468 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2" d g. ix. June 16. '60. 



A portrait of Nathaniel Hooke may be seen in 

 the National Portrait Gallery, presented by the 

 present Lord Boston. Hooke's library after his 

 death became the property of the Rev. Mr. Stan- 

 hope. His elder brother, John, also came to Eng- 

 land, and was a serjeant-at-law of the English bar 

 in 1703. From the Serjeant's coat of arms, the 

 plate of which I possess engraved in that year, it 

 appears that his family was a junior branch of the 

 Hookes of Bramshot in Hants, who were descended 

 from Sir Richard Hooke of " Hooke " in York- 

 shire, who accompanied Edward I. in his wars 

 against the Scots, 1290-1300. 



I will send you a few Notes of that family, and 

 of that of the Hookes of Alway in Devon, and 

 shall be happy to receive information from any of 

 your learned correspondents who will favour me 

 with references to any works or memoranda relat- 

 ing to these ancient families, both of which are, 

 I believe, extinct. Noel Hooku Rodikson. 



DIBDIN'S SONGS. 

 (•2 nd S. ix. 3S0.) 



I thought, and still think, that it was hardly 

 just or true to say that Dibdin's Sea Songs were 

 " never generally accepted by sailors." The proof 

 that they were not seems to be in two points : 

 (1.) That S. H. M. never knew them to be so, 

 and (2.) That their erroneous sea slang makes it 

 impossible that they ever could be so. As to the 

 first point, I showed that Mr. Pitt, George III., 

 and Lord Minto seemed to think otherwise. 

 Probably they had good information. I have 

 been assured by naval men of high rank, and by 

 common sailors too, that Dibdin was very popular 

 among the seamen. Of course I speak of the 

 sailors of Dibdin's time and soon after. As to 

 the second point, I have already said I am no 

 judge of such matters. But it reminds me of a 

 case before the Lord Mayor, in whirh a man's 

 neighbours indicted hiin as dangerous, for making 

 explosive powder. The man's defence was, that 

 the powder would not explode except under pe- 

 culiar circumstances, and he offered to prove it 

 by striking a large packet on a metal rod, before 

 the Court. The Lord Mayor directed him to 

 make the experiment with a very small quantity. 

 The man did so, and the powder exploded as 

 loudly as a pistol. The man quietly said, " All 

 I can say is, it ought not." The sea songs ought 

 not, perhaps, to have been popular among sailors ; 

 but I believe they were. 



I agree for the most part with the criticisms of 

 S. H. M. upon the extracts he has given. So far, 

 that is, as I am able to judge. I make due ex- 

 ceptions : that on the lines 



"Blessed with a smiling can of grog, 

 If duty call, stand, rise oVfall, 

 To fate's last verge he'll jog." 



Most of your readers will probably think they 

 mean, " Much as a sailor loves drink, he will 

 leave even that, to tread the path of danger and 

 of duty, though it lead to death." A man may 

 as well "jog" (in this sense) in a ship as on 

 land. S. H. M. asks " for what ? " Clearly for 

 his king and country. I really see nothing more 

 incredible in a sailor's wearing the portrait of his 

 sweetheart, or dying for love, than in any man 

 doing such things. I suppose Dibdin did not 

 mean that sailors generally do such things. I 

 believe, howevei', that as much tenderness of 

 heart may be found under the rough exterior of 

 a sailor as in any other class of men. 



I freely own that S. H. M. is far better ac- 

 quainted with the Songs than I am ; for, to my 

 knowledge, I never saw any of the extracts he- 

 quotes till I read them in his article. 



Assuredly the defenders of Dibdin's fame have 

 no reason to complain of the handsome terms in 

 which S. H. M. speaks of the merits of Dibdin 

 as a writer and a composer. Let me observe that 

 I am not among the descendants of Dibdin who 

 have derived cither " honour" or " pydding" 

 (temporal advantage ?) from him, but rather the 

 reverse. Fairflay. 



THE DP. PEATELLIS FAMILY. 

 In" N. & Q." (1 st S. v. 248.) enquiry was made 

 as to the identity of the above name with that of 

 Prideaux of Devon, assumed to be the same on 

 the authority of Rev. Dr. Oliver, in his Historic 

 Collections relating to the Monasteries of Devon. 

 Four years later (2 nd S. ii. 468. 512.) the enquiry 

 was repeated, and then elicited a reply from Mb. 

 Charnock on the etymology of Prideaux, whose 

 conclusions were rather in favour of a different 

 origin, since confirmed by the editorial reference 

 in reply to a third enquiry on the same subject in 

 "N. & Q." (2" d S. ix. 428.) I think it can be 

 shown that "De Pratellis " is not synonymous 

 with " Prideaux," but is the Latin form of '•' Pri- 

 aulx," the name of a highly respectable family 

 located for some generations in this and the Wes- 

 tern Counties and in Guernsey, deriving their 

 patronymic from the ancient town of Preaux in 

 Normandy. (See second extract from Laiuar- 

 tiniere in Mr. Charnock's article as above.) In 

 a document drawn up for a member of this family 

 by a gentleman in Rouen in 1840 as to the con- 

 dition, at that time, of the once feudal residence 

 of its former possessors, " L'ancienne Famille des 

 Barons de Preaux ou Priaulx pros Rouen," he 

 mentions, among the existing characteristics, " les 

 hautes murs, le pram," Sec, and continues : — 



" L'Eglise de Preaux ren ferine les Tomhes de 



1° Toland de Priaulx, B0BOT de Henri II.*, Eoi d'Angle- 



* " By concubines King Henry [I.] had many children ; 

 it is said seven sons and as many daughters .... The 



