490 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"* S. VI. 154., Dec. 11. '58. 



Arms of Isle of Man on Etruscan Vases (2°* S. 

 vi. 409.) — Is it not more likely that the device on 

 the Etruscan vase observed by Tourist has refer- 

 ence to Sicily than to the Isle of Man ? The fol- 

 lowing is from Clark's Introduction to Heraldi-y, 

 under " Legs in Armour " : — 



" Philpot says, three legs conjoined was the hiero- 

 glyphic of expedition. Nisbet says, ' Three legs of men, 

 the device of the Sicilians, the ancient possessors of the 

 Isle of Man.' » 



I have read somewhere (though I cannot re- 

 call where) that the three legs conjoined were 

 used by Sicily in allusion to' its ancient name of 

 Trinacria = the three headlands or promontories. 



Tee Bee. 



The following description of a medal on which 

 this device occurs is extracted from Recueil de 

 CXXXI. Medaillons, d'apres Fantique, ornans la 

 iiouvelle Edition des (Euvres de Plutarque, traduc- 

 tion dAmyot, a work published in Paris subse- 

 quent to the establishment of the Empire, but 

 without any date to indicate the particular year : 



" Marcellds, le conquerant de Syracuse, d'aprfes une 

 medaille consulaire d'argent, de la Bibliothfeque Impd- 

 riale, repr&entant la tete de ce general, derriere laquelle 

 sont trois jambes, symbole de la Sicile." 



The legs, like those mentioned by your corre- 

 spondent Tourist, are not armed, as appears by 

 the illustrative vignette. T. C. Smith. 



Your correspondent is mistaken ; the three 

 legs are the badge of the island of Sicily, not of 

 Man. They are common not only on Italo-Greek 

 pottery, but on the reverse of Sicilian coins. They 

 sometimes have a head at the point of junction, 

 sometimes an eye, sometimes a helmet. If Tourist 

 will refer to Leonardo Agostini, Le Medaglie di 

 Sicilia, 1697, he will find many examples. The 

 origin is probably from the word Trinacria, the 

 old name for Sicily. A. A. 



Poets' Corner. .^ 



In Birch's Ancient Pottery and Porcelain (vol. 

 1. p. 164.), reference is made to certain tiles found 

 at Acroe in Sicily, on which the potter had placed 

 the triskelos or three legs, as an emblem of the 

 country. Such probably is the device observed 

 by Tourist. Vebna. 



Salaries to Mayors (2°* S. vi. SIL) — A. D. is 

 informed that Doncaster allows its mayor 2I0Z. 

 a year. C. J. 



The Mayor of (Great) Grimsby has an at nual 

 allowance of 20/. Adrian Adninan. 



'' Arhury" (2°'' S. vi. 317.) — "What is meant 

 by Arbury in Cambridgeshire ? " Arbury in 

 Warwickshire, the seat of C. N. Newdegate, M.P., 

 was in Dugdale's time spelt " Erdbury " and 

 " Erdburie." Will this assist Me. Babington ? 



W. T. 



St. Pauls Clock striking Thirteen (1" S. i. 198. 

 449.) — At the places I have quoted, "N. & Q." 

 gives the tradition of St. Paul's clock striking 

 thirteen, and the life of John Hatfield, a soldier 

 charged with sleeping on his post at Windsor, 

 being saved by that circumstance. The story first 

 appeared in print, it would seem, in the Public 

 Advertiser of 22nd June, 1770, on the occasion of 

 the death of Hatfield, whose friends caused the 

 story to be engraved on his cofEn-plate. 



I have just met with an early allusion to it in 

 an anonymous volume of poems, entitled Weeds of 

 Parnassus by Timothy Scribble, published at Ro- 

 chester in 1774. In the first poem, " A Trip to 

 Windsor," the author says, 



" The terras walk we with surprise behold, 

 Of which the guides have oft the story told : 

 Hatfield, accused of sleeping on his post, 

 Heard Paul's bell sounding or his life had lost." 



Now this story was a good deal discussed in the 

 first vol. of " N. & Q." until a correspondent at p. 

 449., put this Query, Is the alleged fact mechani- 

 cally possible f As that query received no reply, 

 may I be allowed to repeat it? 



May I be allowed to add another : who was the 

 author of The Weeds of Parnassus, one of whose 

 poems is on a subject frequently discussed in your 

 columns, namely, the Punishment of Death by 

 Burning. It is entitled " On Mrs. Susanna Lot, 

 who was burnt at Pennenden Heath for poisoning 

 her Husband, July 21, 1769." S. P. 



Wife-selling (1" S. ii. 217. ; vii. 429. 602. ; viii. 

 43. 209. ; 2°" S. i. 420.) — The French believe we 

 sell our wives at Smithfield ; we call them block- 

 heads for their ignorance of our manners. The 

 following cutting from the Stamford Mercury of 

 November 26, is worthy of the attention of all 

 students of English civilisation : 



" Public Sale of a Wife. — On Monday a disgraceful 

 exhibition, the attempted sale of a wife, took place in 

 front of a beerhouse at Shear-Bridge, Little Horton, near 

 Bradford. The fellow who offered his wife for sale was 

 Hartley Thompson. She was a person of prepossessing 

 appearance. The sale had been duly announced by the 

 bellman. A large crowd had assembled. The wife, it is 

 said, appeared before the crowd with a halter, adorned 

 with ribbons, round her neck. The sale, however, was 

 not completed ; the reason for this being that some dis- 

 turbance was created by a crowd from a neighbouring 

 factory, and that the person to whom it was intended to 

 sell the wife (Ike Duncan) was detained at his work be- 

 yond the time. The couple, though not long wedded,, 

 have led a very unhappy life, and it is said they and 

 their friends were so egregiously ignorant as to believe 

 that they ^uld secure their own legal separation bj' such 

 an absurd course as this, — a public sale." 



K. P. D. E. 



Millicent, County of Kildare (2°'^ S. vi. 170. 

 422.) ^J. S. C, who kindly answered my Query, 

 would much oblige me if he could tell me who 

 have been the difiereiit proprietors of Millicent 

 House for four or five generations back ? F. 



