

 has something spicy to say, either in prose or 

 verse ; but the marrow of the book lies in the 

 Preface. To say that a man, holding the import- 

 ant offices of parish clerk and schoolmaster, could 

 be charged with conceit, would be somewhat rash ; 

 if, therefore, in remarking upon the rare instance 

 of a parish clerk becoming an author, he lets out 

 that " whatever cavillers may say about his per- 

 formance, they must admit his extensive reading, 

 and the great labour and application the concoc- 

 tion of these books has cost him," he is but in- 

 dulging in a feeling natural to a man of genius, 

 and a pardonable ebullition of the amour propre. 

 Mr. Brett seems to have been twitted with the 

 charge of taking up authorship as a commercial 

 spec ; he sullenly admits that his book-making 

 leaves him something, but nothing like a recom- 

 pense, and ' draws an invidious comparison be- 

 tween one Counsellor Harris and himself; the 



