2 nd S. IX. May 12. 'GO.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



365 



tess?" Is the book often met with ? I do not 

 remember to have ever seen it : — 



" In the press, and will speedily be published, in Ten 

 Numbers, Three Hundred Letters on the most Interest- 

 ing Subjects, containing a great Variety of entertaining 

 Matter ; written by a late venerable and distinguished 

 Countess well known in the literary world, addressed to 

 her Kinswoman, the late Lady Tyrawley ; and by way 

 of Appendix will also be published 100 Letters on Mis- 

 cellaneous subjects, by a living character, the daughter 

 of the same venerable Countess, the whole forming such 

 a curious Collection, as has never before been offered to 

 the Irish public." 



W. J. F. 

 .• 



Wordsworth Travestie. — Some years ago 

 there appeared a parody on, or imitation of, the 

 Wordsworth school of poetry, commencing in 

 this strain : — 



" Did you never hear the story 



Of the lady under the holly tree ? 

 It's a sad tale, and will make you weep, 

 It always does me. 



" This lady had a little dog, 

 One of King Charles' breed, 

 &c. &c. &c." 



I particularly wish to know who was the author 

 of this poetic trifle, and where I can obtain a 

 complete copy of the poem ? T. Hughes. 



Chester. 



" Scdgedltjit," its Etymology. — I should 

 feel obliged if any of your learned contributors 

 could inform me of the derivation of " Sudged- 

 luit," the name of an old British town in North 

 Lancashire, long since numbered with the past. 



Finlayson. 



Sir John Bowring. — Can any of your readers 

 tell us more than is told by himself of a Sir John 

 Bowring, the companion of Charles the First in his 

 Carisbrook Castle imprisonment, and who stood 

 by him at the time of his execution ? Mr. Knight 

 avers that had bis counsels been listened to by 

 the king, his majesty would have been rescued 

 from his perils. He says he provided on more 

 than one occasion 'for his master's most urgent 

 necessities several hundred pounds in gold, which 

 lie delivered into the king's hands, and that in 

 gratitude for the dangers he had incurred, and 

 the services he bad rendered, he was made a 

 baronet; but the patent (not being enrolled at the 

 Heralds' Office in consequence of the troubles of 

 the times), was eaten by" mice, in its place of con- 

 cealment behind the wainscot. Sir John Bow- 

 ring's Narrative addressed to Charles the Second, 

 was published in Miscellanies, Historical and Phi- 

 Ig&Ogioal) (pp. 78 — HJ2), London, 1703, and was 

 reprinted in the Harleian Collection. Mr. Knight 

 Belonged to the family of the Bowrings of Devon, 

 who were settled for several centuries at Ben- 

 ningsleigh. One of them, John Bowring, was 

 J. cut Header in the Inner Temple in 1505, and 



afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 

 Ireland (Origines Judiciales, p. 215.), and another 

 of the same name issued a brass token, with the 

 inscription, " John Bowring, of Chumleigh, his 

 halfpenny, 1670." Inquirer. 



Earl of Galway. — Henry de Massue, Mar- 

 quis of Ruvigny, in Picardy, quitted his native 

 country in consequence of religious persecution, 

 and entered the service of King William III., by 

 whom he was created Viscount and Earl of Gal- 

 way. The Earl, who played a conspicuous part 

 in his day, died3rd September, 1720, when his 

 titles became extinct. Can any reader of " N. & 

 Q." refer me to any authority for his pedigree, or 

 say whether he was ever married ? R. S. 



Hhwtxiti foffl) ^rtffowtf. 



" Saltfoot Controversy." — I have occasion- 

 ally found allusion made to this Controversy. I 

 guess it is something regarding heraldry or family 

 history. Where can I obtain information about 

 it ? S. Wmson. 



[In former times, as is well known, there was a marked 

 and. invidious subordination maintained among persons 

 admitted to the same dinner table. A large salt-cellar 

 was usually placed about the centre of a long table, the 

 places above which were assigned to the guests of more 

 distinction ; those below to dependents, inferiors, and poor 

 relations. Hence Dekker, in The Honest Whore, ex- 

 claims : 



" Plague him ; set him below the salt, and let him not 

 touch a bit, till every one has had his full cut." 



Bishop Hall, too, in his Byting Satires, 1559, speaking 

 of some " trencher-chapelaine" who would stand to good 

 conditions : 



" First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed, 

 While his young maister lieth o'er his head; 

 Second, that he do, upon no default, 

 Never to sit above the salt." 



The Salt-foot controversy originated in two passages 

 quoted from the Memorie of the Somervi/les, edited by Sir 

 Walter Scott, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for 

 April, 1817. It appears that Somerville, laird of Drum, 

 who wrote in the year 1G79, has asserted in his account 

 of his own family, that Sir Walter Stewart of Allanton, 

 Knight, was, " from some antiquity, a fewar of the Earl 

 of Tweddill's in Auchtermuire, whose predecessors, until 

 this man (Sir Walter), never came to sit above the sail-foot 

 when at the Lord of Cambusnethen's table — which for 

 ordinar}' every Sabboth they dyned at, as did most of the 

 honest men within the parish of any account." (il/twone 

 of the Somervi/les, ii. 394.) An assertion which he also 

 makes when talking of his brother, Sir James Stewart of 

 Kirkfield and Coltness, whom he styles " a gentleman of 

 very mean familie upon Clyde, being brother-german to 

 the goodman of Allentone (a fewar of the Earle of Twed- 

 dill's in Auchtermuire, within Cambusnethen parish), 

 whose predecessors, before this man, never came to sit 

 above the Laird of Cambusnethen's salt-foot." {Ibid., 

 p. 380.) 



On the other hand, the Allantons stoutly maintain, that 

 both Sir Walter's immediate and more remote ancestry 



