A reprint of this chapbook may be found
in vol. ii. of The Old Book Collector's
Miscellany,' edited by the late Charles
Hindley.
W. C. BOLLAND.

Lincoln's Inn.

This great snow was in 1614/15 :—

་་

'January 16th began the greatest snow which ever fell upon the earth within man's memorye. It covered the earth fyve quarters deep upon the playne. There fell also ten less snows in Aprill, some a foote deep, some lesse, but none continued long. Uppon May-day in the morning instead of fetching in flowers the youths brought in flakes of snow, which lay above a foot deep uppon the moores and mountaynes (Youlgrave Register, Derbyshire)."

"At York a heavy snow fell in January and eleven weeks frost, and then the river Ouse overflowed, which flooded the streets, and lasted ten days, destroying many bridges (Whittock's York)."

The above quotations are from T. H. Baker's Records of the Seasons, Prices of Agricultural Produce, and Phenomena ob

served in the British Isles.'

A. R. MALDEN.

From my transcription of the ancient records of Whitgift's Hospital, Croydon, I quote the following contemporary note :"Divided among the brethren and Sisters, in consideration of the Great Snow and cold winter, according to the appoyntment and warrant of my L. Grace of Canterbury, to each one the sum of vi. viii. amounting in all to the sum of x1. xiii'. iva. (1614-15)."

ALFRED CHAS. JONAS.

In my own childhood (fifteen to twenty years ago) at Epworth in Lincolnshire, we never had a Christmas tree, but always a bush of the type described by ANCHOLME. It was formed of two wooden hoops placed An interesting and verbatim account of one inside the other cross-wise, and then the great snow will be found in The Reli-trimmed with evergreens, such as holly, quary, vol. iv. p. 194, taken from the Youlgreave parish register; also an account of a great drought in the following spring, when only two showers of rain fell in over four months. "Nature always pays its debts."

ivy, box, &c. Apples, oranges, and small
fancy articles were suspended from the
framework, and a light hung in the middle
or below. I have seen such bushes in other
houses not many years since in the same
place, and my father tells me they were
common in South Notts in his boyhood.
It was there called the kissing-bush.”
We called it
H. I. B.
the holly-bush."

66

66

The earliest of those I knew over sixty years ago were much the same as described by ANCHOLME. The most used name for them in Derbyshire was "kissing-bush," because at every cottage Christmas gathering every one-child, maid, lad, as well as mother and father-had to be kissed under it, or, if it hung too low from the kitchen beam, by the side of it, and under it all the kissing forfeits in the games had to be redeemed.

At one of the editorial references given I described the making of the "Christmas

66

The Christmas tree, as stated in the query, was originally made in Germany," whence it was brought over to this country in the early decades of last century. Since then it has attained so great a popularity among us that, as regards devotion to the Christmas tree, Britain may now be said to be more German than Germany itself. The Christmas bough, however, preceded the Christmas tree, and has more claim to be regarded as a British institution. For a discussion of the tree as well as the bough, see the various articles on Christmas in Chambers's Book of Days,' vol. ii. With regard to literary references, does not Washington Irving, in his 'Sketch Book,' say something about the Christmas bough as a feature in Christmas observances ?

SCOTUS.

66

The reason probably why the owls were called " cherubims was the resemblance between owls and the winged faces that passed for cherubims" on headstones and elsewhere about village churches. I have heard a story of a lad who ran home to his father in a terrible fright, saying, "Father, father, I've shotten a cherubim," thinking he had committed some unheard-of impiety. The father at once consoled him by telling him it was nowt but a hullat (owlet) that he had shot. Winterton, Lincs.

66

J. T. F.

In the late Mr. Bosworth Smith's 'Bird Life and Bird Lore,' published by John Murray, may be seen a reproduction of an old print in Sporting Anecdotes' (1804, Albion Press) entitled Cherubim Shooting.' The white owl, which looks at times all head and wings, is not unlike the representation of cherubim in Christian art, in which the head represents the fullness of knowledge implied in the name, the wings the angelic nature. FRANK E. COOPE.

Thurlestone Rectory, Kingsbridge, S. Devon.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S. ii. 488). The lines quoted by MR. H. S. BRANDRETH are an incorrect version of a well-known passage in Tennyson's 'May

[MR. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL also thanked for Queen: Conclusion,' stanza 7 :reply.]

The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,

And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.

The oratio recta of the poet has been changed into the oratio obliqua in the query, and there are other variations.

W. S. S.

The original couplet is in Tennyson's May Queen.' The garbled version of it appears, I feel sure, in a novel by either Charles or Henry Kingsley. It is there applied to the Guards leaving London for the Crimea: Surely there was many a fine G. W. E. RUSSELL. fellow who," &c.

2.

One evening two miners borrowed a gun, and went out for some unaccustomed sport. Presently something flew across the path in front of them; the man with the gun fired, and the bird fell. But when the miners went to pick it up, they were first amazed, then terrified, for it was a big white owl; they had never seen anything like it before, and could not believe that it was a bird. So they came to the dread conclusion that they had shot a cherub. Filled with horror, they rushed off to the rector, confessed their crime, and asked what they should do to save themselves from punishment. Thereupon the rector, who loved a joke, said that on Sunday they must walk through the village to the church, each clad in a white sheet, as a sign of penitence. Which was done, and no evil consequences resulted to the slayers. G. H. WHITE. now

St. Cross, Harleston, Norfolk.

is

66

JOHN BRIGHT'S QUOTATIONS (11 S. ii. 508).
Unholy is the voice
Of loud thanksgiving over slaughter'd men,
Cowper's translation of 'Odyssey,' xxii.
WM. EDWARD POLLARD.
Hertford.

412.

3. Fortune came smiling," &c., will be found in Dryden's' All for Love.'

W. SCOTT.

4. "The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes " is from "Childe Harold,' iv. 79. THOMAS BAYNE.

berries are not red, but a reddish-black, and yield a violet juice.

The Anemone pulsatilla or pasque-flower, found in abundance near Ashwell, Herts, is also known locally as Danes'-blood. Mr. E. V. Methold in his 'Notes on Stevenage, Herts,' remarks that in the hedges of the field known to this day as Danes' Blood Field" there grows a plant called " monkshood," in which, during the spring, the sap turns W. B. GERISH.

'GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE': NUMBERING OF VOLUMES (11 S. ii. 388, 477).-I am indebted to MR. A. S. LEWIS for his reply, but it is not clear to me that he solves the difficulty by assuming a slip on the part of the editor. No doubt it is true, as MR. LEWIS points out, that the preface of the January to June, 1857, volume speaks of its two hundred predecessors "; but this seems to be merely a loose phrase for "two hundred or thereby," as the immediately preceding to a reddish colour. leaf explicitly styles the volume the twohundred-and-second since the commencement," and this numeration is adhered to in subsequent volumes.

Another correspondent points out that in the Preface to the Obituary Index printed in 1891 an attempt is made to defend the numeration by reckoning the issue for 1782 as composed of two volumes instead of one. But is there any justification for this?

The numbers for 1781 run to 633 pages. The numbers for 1782 run to 631 pages. The numbers for 1783 run to 1067 pages. It thus appears that the increase in bulk suggesting the breaking-up of each year into two parts took place in 1783, not 1782. Further, I find that the caption-heading of the number for July, 1783, is "The Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1783: being the first number of the second part of vol. 53 ; while the heading of the number for July, 1782, lacks the italicized part. Our copy of July to December, 1783, has an independent title-page: "The Gentleman's Magazine.... for the year 1783. Part the second." Does a corresponding title-page exist for July to December, 1782 ? P. J. ANDERSON.

Aberdeen University Library.

DANES'-BLOOD, A FLOWER (11 S. ii. 488).This is a local name in Hertfordshire and Essex applied to several plants which are supposed to owe their origin to the blood of slaughtered Danes. My first acquaintance with a plant of this denomination proved to be the Danewort or dwarf elder, which grew fairly freely in places by the side of the main road between Anstey and Barkway.

Weever in his Antient Funeral Monuments,' 1631, p. 707, referring to Bartlow, Essex, says :—

"Danewort, which with bloud - red berries commeth up here plenteously, they still call by no other name than Danesbloud, of the number of the Danes that were there slaine."

Camden in his 'Britannia,' 1607, refers to the same plant as the wall-wort or dwarf elder. It should be noted that the elder

In Tongues in Trees,' a work on plantlore published by George Allen in 1891, I read at p. 48:

"The pasque-flower, Anemone pulsatilla, a native in the fields near Royston, is there supposed to have grown from the blood of Danes slain in battle. The same idea attaches in Wiltshire to the Danewort or dwarf elder, Sambucus Ebulus; though at the High Cross on Watling Street near Leicester it is recorded as having been planted by the Romans as a preservative against dropsy."

W. T.

According to Folkard, the plant to which this legend properly belongs is the dwarf elder. He quotes Aubrey in support, who locates the legend at Slaughterford in Wilts.

Friend says the name is given in various places to the rose, anemone, thistle, Adonis, and other flowers too numerous to mention. C. C. B.

Britten and Holland, 'Plant Names,' 1886, p. 142, give three species: 1. Sambucus Ebulus, L., Cambs, Wilts; 2. Anemone pulsatilla, L., Cambs, N. Essex, Norf. Campanula glomerata, L., Cambs.

Ulverston.

S. L. PETTY.

3.

It is not only the clustered bell-flower (Campanula glomerata) that is known as Danes'-blood. The dwarf elder, Sambucus Ebulus, is also known both as Danes'-blood and Danes'-wort (Berkshire), and, as may be seen in Salmon's 'London Dispensatory," was a common remedy for various ills. The popular belief that the flower sprang originally from the blood of the Danes which

stained the ancient battle-fields is still common in Wiltshire, North Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Cumberland, North Essex, and Norfolk. In Northamptonshire the plant is known also as Dane-weed, and Defoe in his Tour through Great Britain' speaks of his going a little out of the road from Daventry to see a great camp called Barrow Hill, and adds :—

of the neighbouring Daventry, which they suppose to be built by them. The road hereabouts, too, being overgrown with Dane-weed, they fancy it sprang from the blood of Danes slain in battle; and that, if upon a certain day in the year you cut it, it bleeds."-Vol. ii. p. 362.

There is a full account of the tradition in
The Gardeners' Chronicle, 1875, p. 515. See
also Prior and Britten, s.v.v. Danewort,
Daneweed; Aubrey's Natural History of
Wilts,' p. 50; Natural History and Anti-
quities of Surrey,' iv. 217, cited in Flowers
and Flower Lore,' by the Rev. Hilderie
Friend, 1884. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.
4, Hurlingham Court, S.W.

[G. F. R. B. also thanked for reply.]
HIGH STEWARDS AND RECORDERS AT THE
RESTORATION (11 S. ii. 488).-Sir Orlando
Bridgeman was Lord Keeper of the Great
Seal 1667-72, during which time there was
no one with the title of Lord Chancellor.

Lord Campbell in the introduction to his 'Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England,' 1845, vol. i. p. 20, cites 5 Eliz. c. 18, which declares that the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for the time being shall have the same place, pre-eminence, and jurisdiction as the Lord Chancellor of England."

66

He continues:

"Since then there of course never have been a Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal concurrently, and the only difference between the two titles is, that the one is more sounding than the other, and is regarded as a higher mark of royal favour."

Will MRS. SUCKLING give her reference for the statement that Roger Gollop was M.P. for Southampton in 1659, and say whether Southampton means the county or the borough ? There is no Roger Gollop in the Index of the Official (Blue-book) Return of Members of Parliament. This does not prove that there was no such member, as the seventeenth-century lists are not perfect. George Gollopp, or Gollop, or Gallopp, alderman, sat for Southampton borough in the Parliaments of 17 May, 1625-12 August, 1625; of 6 February, 1625/6—15 June, 1626; of 17 March, 1627/8-10 March, 1628/9; and of 1640 (Long Parliament).

corder of Southampton, appears alone as member for the borough.

In the lists of the next three Parliaments, viz., of 1656, 1658/9, and 1660, the borough does not appear. It reappears in that of 1661 with two members.

In the list of the Parliament of 1658/9, which lasted less than three months, there were two members for Southampton county: one of unknown name ("Return torn "), the other Robert Wallopp, Esq., of Fare Wallopp, co. Southampton. About that time a Wallopp generally sat for the county. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

[G. F. R. B., DIEGO, M., and MR. W. SCOTT also thanked for replies.]

DANTE, RUSKIN, AND A FONT (11 S. ii. 469).-Dante says himself ('Inferno,' xix. 19-20), when speaking of the punishment of the Simonists :

"I saw the livid stone, on the sides and on the bottom, full of holes, all of one breadth; and each

was round. Not less wide they seemed to me, nor
larger, than those that are in my beauteous San
Giovanni made for stands to the baptizers; one of
which, not many years ago, I broke to save one that
was drowning in it:

L'un delli quali, ancor non è molt' anni,
Rupp' io per un che dentro ri annegava.'
A. R. BAYLEY.

MISS SUMNER: MRS. SKRINE OR SKREENE

(11 S. ii. 389, 475).-I have a copy of the Chippendale book-plate of Wm. Brightwell Sumner of Hatchlands, East Clandon, Surrey, with a bequest label attached, "The Bequest of my Brother, the Revd Dr Rob Carey Sumner," which is enclosed in a In the Parliament of 13 April, 1640-floral wreath, c. 1770. The arms εre: 5 May, 1640, Southampton borough was represented by Sir John Mill, Bt., and Thomas Levingstonne, Esq. In the nextthe Long Parliament-one of the two members was George Gollopp (see above). the next, 3 September, 1654-22 January, 1654/5, John Lisle, Esq., one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, and Re

In

Ermines, two chevronels or, a crescent gu. for difference, impaling....a stag trippent ....for Holme. Crest, a lion's head erased ...ducally gorged....

There is another book-plate of this family, viz., a festoon armorial, c. 1780, for Geo. Holmne Sumner, armiger, of Hatchlands; but I have not a copy of it.