400 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 235. 



and sweetmeats, and then to prate and tattle, and then 

 very good company they were, and I among them. 

 Here was Mrs. Burroughs and Mrs. Bales (the young 

 widow whom I led home) ; aud having staid till the 

 moon was up, I took my pretty gossip to Whitehall 

 with us, aud I saw her in her lodging." — Ibid., Dec. 2, 

 1666.} 



Humphry Repton. — To snatch from utter ob- 

 livion the once highly reputed Humphry, the 

 king of landscape gardeners, to whom inany of our 

 baronial parks owe much of their picturesque 

 beauty, and who, by the side of Sir Joseph Paxton, 

 would now most duly have taken knightful station 

 in these go-ahead days, I ask, in what publication 

 was it, that in 1780, or thereabouts, being an in- 

 defatigable attendant at all exhibitions and sales 

 of art, he, the said Humphry, was accustomed 

 (as well able he was) to enlighten the public upon 

 what was passing in matters of art now nearly 

 three quarters of a century ago? Was it the 

 Bee ? Again, did he not, at his death, leave two 

 large volumes for publication, entitled Recollections 

 of my Past Life ? Where are these ? Inquest. 



[The MS. collection of the late Humphry Repton, 

 containing interesting details of his public and private 

 life, has been used by Mr. Loudon in his biogra- 

 phical notice of Repton prefixed to the last edition 

 of The Landscape Gardening, 8vo., 1840. Mr. Loudon 

 states that 'these papers were left as a valued memo- 

 rial for his children : it may be imagined, therefore, 

 that they contain details of a private nature, which 

 would be found devoid of interest to the world. Mr. 

 Repton, indeed, possessed a mind as keenly alive to 

 the ludicrous, as it was open to all that was excellent, 

 in the variety of characters with whom his extensive 

 professional connexions brought him acquainted ; and 

 he did not fail to observe and note down many curious 

 circumstances and traits of character, in themselves 

 highly amusing, but, for obvious reasons, unfit subjects 

 for publication. Not one taint of satire or ill-nature, 

 however, ever sullied the wit which flowed spontane- 

 ously from a mind sportive sometimes even to exu- 

 berance." His artistic critiques will be found in 

 the following works : The Bee ; or, a Critique on the 

 Exhibition of Paintings at Somerset House, 1788, 8vo. 

 Variety: a Collection of Essays, 1788, 12mo. The 

 Bee : a Critique on the Shakspeare Gallery, 1789, 8vo. 

 Odd IVliims ; being a republication of some papers in 

 Variety, with a Comedy and other Poems, 2 vols. 1 2mo., 

 1804.] 



" Oriel." — I should be glad if any of your cor- 

 respondents could inform me of the origin of the 

 term oriel, as applied to a window ? It is not, 

 I believe, necessarily to the East. T. L. ST. 



Jamaica. 



\_Oriol, or Oriel, is a portico or court; also a small 

 room near the hall in monasteries, where particular 

 persons dined. (Blount's Glossog.) Du Cange says, 

 t Oriolum, porticus, atrium;" and quotes Matthew 

 Paris for it. Supposed by some to be a diminutive 



from area, or areola. " In modern writings," says 

 Nares, " we meet with mention of Oriel windows. I 

 doubt the propriety of the expression ; but, if right, 

 they must mean those windows that project like a 

 porch, or small room. At St. Albans was an oriel, 

 or apartment for persons not so sick as to retire to 

 the infirmary. (Fosbroke's Brit. Monachism, vol. ii. 

 p. 160.) I may be wrong in my notion of oriel win- 

 dow, but I have not met with ancient authority for 

 that expression. Cowel conjectured that Oriel College, 

 in Oxford, took its name from some such room or 

 portico. There is a remarkable portico, in the farther 

 side of the first quadrangle, but not old enough to 

 have given the name. It might, however, be only the 

 successor of one more ancient, and more exactly an 

 oriel." For articles on the disputed derivation of this 

 term, which seems involved in obscurity, see Parker's 

 Glossary of Architecture ; a curious paper by Mr. Ham- 

 per, in Archaologia, vol. xxiii. ; and Gentleman s Maga- 

 zine for Nov. 1823, p. 424., and March, 1824, p. 229.] 



" Orchard." — Professor Martyn, in his Notes 

 on Virgil's Georgics, seems to be of opinion that 

 the English word " orchard " is derived from the 

 Greek opxaTos, which Homer uses to express the 

 garden of Alcinous ; and he observes that Milton 

 writes it orchat, thereby corroborating this im- 

 pression. Is the word spelt according to Milton's 

 form by any other writers ? N. L. J. 



[It is spelt orchat by J. Philips, Cider, book i. : 



" Else false hopes 



He cherishes, nor will his fruit expect 



Th' autumnal season, but in summer's pride, 



When other orchats smile, abortive fail."] 



"Pechvater." — Why is the quadrangle at Christ 

 Church, in Oxford, called " Peckwater ? " N. L. J. 



[The Peckwater Quadrangle derives its name from 

 an ancient hostle, or inn, which stood on the south- 

 west corner of the present court ; and was the property 

 of Ralph, the son of Richard Peckwater, who gave it 

 to St. Frideswide's Priory, SOth Henry III. ; and 

 about the middle of the reign of Henry VIII., another 

 inn, called Vine Hall, was added to it; which, with 

 other buildings, were reduced into a quadrangle in the 

 time of Dean Duppa and Dr. Samuel Fell. The two 

 inns were afterwards known by the name of Vine Hall, 

 or Peckwater's Inn ; and by this name were given to 

 Christ Church, in 1547, by Henry VIII.] 



Richard III. — What became of the body after 

 the battle of Bosworth Field ? Was it buried at 

 Leicester ? A. Bbiton. 



Athenaeum. 



[After the battle of Bosworth Field, the body of 

 Richard III. was stript, laid across a horse behind a 

 pursuivant-at-arms, and conducted to Leicester, where, 

 after it had been exposed for two days, it was buried 

 with little ceremony in the church of the Grey Friars. 

 In Burton's MS. of the History of Leicester, we 

 read that, " within the town was a house of Franciscan 

 or Grey Friars, built by Simon Montfort, Earl of 



