Also a Report and Survey of a Line, which may be continued from Marybone to the said Proposed Canal,' &c., London (1773 ?). The Regent's Canal Act, 1812, reprinted in 8vo, does not contain a single reference to the railway scheme.

ALECK ABRAHAMS. "TOTTER-OUT. -In "The Virgins Inn at Kenilworth (there is no apostrophe on the signboard) there is a portrait of "William Taylor the worthy totter out of our birthnight Society ætat 61. Oct 1848." He is represented holding a decanter in one hand, and a small wineglass in the other. It is explained that it was his duty to fill the glasses of the boon companions. This noun totter-out does not appear to have entered the dictionaries. In the Shropshire Word-book,' by G. F. Jackson, tot is defined as a small drinking cup," and Dr. Wright's' Dialect Dictionary' concurs. E. S. DODGSON.

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[Tot, a small drinking cup, is also in Annandale's four-volume edition of Ogilvie.]

JOHN JAMES, ARCHITECT.-Walpole had no notes by Vertue to assist him with regard to this architect, and consequently fell into error. He says:

"John James, of whom I find no mention in Vertue's notes, was, as I am informed, considerably employed at the works at Greenwich, where he settled. He built the church there, and the house for Sir Gregory Page at Blackheath, the idea of which was taken from Houghton. James likewise built the church of St. George, Hanover Square, the body of the church at Twickenham, and that of St. Luke [Old Street], Middlesex, which has a fluted obelisk for its steeple. He translated from the French some books on gardening."

Wyatt Papworth in the Dict. Arch.' says: "Sir Gregory Page's house at Blackheath was sold by auction to John Cator to be pulled down (Woolfe and Gandon, Vit. Brit.,' i. 64-5). St. Luke's, Old Street, is by G. Dance, sen. James died 1746 (Gent. Mag., xvi. 273). By his will he directed a house at Croom's Hill to be sold for the benefit of his widow Mary."

Miss Porter in the 'D.N.B.' says James added the new steeple to St. Alphage's Church, Greenwich, in 1730. The design of the church (built in 1711) is frequently attributed to James, but is more probably by Hawksmoor (cf. plate by Kip, 1714). JOHN HEBB.

Passover. All secular labor was laid aside by all the inhabitants, and it was a time of holy convocation. Besides the Sabbath, all day Thursday, Saturday afternoon, and Monday forenoon were spent in public religious services, and as strictly observed as holy time...... Previous to the Sabbath it was the usual custom to give out the tokens," with one of which every communicant was required to be furnished. These were small pieces of lead of an oblong shape, and marked with the letters L.D. On the Sabbath-the great day of the feasttables stretching the whole length of the aisles were the consecrated elements. The tables were 'fenced," spread, at which the communicants sat and received which was a prohibition and exclusion of any from communicating who had not a token.' It was in the power of the Elders who had the distribution whose life had been irregular or scandalous. Unof the tokens to withhold one from any professor leavened bread, prepared in thin cakes of an oval form, has always been used in this ordinance. The giving out of the tokens, and the Halfway Covenant, though now dispensed with, were both continued into Dr. Dana's ministry.”

This Dr. Dana was the minister from January, 1822, to April, 1826. He was of his people, one of whom (p. 92) said, much scandalized by the heavy drinking "I do not see how I can worship God acceptably when I feel so very thirsty." On the Doctor's installation a hogshead of rum appears to have been consumed (p. 91). The early settlers of the town came from the Irish Londonderry. RICHARD H. THORNTON.

"A CORNISH CENTENARIAN.-Mr. James Carne, clerk of St. Columb Minor, Cornwall, celebrates verger of the Church of St. Columbia, and parish his 101st birthday to-morrow. Three generations of the Carne family have held the same office during the past 167 years. The grandfather, John Carne, who died in 1801, aged 80, served 50 years as verger, and was followed by his son John, who died at the age of 84, after a service of 54 years, retiring in 1843 in favour of the present verger, who, until seven years ago, never missed a service, the death of his wife then causing a break in his record."

to him, and to assure him that I keep his Welch chronicle untouched, and uncopied with the exception only of some few dates, which I think he gave me permission to use.

I have the honour to be, dear Sir, with sincere regard, y' devoted and obed hble. servt., CH. O'CONOR. Dimensions of Stowe Great Library above: length, 75 ft.; breadth, 25 ft. Number of books and books of prints above stairs, 21,000.

Below stairs: Gothic Room or MS. Room. [Dimensions omitted.] Number of MSS., 2,000. The Ebony chairs were purchased at Antwerp; they were Rubens's, and are beautifully carved in festoons, wreaths of flowers, &c., &c. I cannot be more accurate. Who carved them I cannot discover; but the workmanship is worthy of such a possessor as Rubens. My 2 vol. will come out immediately after my catalogue is completed and an Irish map of the Middle Ages engraved.

There is no identification of the person addressed in the letter, but the most obvious suggestion is Joseph Nash or George Lipscomb. The chairs referred to occurred in the sale as lots 2500, 2501, 2502, 2504, and 2505, and are said to have formerly belonged to Sir P. P. Rubens, and to have been brought from his house at Antwerp.'

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Mr. William Gosling, the banker of Fleet Street, visited Stowe in May, 1814, and made a number of pen-and-ink drawings in the house and grounds.

ALECK ABRAHAMS "POPULAR ETYMOLOGIES OF THE OLD HOMILISTS.-Dr. Richard Morris in his Introduction (p. ix) to Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century,' Second Series (E.E.T.S.), gives several illustrations of the above: e.g.," King " from kennen (to direct); housel "from hū sel (how good); "Easter from (1) ārīst (arising), (2) este (dainty).

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More than two hundred years later there will be found in the homilies in Mirk's Festial' "Schere Thursday from scheren ("for men....wold pat day make scher hom honest, and dodde hor heddys, and clyp hor berdys, and so make hom onest a3eynes Astyr-day"); and "Astyr-day" (i.e., Easter), from astyr (hearth), for on that day it was the custom forto do fyre out of þe hall at pe astyr.' The late MR. F. ADAMS pointed out at 9 S. vi. 425, under "Astre": Hearth,' that this earlier quotation, by some 100 years, had been overlooked in the compilation of the N.E.D.' H. P. L.

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=

"NEITHER MY EYE NOR MY ELBOW.”I have never heard this phrase except from Derbyshire folks. It is used as a comment on an unsatisfactory answer, promise, or arrangement, as "It's neither my eye nor my elbow "=neither the one thing nor the other. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

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'LOMBARD STREET TO A CHINA ORANGE." Can you inform me if the correct saying should not be "Lombard Street to a Cheyne Row orange ? I have been told that orange trees were first planted in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, to see if they would bear fruit the result being unsatisfactory, black, little, hard balls, so to speak, and entirely useless. I have been given to understand that the latter saying is the correct one, and that the former China orange is really a corruption of "Cheyne Row orange. MARK KEbbell.

Wellington, N.Z.

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At

[The version of the proverb quoted by our New Zealand correspondent is not familiar to us. 5 S. i. 337 MR. JOHN ADDIS suggested that in the proverb "All Lombard Street to a China orange trasted with the worthlessness of a China orange, the "enormous riches of Lombard Street are conthe China orange, as it appears, being a fruit of inferior size and quality, and held in no esteem by the Chinese themselves." MR. E. LEATON BLENKINSOPP at 5 S. iv. 17 showed that the proverb appeared as 'All Lombard Street to an eggshell" in Arthur Murphy's farce The Citizen,' Act II. sc. i. (a work published in 1763, according to Mr. Knight's notice of Murphy in the D.N.B.). MR. LEATON BLENKINSOPP added: "Why are the best oranges called China oranges' when none come from China?" As to the confusion between Cheyne

Walk and China Walk see the communications by PROF. SKEAT and other correspondents at 10 S. v. 245, 312, 375, 415, 476.]

DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON UNIFORMS.I should be glad to have the reference to an oft-quoted saying of the Iron Duke on the moral effect of uniform upon the wearer. I do not know whether it is to be found in his dispatches, letters, or table-talk. It is in substance this, that he had known cases where the donning of the uniform seemed to turn a man from a coward into a hero. Ком Омво. SHREWSBURY CLOCK: POINT OF WAR. -In a book entitled Random Shots from a Rifleman,' by Capt. J. Kincaid, Rifle Brigade, published in 1847, the following passages occur:

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1. Speaking of a soldier-servant, he says that he was as regular as Shrewsbury clock.' What was Shrewsbury clock ?

2. "Old Trousers' was a name given by our soldiers to the point of war which is beat by the French drummers in advancing to the charge." What is the origin of the phrase "point of war ? J. H. LESLIE. Dykes Hall, Sheffield.

6

GOTHAM IN DERBYSHIRE.-On the map of Derbyshire comprised in Letts's County Atlas, issued about twenty years ago, I observe the place-name Gotham plotted immediately to the west of the High Peak Railway, between Heathcote and Minningley Grange. The name does not occur in any of the directories or gazetteers that I have consulted, so that it cannot refer to a place of any importance. Probably it is associated with some local story of folly, and is thus a sort of offshoot of the original Gotham, in Nottinghamshire. Some reader acquainted with the district may perhaps explain the matter. A. S.

158, Noel Street, Nottingham.

"HEREFORDSHIRE WINDOW."-What is the precise architectural meaning of this term? I find it used in a recent article on ecclesiastical architecture in a way that implies that the author expected it to be understood as a term of art, but I fail to find its signification in books of reference.

W. B. H.

MUSICAL SERVICES ON CHURCH TOWERS. (See 10 S. vii. 306, 384.)-I should like to obtain the names of places where services similar to that on Magdalen Tower on May morning are held. On Ascension Day this year an anthem and hymn were sung by the choir on the summit of St. Mary's

Church tower, Warwick. From a newspaper paragraph recording this event I gather that similar services were also held at the Priory Church, Malvern, and at Bromsgrove." In a note on Holman Hunt's picture May Morning on Magdalen Tower" (vide catalogue of his works exhibited last year at the Leicester Galleries) I find the following sentence:

"It is said that on the roof of Durham Cathedral at the present time a service of song is held in commemoration of a victory obtained while prayer was offered there."

Particulars of this and any such musical services held on church towers would be appreciated by JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

"EL CHICO TERENCIO."- -What was the real name of the writer who adopted this pseudonym? I have before me a pamphlet of 38 octavo pages :—

"A la Luna de Paita. Zarzuela en un acto. Letra de el Chico Terencio. Musica de Reynaldo Rebagliati. Lima, imp. de El Nacional, 1875.” The scene is laid at Callao, and the plot depends on the return of "Mr. Guillermo, marino inglés," in time to prevent the second marriage of his wife, who supposes him dead -an old theme of poesy and romance. Manchester.

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WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

MACKEACHAN PROVERB.-Can any reader of N. & Q.' inform me of the origin of the saying, As gleg as MacKeachan's elshin, that went through sax plies of bend leather, and half an inch into the king's heel"? Sir Walter Scott makes mention of it in The Heart of Midlothian,' when Robertson is escaping at Salisbury Crags, but gives no J. MACKEACHAN.

note.

133, St. Vincent Street, Glasgow.

ROSE AND GORDON FAMILIES.-On 8 Jan., 1861, Gertrude Mary, only daughter of Col. Gordon, died at Linton House, aged thirtyfive. She was widow of the Rev. Henry Fitzroy Rose. Can any one throw light on the lineage of this clergyman, or on