24 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 89. 



pedigree, &c. &c. I may say that I am aware that 

 tlie orii;lnal stock of liis fainily had possessions in 

 Lincohisbire and Yorkshire, and thiit the"e were 

 members of it of considerable importance during 

 the reinns of the earlier monarchs succeeding 

 William I. I am also acquainted with some old 

 pedigrees found in certain visitation books. But 

 none of the pedigrees I have seen appear to come 

 down later than the fourteenth, or quite tlie be- 

 ginning of the fifteenth, century. I should be 

 glad to know of any pedigree coming down tlii'ough 

 the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, 

 and to have any account of the later history of the 

 fiimily. Bold. 



West of England Proverb. — Can any of your 

 correspondents explain the saying, used when a 

 person undertakes what is beyond his ability, — 

 " He must go to Tiverton, and ask Mr. Able ?" 



D. X. 



Coke and Cowper, hmu pronounced. — Upon 

 ■what authority is Lord Coke's name pronounced 

 as though it were spelt Cook ; and why is Coiiper, 

 the poet, generally called Cooper f Is tliis a 

 modern affectation, or were these names so ren- 

 dered by their refpeetive owners and their con- 

 temporaries ? Such illustrious names should cer- 

 tainly be preserved in their integrity, and even 

 pedanticisin might blush at corrupting such 

 "household words." Tiiere certainly should be 

 no uncertainty on the subject. C. A. 



Orinoco or Orinooko. — In the Illustrated News 

 of May 26th is an accoimt of the launch of the 

 "Orinoco" steamer. Can any of your readers 

 tell me if this is the correct mode of spelling the 

 name of this river ? I believe the natives spell it 

 " Orinooko," the two oo's being pronounced u. 



E. D. C. F. 



Petty Cury. — Thra-e is a street bearing this 

 name in Cambridge, which was always a mystery 

 to me in my undergraduate days; perhaps some 

 correspondent can unravel it ? E. S. T. 



Virgil. — iEneid, viii. 96. : 



" Viridesque secant placido a;quorc silvas." 

 Will any of your classical correspondents favour 

 me with their opinion as to whether secaid in the 

 above passage is intended to convey, or is capable 

 of conveying, the idea expressed in the following 

 line of Tennyson {Recollections of the Arabian 

 Nights) : 



" my shallop .... clove 



The citron shadoivs in the blue ?" 

 This interpretation has been suggested to me as 

 more poetical than the one usually given ; but it 

 is only supported by one commentator, Servius. 



Ertx. 



Sheridan and Vanbi'tigh. — Could any of your 

 readers inform me as to the following? I find 



printed in Sheridan's Dramatic Works by Bohn, a 

 copy of Sir John Vanbrugh's play of The Relapse, 

 or Virtue in Danger. It is, with a very few omis- 

 sions, an exact reprint, but bears the title of A 

 Trip to Scarborough, or Miss in her Teens. No 

 comment is made, or any mention of Vaiibru^h. 



b. o. 



Quotation from an old Ballad. — 

 " Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, 

 But, why did you kick me down stairs?" 



In what old ballad or poetic effusion may the 

 above forcibly expressive, though not remarkably 

 elegant, lines be found ? A short time ago 

 they were quoted in The Times' leading article, 

 from which fact I suppose them to be of well- 

 known origin. Needka Namb. 



PRINCESSES OF WALES. 



(Vol. iii., p. 477.) 



The statement of Hume, that Elizabeth and 

 Mary were created Princesses of Wales, rests, I 

 am disposed to think, on most insufficient autho- 

 rity ; and I am surprised that so illustrious an 

 authfu' shfiuld have made an assertion on such 

 slender grounds, which carries on the face of it a 

 manifest absurdity, and which was afterwards re- 

 tracted by the very author from whom he bor- 

 rowed it. 



Hume's authority is evidently Burnet's History 

 of the R(formation; (indeed, in some editions your 

 correspondent G. would have seen Burnet referred 

 to) in which are the following passages (vol. i. 

 p. 71., Oxford edition, 1829) : 



" The king, being out of hopes of more children, de- 

 clared his daughter (Mary) Princess of Wales, and 

 sent her to L\idlow to hold her court there, and pro- 

 jected divers matches for her." 



Again, p. 271.: 



" Elizabeth was soon after declared Princess of 

 Wales ; though lawyers thought that against law, for 

 she was only heir presumptive, but not apparent, to 

 the crown, since a son coming after he must be pre- 

 ferred. Yet the king would justify what lie had done 

 in his marriage with all possible respect ; and having 

 before declared tlie Lady JNIary Princess of Wales, he 

 did now the same in favour of the Lady Elizabeth." 



Himie's statement is taken almost verbatim from 

 this last passage of Burnet, who, however, it will 

 be observed, does not say "created," but "de- 

 clared" Princess of Wales; the distinction between 

 which is obvious. He was evidently not aware 

 that Burnet afterwards corrected this statement in 

 an Appendix, entitled, " Some IMistakes in the 

 first Portion of this History conununicated to me 

 by Mr. William Fulman, Rector of Hampton 

 Meysey, in Gloucestershire." In this is the fol- 



