This is mentioned in Mr. W. M. Rossetti's "Poetical Works of P. B. Shelley,' vol. i. p. 153. Mr. Rossetti professes ignorance of the writer's name, but suggests that he was "the 'F.' named in Hogg's book." EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. Hastings.

HOMER: OMAR (8th S. viii. 307).—The personal name which we usually write Aymer or Aylmer appears in various forms in early charters-Eymer, Eumerus, Homer, Homerus, Hamer, &c. As a patronymic it assumes the form Emerson, and the Italian diminutive Amerigo (corresponding to English Almeric) provided the name of the Western continent. HERBERT MAXWELL.

Bardsley's English Surnames,' ed. 1875, has the following statement at p. 223 :

"The old Norman word was either 'healme' or 'heaume.' The more ordinary term for the former now is helmet.' Hall, writing of the Battle of Bosworth Field, after mentioning the fact of the armies coming in sight the one of the other, says: Lord, how hasteley the souldyoures buckled their healmes.""

"Manekyn le Heaumere" occurs in the Rolls of Parliament. The other day I saw 66 'Homer Herring" above a shop door in Brighton. Perhaps the former is a surname; let us hope so. F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

Surely Omer & Joram, the drapers in 'David Copperfield,' are not forgotten. Dickens never coined names.

ARMORIAL SEAL (8th S. viii. 429).-The arms described by MR. FLOYD as (presumably) occupying the dexter half of the shield, viz., A lion rampant reguardant sable; crest, the same holding between his paws a fleur-de-lis, are those of Sir Pryse Pryse, Bart., of Gogerddan, Cardiganshire. The impaled arms (doubtless the wife's) I am unable to identify. OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B. Fort Augustus, N.B.

Arms, Sable, a lion rampant reguardant or (Lloyd, co. Brecon). Sable, a fess between three dexter hands appaumy argent (Bates, co. York). Crest, a lion rampant reguardant, in the dexter paw a fleur-de-lis argent (Lloyd).

JOHN RADCLIFFE.

REV. DR. GLASSE (8th S. viii. 228, 389).—In Lysons's Environs of London' we find that Dr. Glasse contributed 2001. towards the rebuilding of Hanwell Church in 1781, the total cost of the edifice being 1,765l. He wrote an epitaph to the memory of his wife Anne, who was buried in the church in 1802. The doctor himself died in 1809. Hanway was related to Dr. Glasse, and frequently visited him at the rectory. I know one family which still bears the name of Glasse, but cannot say if they are the descendants of Hanwell's rector.

ETHERT BRand.

Barry Road, Stonebridge Park, N.W.

WILLIAM THOMPSON, OF HUMBLETON (8th S. viii. 408).-Fifty years ago there existed (and for aught I know there exist still) in the village of Humbleton two endowed schools, one of them "supported by the munificence of Thomas Thompson, Esq." This fact may in part supply an answer to MR. BETHELL'S query, as Mr. Thompson, if not lord of the manor, was, presumably, at least a landowner in the parish which he thus benefited. OSWALD HUNTER BLAIR, O.S.B. Fort Augustus, N.B.

See the pedigree in Dugdale's 'Visitation,' Surtees Soc., p. 122, and Poulson's 'Holderness.' An inscription at Kilham speaks of this family as 'gens numerosissima." W. C. B.

"COMFORTABLE"=COMFORTING, KIND (8th S. viii. 286, 413).-The late learned and witty Sheriff Barclay, of Perth, in his 'Old Glasgow,' gives the following grim instance of the word in this etymological sense :—

"One Thomas or Tam Young long held the office of headsman. He was to be seen every day taking his solitary walk in the public Green escorted by one or two ugly bulldogs. The gallows-tree at the Cross was a strange erection, fixed with many ropes upright to the

Steeple. Afterwards, when death was inflicted in front of the Jail at the foot of the Green, a large box or chest was formed as the gallows. It was erected in a wright's yard then in Buchanan Street. It was frequently visited during its erection by morbidly curious people. It could be separated, and each board was numbered, and so could be easily put together. There were four or five who were at the time of its construction under sentence of death. Tamas having been taken to see the machine and to give his opinion as to its accommodation, naively replied that four could be comfortably hanged on the beam, but not more. That number did in 1819 expiate their crimes on this ill-fated machine." A. G. REID.

Auchterarder.

com

At the second reference AYEAHR quotes from Dr. Aldis Wright's 'The Bible Word Book,' "coumfortide bym with nailes," and asks whether the word is used in legal indictments-as 66 forting" a traitor. Now this query is curious, as Dr. Wright says, just before the quotation above: “Lord Campbell, in his Essay on Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements' (p. 82), remarks upon the passage in 'K. Lear,' III. v., 'If I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion more fully'; The indictment against an accessory after the fact for treason charges that the accessory "comforted" the principal traitor after knowledge of the treason.''

Trench says, in his 'Select Glossary,' that confortare, so frequent in the Vulgate, is first to make strong, to corroborate, and only in a secondary sense to console. "A comfortable sort of body' " is a common expression in the North of England, as applied to a kind, motherly sort of person. In the Cornhill Magazine for December, 1895, No. 150, p. 602, there is the remark, in 'An Arbitrary Lover, "I had a comfor❜able home an' a comfor'. able husband." So we speak about a comfortable room, chair, bed, fire, &c., whereby we imply that they impart comfort. F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

said of it."

Shakespeare affords us yet another instance :— "Viola. Most sweet lady,"Olivia. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be 'Twelfth Night,' I. v. This use of the word is still very common in popular speech. "A comfortable old soul," in the Midland Counties, means one who makes you comfortable. C. C. B.

In the active sense of affording comfort, comfortable occurs in our Prayer Book version of the Psalms (liv. 6), "I will praise Thy name, O Lord, because it is so comfortable." E. WALFORD. Ventnor.

"Hear what comfortable words Our Saviour Christ saith." These words, from the Communion Service, are to be found in the first Prayer Book of King Edward VI. of 1549. C. W. PENNY. Wokingham,

PITT CLUB (8th S. viii. 108, 193).-The definition of the Pitt Club given by a correspondent

The

his connecting it with the Carlton Club. The Pitt Club was composed of members sharing in the political principles of Mr. Pitt, supporting and advocating his measures on all questions. Fox Club was, and is, analogous to it, save that the latter advocated the opinions of Mr. Fox, Pitt's great political opponent.

The Pitt Club, as a matter of course, met and dined together, and each member wore, suspended from the buttonhole by a dark blue ribbon, a badge, of which the obverse had the profile likeness of the great statesman on a black enamelled ground, with the motto, "Non sibi, sed patrie, vixit," the whole encircled by a silver-gilt setting of oak-leaves. On the reverse was the name of the member to whom the badge belonged. One such badge is in my possession at this moment, formerly worn by my father. That the Carlton, a Conservative club of recent times, thought fit to inCorporate the died-out embers of the Pitt Club is exceedingly likely, though I never knew it before; but it had otherwise nothing in common with the original Pitt Club, save its politics. The members of the club were perfectly well known at the time, and each sat in the House of Commons-with one Z. or two exceptions in the Upper House.

WELDON FAMILY, IRELAND (8th S. viii. 145, 210). The following extracts concerning the Clerk of the Spiceries, from whom Sir A. Weldon, Bart., without warrant, claims descent, are not without interest. Bishop Goodman, in the Aulicus Coquinariæ,' says of Sir A. Weldon, of Kent :

"That his parents took rise from Queen Elizabeth's kitchen, and left it (i. e., the kitchen) a legacy for preferment of his issue. Sir A. went the same way, and by grace of the Court set up to the grace of cloth, in which place attending King James into Scotland he practised there to libel that nation, which [presumably the libel] was wrapped up in a record of that Board, and by the from his place as unworthy to eat his bread whose birthhand being known to be his was deservedly removed right he had so vilely defamed."

Bishop Goodman adds, "I have given him the name of a knight because he hath pleased so to stile [sic] himself." The Aulicus Coquinaria' derives its quaint title from Sir A. Weldon being the son of Queen Elizabeth's cook. Wood, in Athenæ Oxonienses,' pp. 729, 730, after quoting the above statement of the Bishop's, adds: "Sir A. Weldon sided with the Long Parliament, out of discontent, and when the wars were ended was a committeeman of Kent for the sequestration of Royalists, and mostly chairman of that committee."

CHEFOO.

CONVENT OF CHAILLOT, PARIS (8th S. viii. 509). -There is no difficulty in getting leave to work at "les Archives." D.

his 'History of Manchester,' published in 1772, has much to say about the dogs of the ancient Britons :

"All of them particularly attracted the admiration of the naturalists and the regard of the sportsmen among the Romans, before and after their conquests in the island. But the principal sorts which seem to be natives of the country are these five, the great household dog, the greyhound. the bulldog, the terrier, and the large slow hound. The first is furnished with no sagacity of nose, but has no uncommon degree of vigour and courage, the general strength of its limbs are incredibly great."

In addition to the couplet alluded to by MR. FERGUSON, another poet of the third century extols the greyhound of the British race. The bulldog, says our reverend historian,

"enjoys equally a good nose and a gallant spirit. And the latter is so peculiarly great that this animal has perhaps a larger share of courage than any other in the world; the bravery of the breed has gained them the credit of frequent mention in the records of antiquity. The Gauls even purchased them early for the uses of war, and embattled them with their native dogs for the fight......Strabo (p. 305) expressly commends them in general as incomparable hounds on the field." Most likely, then, this would be the dog MR. FERGUSON writes of as being fiercer and more powerful than the greyhound, and as being capable of attacking wolves.

The little terrier, so useful in the destruction of the weezle and polecat of our woods. These and other classes of our woodland vermin, without them, would have multiplied to an excessive degree in the country, and have proved a great annoyance to the poultry-yards

and hare-parks of the Britons. The terrier, therefore, was necessary among us in that period."

The large slow-hound, Whitaker states, must have hunted "some animal that was at least as heavy and as slow as itself, and that could only have been the British segh, or moose." He further states that "the British dogs were a very gainful RICHARD LAWSON.

article to the Romans."

Urmston, Manchester.

Abington Pigotts.

WM. GRAHAM F. PIGOTT.

rites were not Roman. See also an article in Dr. Smith's 'Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities' ("Sacrificium"), where two soldiers were sacrificed to the god Mars so late as the time of Julius Cæsar for attempted insurrection. His authority is Dio Cassius. G. T. SHERBORN. Twickenham.

"BATTLETWIG": "LANDLADY": "BOGGART" (8th S. viii. 85, 255).-The first of these will be found in Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English,' where the meaning is given, "an earwig." According to Wright, the word in this sense is common in the Northern and Midland Counties. "Landlady," as a name for the insect commonly known as the ladybird, is unfamiliar to me; but I read that in Yorkshire they are called "lady clocks." The name "cow-lady" is also in vogue in the northern county. In London I have never heard other than "lady-bird," but have frequently heard of the superstition to which MR. One may HUSSEY refers in his communication. hear, even to this day, children cry out, when catching sight of the insect, the familiar lines :Ladybird, ladybird, fly away,

Come again another day.

There is, or used to be, a superstition that if a ladybird was killed rainy weather would follow as a consequence. My recollection of the superstition is somewhat hazy, but, so far as my memory serves me, it was as I say. With regard to boggart," the following, from a 'Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases,' may be interesting :

"Boggle, Boggart, a fearful object, a hobgoblin. As fairies had their haunts in former times. Claymore in most places, so in this quarter have boggles and Well, near Kettleness, on the coast, was a noted spot where the fairies washed their clothes and beat and bleached them, for on their washing-nights the strokes

of their bittles or battledores were heard as far as Runewick. The woods of Mulgrave were haunted by Jeanie of Biggersdale, whose habitation a daring young farmer once ventured to approach and call her by name, when lo! she angrily replied she was coming; and while he was escaping near the running stream, just as his horse was half across, she cut it in two parts; but fortunately he was upon the half which had got beyond the water!" "Flay-boggle" is another word found in the Glossary. This is a name for a scarecrow used in cornfields to frighten away birds.

C. P. HALE.

In Derbyshire the earwig is commonly "battletwig," and, probably because of the fearsome tales told of its supposed habit of creeping into the ears of people when asleep, every one, nearly, kill all they find. The name "battletwig," I have heard some say, is derived from the habit of the insect to show fight by opening its "nippers," with which it "twigs "nips or pinches.

In the same county the "landlady " is unknown, this insect going by the name of "ladybird," "cowbird," and "ladycow." Children are told that it

On Tyneside" twitch-bell," and, more shortly, 'twitchy," are in use for the earwig, while the ladybird is known as the "cushy coo lady," a children's rhyme being

Cushy coo lady, fly away home,

Your house is on fire, your children all gone. R. B. CANALETTO IN ENGLAND (8th S. viii. 407).In conexion with this subject I will mention that I have thirty-eight of Canaletto's beautiful etchings of Venice, each measuring 16 in. by 10 in. They are bound up in an oblong folio, and were published at Venice in the year 1742. The book also contains a very fine portrait of him, as well as of Antonius Visentini, who engraved the etchings. On a blank page I find the following MS. note respecting him :

"Venice is further distinguished for its landscape painters, of whom Antonio Canal, or Canale, commonly called Canaletto, enjoys a European reputation. He was born at Venice in 1697, and was taught by his father Bernardo, who was a scene-painter; be himself followed the same occupation until 1719, when he gave it up entirely. Antonio visited Rome at an early age, and here, like his compatriot Giovanni Piranesi, he devoted himself to the study of the magnificent ruins of the ancient capital of the world. He returned to Venice, and astonished the Venetians by his elaborate views of the canals and palaces of the Queen of the Adriatic. In 1746 he came to England, and painted many of the historical buildings of London and other places. He was very successful, and acquired a fortune by his works. He used the Camera Lucida as a help in the great accuracy

of his views. Canaletto died at Venice in 1768."

Among the pictures in the Deanery at Westminster there is a picture by Canaletto, painted for Bishop Wilcocks. It represents the western part of the Abbey Church, with St. Margaret's in the background. A procession of the Knights of the Bath is coming forth from the porch, proceeding through the churchyard, and entering the south end of King Street, it may be presumed on its way to Whitehall. There was an installation of the Bath 26 June, 1749, and that is probably the date of this picture. See Malcolm's 'Londinium Redivivum,' 1803, vol. i. p. 136. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

Without being able to decide how long or how many times he visited the metropolis, we can fix his lodging. His view of St. James's Park was exhibited at the house of Richard Wiggans, according to the London Journal (?), 26 July, cabinet-maker, Silver Street, Golden Square, 1749. The reason I have queried the name of the newspaper is that some time ago one of my notebooks got mutilated by a little puppy dog gnawing one corner, but the cutting will be found in Lysons's Collectanea,' vol. ii. p. 161. AYEAHR.

LEITCHTOWN And Gartur ARMS (8th S. viii. 289, 370, 416, 494).—If iteration and reiteration will prove anything, your correspondent MR. W. M. GRAHAM EASTON may be held to have established that Graham of Leitchtown is the head of the house of Menteith. But as he has carefully avoided giving the pedigree of this family (although in one of his contributions he stated it would be published) he can hardly expect the readers of N. & Q.' to accept his assumption as correct. In Burke's 'Landed Gentry' (1844) Graham of Leitchtown is said to be descended from the noble house of Graham, Earl of Menteith, through the Gartur family. MR. EASTON evidently does not regard this descent as true, because in an article on Graham of Gartur' (8th S. viii. 134) he gives it as his opinion that the Gartur family branched off How, then, does MR. EASTON Connect Graham of Blaircessnoch, whose origin he does not mention.

Leitchtown with the Earls of Menteith? When he answers this question genealogists will be better able to discuss the merits of the claim he so confidently puts forward on behalf of that family.

W. B. C.

plate of the arms being incorrect). Papworth, under the above arms, gives Patrick de Graham (Glover's Ordinary') and Graham, Scotland. Burke, in his Armory, 1844, and 'Extinct Peerage, 1866, is silent as to the arms of the family. Work man's MS., the same as far as the Graham family is concerned. The query is, How are the arms blazoned in the MS. at the Lyon Office? Will MR. EASTON give his authorities for the statement that the field is or instead of argent in the Menteith arms.

JOHN RADCLIFFE.

ST. SAMPSON (8th S. viii. 427).—Information is asked at the above reference with respect to St. Sampson, "to whom a fine church is dedicated at Cricklade, Wiltshire."

The festival of St. Sampson, Bishop and Confessor, is kept at Dôle, in Brittany, on 28 July, and, according to William of Malmesbury, certain relics of him were brought from Brittany and placed in the Abbey of Middleton, in Dorsetshire. His parents Ammon and Anne came of a distinguished family in South Wales. They had long been childless, and when this son was born, following the example of Hannah, who entrusted her tender child to the care of Eli, they placed him at a very early age under the care of St. Iltut, who brought him up in his monastery. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to do more in this place than to state very briefly that he spent some years in Ireland, attracted thither by the learning of some Irish monks; that he was consecrated bishop, but without a see; that he journeyed to Dôle, in Brittany, where he established a monastery; that business connected with this house obliged him to visit King Childebert at Paris, which visit led to his nomination as first Bishop of Dôle; and that he died about the year 565 A.D., at the age of eighty-five years.

These particulars are condensed from Father Stanton's 'Menology of England and Wales' (pp. 364, 365). At p. 663 a few additional details are given :

"It is said that King Childebert gave the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and Sark to St. Samson, and that for a time they were attached to his Diocese of Dôle.-M. de la Croix, Jersey,' &c., p. 147."

If fuller information is desired, I would refer the querist to Les Vies des Saints de Bretagne,' by Dom Guy-Alexis Lobineau, edited by M. l'Abbé Tresvaux. In the first volume, pp. 202 to 239 are occupied by a life of S. Samson, Évêque de

Dol.

There were, indeed, other saints named Samson, whom it is not necessary to particularize, for there can be no doubt that the Bishop of Dôle is the saint to whom the Wiltshire church is dedicated. "Le nom de Samson est le premier dans les Litanies Anglaises du VIIe siècle, entre les saints confesseurs de la nation." So says Dom Lobineau. The cathedral church of Dôle bears his name.

It seems worth while to add that Middleton or Milton Abbats, in Dorsetshire, was a Benedictine monastery, and that the abbey was dedicated to St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Sampson, and St. Branwalader. Speed and Cressy wrongly place the abbey in Wiltshire. William of Malmesbury records the great wealth of relics pertaining to the church, and says:

"Ibi multas sanctorum reliquias ex Britannia transmarina emptas reposuit: inter quos eminent præcipue beatissimi Sampsonis ossa, Dolensis quondam Archiepiscopi sanctissimi, et plane Deo digni viri: cujus virtutes aliquas bic referrem, nisi quia notæ sunt, et indigenarum sanctorum miraculis scribendis occupatus manus habeo,"

See Dugdale's' Monasticon Anglicanum,' ii. 344, quoting William of Malmesbury 'De Gestis Pontificum Angl.,' fol. 143. I cannot trace any direct connexion between Milton Abbats and Cricklade. Dugdale gives a 'Computus Ministrorum Domini Regis temp. Hen. VIII.,' which gives a list of manors from which firma accrued to the monastery; but these appear to be chiefly from the county of Dorset, and therefore Cricklade would not be found amongst them, even if it were an appanage of Milton Abbats.

W. SPARROW SIMPSON.

St. Sampson's (sic) commemoration in the Roman martyrology is on 28 July. He was born C. A.D. 496 (Butler). He was a native of Glamorganshire: "In Brittania Minori S. Sampsonis Episcopi et Confessoris" (Baronius), where there is in a note "Claruit circa annum Domini sexcentesimum." The latest account that I am of St. Samson in Haddan and Stubbs's 'Concilia,' aware of is the real, instead of the fictitious history vol. i. pp. 158, 159. It appears that he was Bishop of Dol, in Brittany, but was consecrated at St. Illtyd's college in Glamorganshire by Dabritius, was at the Council of Paris, A.D. 555 or 557; his David's appear first in the pages respectively of fictitious archiepiscopates at York and at St. Geoffrey of Monmouth and of Giraldus Cambrensis, the fiction about his pall being due also to the latter. In a note, here abridged, at p. 149, it is further stated :

of Dol (a mere vague title in such a case), but with no connexion at all with St. David's or with York, and as living in the early part of the sixth century. But in the twelfth century the concurring interests of the clergy of Dol, wishing to establish their independence against the Archbishop of Tours, and of Giraldus Cambrensis, wishthe see of Canterbury, led to the assertion by both that ing to prove the metropolitanship of St. David's against he had been strictly an archbishop."

"The Lives of St. Samson know him only as Archbishop

ED. MARSHALL. acknowledged.] [Replies enough to fill a number of 'N. & Q.' are

FOXGLOVE (8th S. viii. 155, 186, 336, 393, 452, 495).-I am sorry to have made what PROF.