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A clue to it, if a true one, has at last been found where one would least of all expect it, in the account of the Ascot cup day in the Times of the 16th inst., in the following passage:·

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"Eventually more backers presented themselves for Fille de l'Air, whose name floated through and above the assembly, and was in all respects as much a pervading influence as her namesake of the Scandinavian mythology might have been."

If you or any of your learned readers will inform me whether there really is any such Scandinavian goddess, who she was, and where an account of her is to be found, and lastly, what it was that probably suggested this strange title to Calderon, you or he will confer a real favour on all lovers of Spanish poetry by giving a meaning to the title of the most splendid of the dramas of "the Spanish Shakspere":- the only thing at present wanting to its perfection. The author has himself made two allusions to it—a serious, at the end of the second act, and a comic, at the end of the preceding scene; but in neither has he thrown any light on its meaning. Even Semiramis's own account of it, near the end of her long speech to Menon in the first act, is very unsatisfactory.

Lest you should refer me to the writer in the Times for information, I add that I have already made inquiry in that quarter, and received no INQUIRER.

answer.

"To CREEL."-This would seem to be an old border custom, and still exists in the southern parts of Mid-Lothian, East-Lothian, Selkirk, &c. When a newly-married couple arrive at the village of, or near to, their residence, the inhabitants having filled a basket, or creel, with stones, immediately seize the bridegroom, and fasten the creel on his back, from which he is freed by the bride cutting the cords with a knife, or gully" as it is called, with which the bridegroom takes care to be provided. Should he, however, imprudently neglect to be so provided, he is exposed to the mercy of the inhabitants for an indefinite period, as no one will lend a knife to the bride.

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Is this custom known elsewhere? Can any of your correspondents explain its origin?

SETH WAIT.

THOS, DYCHE.-I find in "N. & Q." 2nd S. viii. 249, a question from W. J. O. respecting Wm. Pardon, who completed the New General English Dictionary of Dyche. That inquiry appears not to have been answered. Allow me to call attention to it, and also to ask where some account of Thos. Dyche is to be found? I have looked over a good many biographical dictionaries in vain, and have only found the name in Lempriere's, where we learn no more than we may gather from Dyche's works, except, perhaps, that he died about 1750. He is called "reverend," and as he is

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'j sell maler."

"ij sell

p soms."

"Eidm p pouder iij scissaze arg. deaur." "Et emendač vnia ciphr Domine." "Et p regulac vnia pett ptancm p cant supnotand.” HERMEN TRUDE.

MISS FORD, AFTERWARDS MRS. THICKNESSE.— Hone painted about 1752 a portrait of this lady in the character of a muse, playing upon a lyre. Some years later, she was painted by Gainsborough, who represented her tuning her harp, and leaning upon some of her musical compositions. This latter portrait was extant at Bath in 1806. Can any one say where these portraits now are? JAMES BECK.

Queries.

THE ACADEMY AT PARIS, temp. HENRI IV.

A letter (preserved in the State Paper Office) of Henry Lord Clifford, afterwards the fifth Earl of Cumberland, to his father-in-law the Lord Treasurer Salisbury, dated Paris, this 22nd of June, st. no. and certainly written in 1611 (because it relates to the new order of Baronets, then first instituted, and the Earl of Salisbury died in May, 1612) begins thus: "My most honored Lord,-I have soe much enjoyed the good company and love of this gentleman here, in the Academie," &c., and proceeds to second that gentleman's suit to be advanced to "this dignity of Barronett." Seventeen months later, on the 25th Nov. 1612, Thomas Puckering, Esquire (son and heir of the Lord Keeper), was created a Baronet; and the late Mr. Lemon, when arranging the papers contained in the volume, suggested that he was the party in whose favour the letter was written: and the same suggestion now appears in the printed Calendar. What guided Mr. Lemon in this conjecture is not stated; but in Sir Henry Ellis's collection of Original Letters, Second Series, vol. iii. p. 220, there is one which presents a very interesting account of the education of Mr. Puckering at Paris, and the distribution of his time there; addressed by Mr. Lorkin, his tutor, to Mr. Adam Newton, then the tutor of Henry Prince of Wales. (It was the same Mr. Lorkin who afterwards addressed to Sir Thomas Puckering, when again in France, some of the most agreeable news-letters that are extant for the latter years of the reign of James I.)

The "Academie " is not named in Mr. Lorkin's letter, but there is this passage: "Mons Ballendine hath commended unto us Paulus Æmilius in French who writeth the History of the Country. His counsell we meane to follow." This was evi

dently William Bellenden (a native of Scotland), who is "mentioned by Dempster as humanity professor at Paris in 1602" (Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary), and who dedicated his Ciceronis Princeps in 1608, and his Ciceronis Consul in 1612, to Henry Prince of Wales, and the second edition of the latter, accompanied by his Liber de statu Prisci Orbis (all printed at Paris) to Charles Prince of Wales in 1616. These were the works which were re-edited, with great parade, by the learned Dr. Samuel Parr in 1787.

Bellenden's professorship was, I presume, in the University of Paris. The point to which I desire to direct attention is the employment by Lord Clifford of the term "Academie," and to inquire whether that was an institution distinct from the University. If so, where shall I find an account of the Academy at Paris at the period in question?

JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS.

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"For all thy Saints, O Lord."

It is thus given in Lyte's Spirit of the Psalms, 3rd edit. published by Rivington last year. Which is the real author? I have also believed No. 258, "Disposer Supreme" to be by Sir Robert Grant, but for this I cannot remember any special authority. I should be glad to know the author of the following

"17. Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go.
53. A Hymn for Martyrs.

139. Our blest Redeemer.

151. Where high the heavenly temple stands."

Also, who translated Nos. 4, 7, 8, 9, and 13, which I suppose are from the "Seven hours' hymns, which were, I believe, translated by Dr. Newman. I should be glad to know if I am right in attributing to him the translations beginning

--

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CALDERON'S "DAUGHTER OF THE AIR." It is a strange incongruity that "the most beautiful of all Calderon's productions," as Goethe has truly termed the above drama, should have the most unintelligible and apparently absurd title of any. Neither Goethe himself, who has written a whole Essay on the subject, nor Von Schack, "the admirable historian of the Spanish drama," nor the Archbishop of Dublin, who thus commends him, and who quotes Goethe's criticism, nor the republisher of its prototype, Virues's Semiramis (Williams & Norgate, 1858), nor any writer I could find, gives any explanation of this mystery.

A clue to it, if a true one, has at last been found where one would least of all expect it, in the account of the Ascot cup day in the Times of the 16th inst., in the following passage:

"Eventually more backers presented themselves for Fille de l'Air, whose name floated through and above the assembly, and was in all respects as much a pervading influence as her namesake of the Scandinavian mythology might have been."

If you or any of your learned readers will inform me whether there really is any such Scandinavian goddess, who she was, and where an account of her is to be found, and lastly, what it was that probably suggested this strange title to Calderon, you or he will confer a real favour on all lovers of Spanish poetry by giving a meaning to the title of the most splendid of the dramas of "the Spanish Shakspere":-the only thing at present wanting to its perfection. The author has himself made two allusions to it-a serious, at the end of the second act, and a comic, at the end of the preceding scene; but in neither has he thrown any light on its meaning. Even Semiramis's own account of it, near the end of her long speech to Menon in the first act, is very unsatisfactory.

Lest you should refer me to the writer in the Times for information, I add that I have already made inquiry in that quarter, and received no INQUIRER.

answer.

"To CREEL."-This would seem to be an old border custom, and still exists in the southern parts of Mid-Lothian, East-Lothian, Selkirk, &c. When a newly-married couple arrive at the village of, or near to, their residence, the inhabitants having filled a basket, or creel, with stones, immediately seize the bridegroom, and fasten the creel on his back, from which he is freed by the bride cutting the cords with a knife, or gully" as it is called, with which the bridegroom takes care to be provided. Should he, however, imprudently neglect to be so provided, he is exposed to the mercy of the inhabitants for an indefinite period, as no one will lend a knife to the bride.

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Is this custom known elsewhere? Can any of your correspondents explain its origin ?

SETH WAIT.

THOS. DYCHE.-I find in "N. & Q." 2nd S. viii. 249, a question from W. J. O. respecting Wm. Pardon, who completed the New General English Dictionary of Dyche. That inquiry appears not to have been answered. Allow me to call attention to it, and also to ask where some account of Thos. Dyche is to be found? I have looked over a good many biographical dictionaries in vain, and have only found the name in Lempriere's, where we learn no more than we may gather from Dyche's works, except, perhaps, that he died about 1750. He is called "reverend," and as he is

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Oysters, mussels, and sprats sent from my lord from London to my lady at Hertford, "ad calatho."

"ij pellu eneas, et j chaufo. eneū." 66 Et

vna alia carecta cum duobus haibɔ̃ et vj eq.”
"Et p ij par. lynchiam.”
"xliv vln. marpie pris."
"clxxiv vln. canab."

"jp coffer trussabil pū.”
"xviij par. bras de coreo."
"j sell maler."

"ij sell p soms."

"Eidm p pouder iij scissaze arg. deaur." "Et emendae vnia ciphr Domine."

"Et p regulac vnis pet ptancm p cant supnotand." HERMENTRUDE.

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voyent approcher des hommes dont l'aspect les epouvante, saisis d'un frayeur soudaine, ils sautent, ils se jettent d'un

et d'autre côté dans leur asile ordinaire: l'onde resonne sous leur chûte, et revenus du fond des retraites liquides où leur élancement les a plongés, ils ne laissent appercevoir que leur tête hors de l'eau."-Quoted as translated from Ariosto in Essai sur la Poésie Héroïque, p. 51, par J. B. Sarel. Paris, 1774.

I shall be obliged by a precise reference. I am almost sure that the above is not in the Orlando

Furioso.

Rue d'Angoulème, St. Honoré.
O. T. D.

MR. HESTON HUMPHREYS AND THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. Can any of your correspondents answer me a question asked by Junius of Woodfall, but not answered? "When did Mr. Heston Humphreys, an attorney, horsewhip the Duke of Bedford on Bedford race-course?" There is an account of the motives which led to the horsewhipping in the Sporting Magazine.

Cuddington, Bucks.

JOHN WILKINS.

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BEAU NASH.-Can any of your readers inform me what were the coat of arms, crest, and motto of the once celebrated Beau Nash, of Bath? of whom Goldsmith, in his Life, says that: :

"The history of a man, like Nash, who for more than fifty years presided over the pleasures of a polite kingdom, and whose life, though without anything to surprise, was ever marked with singularity, deserves the attention of the present age."

F. R. C.

RENNIE OF MELVILLE CASTLE.-When did this castle (now Viscount Melville's seat near Edinburgh) first become the property of the Rennie family, and who and what was the first Rennie who acquired it?

"THE KING OF SAXONY." these lines?

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"The King of Saxony

Sat in his balcony,

F. M. S. Whence come

To see all the monarchs go by."

I heard them quoted for their oddity a good deal more than forty years ago. Can they have formed part of a street ballad, which might have dated from the battle of Leipsic, when the the march of the victorious allies? humiliated King of Saxony might have witnessed JAYDEE.

first fashionable in England? I do not remember SEA-BATHING.-When did sea-bathing become any mention of sea-baths in medieval writers, and do not imagine sea-baths to have been widely used for sanatory purposes before our German kings began their dynasty. I do not think either Swift, Pope, or Addison alludes to sea-bathing. Did not tea and port wine gradually undermine our national constitution, and lead to the necessity of summer grapples with old Neptune, and pleasant dalliance with his nymphs? In Smollett's Humphrey Clinker, all readers of that work will remember a celebrated sea-bathing scene. long time I thought that the discovery of iodine and bromine in salt water had led to the increase of marine bathing; but I find that iodine was not discovered till 1812, nor bromine till 1826. Was Brighton the first fashionable bathing-place, or not? WALTER THORNBURY.

For a

GILBERT THOMSON, M.D., is author of TransAny particulars relating to the above would be lations from Homer and Horace, and other poems, very grateful to

Dublin.

R. W. H. N.

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1802. Can you inform me whether there is in this volume a translation of Ode 9, Book III. of Horace -"Horace and Lydia"? Is there a translation of the "Carmen Seculare"? R. L.

WAYLAND WOOD.-In the curious little work, England's Gazetteer, London, 1778, is the followin

notice :

"Wayland Wood, Norf., on the left hand between Watton and Merton, is commonly called Wailing-Wood, from a tradition of two infants murdered here by their

uncle, which gave rise, 'tis said, to the old ballad of the holding a perfuming pan, burning perfumes, as at pretwo Children in the Wood."

Many antiquaries have been disposed to attribute all places called Wayland to the celebrated fabulous smith of that name. Which is the truer supposition in this case? A. A.

Poets' Corner.

Queries with Answers.

INCENSE IN DIVINE OFFICES. I should feel grateful if any readers of "N. & Q." could furnish me with any instances of the use of incense in the services of the English Church, since the change of religion under Henry VIII. There is, I believe, a form for the consecration of a censer, by Archbishop Sancroft. Would this form be simply for the consecration of the thurible or censer used at the coronation of a sovereign, or is it to be inferred that the use of incense was of common occurrence in the seventeenth century?

R. H. HILLS.

[The Form for the Consecration of a Censer by Archbishop Sancroft occurs in that prelate's Form of Dedication and Consecration of a Church or Chapel, 1685, without any allusion to the coronation service. It would appear from the following extracts that incense has been frequently used in the Church of England since the Reformation.

1603. Two pounds of frankincense were burnt in the church of Augustine, Farringdon-within, London. Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum, ii. 88.

1626. "Paid for frankincense, 2d."- Churchwardens' Accounts of Great Wigston, Leicestershire.

1631. "The country parson takes order . . . secondly, that the church be swept and kept clean without dust or cobwebs, and at great festivals strewed and stuck with boughs, and perfumed with incense."-George Herbert's Priest to the Temple, chap. xiii.

Temp. James I. "A triquertral censer, wherein the clerk putteth frankincense at the reading of the first lesson. The navicula, like the keel of a boat, with a half cover and foot, out of which the frankincense is poured." Furniture of Bp. Andrewes' Chapel, Canterbury's Doom, p. 122.

Temp. Charles I. "In Peter House there was on the altar a pot, which they usually called the incense pot... A little boat, out of which the frankincense is poured, which Dr. Cosins had made use of in Peter House where he burned incense."- Canterbury's Doom, pp. 74, 123. Ibid. 66 Upon some altars there was a pot called the Incense-pot."-Neal's Puritans, ii. 224.

1683. In the accounts of St. Nicholas, Durham: "For frankincense at the Bishop's coming, 2s. 6d."-Surtees' Durham, iv. 52, fol. 1840.

1684. See Evelyn's Diary, March 30, 1684.

1760. In the coronation procession of George III. appeared the King's groom of the vestry, in a scarlet dress,

vious coronations.-Thomson's Coronation of George III. About the year 1709, an eminent person of the Isle of Man wrote to the learned Henry Dodwell for his judgment on two points: "First, Whether the Church of England had just reasons, when she reformed, to lay aside the use of incense, which was practised in all churches before our quarrel with the Church of Rome. Secondly, The anointing with oil." To the last he made no answer; but his opinion respecting the use of incense he published in the following work, which is not only written with great perspicuity, but displays an intimate acquaintance with ecclesiastical antiquities:-" A Discourse concerning the Use of Incense in Divine Offices: wherein it is proved, that that practice, taken up in the Middle Ages, both by the Eastern and Western Churches, is, notwithstanding, an innovation from the Doctrine of the first and purest Churches, and the Traditions derived from the Apostles. Serving also to evince, that even the consent of those Churches of the Middle Ages, is no certain argument, that even the particulars wherein they are supposed to consent were faithfully derived from the Apostles, against the modern assertors of the Infallibility of Oral Tradition. By Henry Dodwell, M.A. 8vo. 1711." An excellent digest of this work is printed in Dr. Brokesby's Life of Mr. Henry Dodwell, with an Account of his Works, ii. 439-452, edit. 1715. Consult also Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book viii. chap. vi. sect. 21.]

STEPHEN PERLIN.-In Charles Knight's HalfHours with the Best Authors, edit. 1857, Part II. P. 129, are some curious extracts from Perlin's Description of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. What is known of the author and his sinО. Т. gular production ?

Richmond, Surrey.

[All that is known of Estienne Perlin is to be found in his work-a very curious and even amusing jumble of the transactions of the period. It appears that he studied in the university of Paris, and was an ecclesiastic, having composed a Latin work in "a lofty style, and with unparalleled industry," on the human body, and the disorders incident to it, dedicated to Henry II., who gave him license to publish it. His Description des Royaulmes D'Angleterre et D'Escosse, was published at Paris in 1558, 12mo. It was dedicated to the Duchess of Berri. This work, with the Histoire de l'Entrée de la Reine Mère dans la Grande Bretagne, par P. de la Serre (Par. 1639), was republished by R. Gough in 1775, 4to, illustrated with Cuts and English Notes. A copy of the first edition of Perlin's work was purchased for 21. 2s. at James West's sale by John Martin, Esq., of Ham Court, Worcestershire. This copy had formerly belonged to Stephen Baluze, afterwards (in 1738) to the industrious William Oldys, who had added some marginal notes. Samuel Paterson, the bibliopole, thus describes the work: "The unfavourable report which this foolish Frenchman has made of the English; his description of London and some of its obsolete customs; the mistakes he has fallen

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