L"i S. IX. Feu. 2a. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



147 



It hath lain dormant almost half an age, and hath crawl'd 

 out in manuscript into some few hands." The names of 

 the performers are not given. The original names of the 

 dramatis persona are changed in the printed copy.] 



Cavaliere John Gallini. — 



" Ob, Charlotte, these are glorious limes; 

 I shall get money for my rhymes, 



E'en from the Macaronies; 

 GallinVs fops, who trip at balls, 

 And breast the cold air wrapt in shawls, 

 Astride their little ponies." 



Ode to Charlotte Hayes, about 1770. 



A note to "astride their little ponies" says, " the 

 fashionable mode of paying visits." 



Gallini was a dancing-master, who amassed 

 100,000/., and married Lady Elizabeth Bertie, 

 a daughter of the Earl of Abingdon. After this 

 he was knighted, and became Sir John Gallini. 

 Was there any issue from this marriage ? W. D. 



[The Cavaliere Giov. Andrea Gallini, improperly styled 

 Sir John Gallini, as his knighthood was never acknow- 

 ledged by the English sovereign, was a knight of the 

 Golden Spur, an order conferred by the Pope. Lad}- 

 Elizabeth, his wife, died 17th August, 1804, and Caval. 

 John Gallini on 5th Jan. 1805. By Lady Elizabeth he 

 left two daughters and a son Capt. Gallini. It is reported 

 that Gallini came from Italy to England a ragged boy, 

 with only half-a-crown in his pocket, and is said to have 

 boasted of this to some of the poor at Yattendon in Berk- 

 shire, where he built a mansion in the Italian style. 

 There is a monument erected to his memory in Yatten- 

 don Church. Gallini was the author of A Treatise on the 

 Art of Dancing, 1762. It was very popular for some 

 time, even as a literary performance, until, unluckily for 

 the Cavaliere, all the historical part of it was discovered 

 in a work of M. Canusac, published at the Hague, 1754. 

 See Dr. Doran's Knights and their Bays, p. 472, for some 

 curious particulars of Gallini.] 



Eeplfof. 



FICTITIOUS PEDIGREES. 

 (2 ai S. ix. 61. 131.) 



I doubt if there were ever any Cotgreave MSS. 

 that would be of any service to the county-his- 

 torian, the antiquary, or genealogist. Mr. Spence's 

 story was, that " he was employed by the widow 

 of Sir John Cotgreave" (who had been, in 1815, 

 mayor of Chester, and knighted,) "to inspect and 

 arrange the title deeds and other documents in 

 her Ladyship's possession; that he had found an 

 antient pedigree of the Cotgreaves made by Ran- 

 dle Holme in 1672, and that it contained the de- 

 scent of four generations of the Monsons," &c. &c. 

 Lady Cotgreave was ready to vouch for the au- 

 thenticity of this, and, indeed, the signature of 

 Harriet Cotgreave was appended. There was also 

 enclosed an engraving <>f the arms of Cotgreave 

 impaling Crosse and Spence. Mr. Spence, there- 

 fore, was no doubt a relation of Lady Cotgreave. 



It is not worth while to enter more into details 

 nl what was in fact a clumsy fiction; but as a 



matter of curiosity, it might be as well to see if a 

 pedigree of the old family of Cotgreaves of Har- 

 grave may not exist among the collections of 

 Handle Holme in the British Museum. The ori- 

 ginal stock became extinct in the male line in 

 1724, as Mr. Spence himself admitted; but I 

 think such pedigree is very likely to be found, 

 and probably in it the materials from which the 

 fictitious descents were concocted may be easily 

 traced. 



One more caution, however, is necessary. The 

 pedigrees of Randle Holme even must not be 

 accepted with implicit credence, though often 

 made out very circumstantially ; I will give one 

 instance from a collection of his in Harl. MS., 

 2050. At folio 482. will be found a descent of 

 Bepington of Repington. The first in the line, 

 Roger, is said to have been " Cofferer to y° Em- 

 press Maud, A 1100." His son, Sir Richard, 

 was " slayne in a Tournay before the King, 1178." 

 Sir Richard's son Thomas " was taken prisoner at 

 the»battle of Poictiers, and sold his lands to re- 

 lease himself, 40 Edw. 3." And Thomas's son 

 Adam was " standard-bearer to Rich. II., and died 

 1399." Four generations only in 300 years ! 



Monson. 



ARITHMETICAL NOTATION. 

 (2 Dd S. viii. 411. 460. 520.; ix. 52.) 



Of the two alternatives proposed by Professor 

 De Morgan, I regret that I cannot absolutely 

 accept either. I cannot at all agree to the first, 

 that compotus is meant to stand for compositus, 

 for I am not only certain that this is not the 

 case in my MS., but farther that it is never the 

 case, no such contraction for compositus as covi- 

 ])otus having any existence. I am very sure of 

 this, not only from my own daily experience of 

 MSS. of very various ages and characters, but 

 also from that of others better qualified than my- 

 self to offer an opinion upon the question. The 

 second, that compotus is a mistake for compositus, 

 I must demur to, " until more instances are pro- 

 duced ;" although, accepting it provisionally, it is 

 easy to see how the mistake might have arisen in 

 two transcriptions from the form compoitus ; the 

 first transcriber omitting the circumflex, the se- 

 cond either not seeing the i in the transformed 

 word, or, which is rarer, correcting a word which 

 he did not understand into one which he did. 

 Judging, however, from the Chinese accuracy 

 with which, when there is an original to compare 

 him with, the scribe of my MS. is in the habit of 

 following it, I should think that it was not he 

 that was answerable for the blunder or the emen- 

 dation. 



With regard to the second point, the most 

 common meaning of compotus or computus, I admit 

 the authority of the learned doctor called iu 



