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Replies.

CLOPTON FAMILY.

(clii. 420; cliii. 31.)

BEG to refer C.S.C.(B/C) to the Warwickshire Visitations Cocksfield alias Clopton' (Arms, Paly of four or and azure, a lion rampant counter-charged. Also, Per pale or and gules a cross patteè countercharged). He will there find that Sir Walter de Cockesfield, alias called Marshall Knighte, purchased the manor of Clopton of James Clopton in 4 Edw. I. His greatgrandson is styled John Cockesfield alias Clopton temp Richard II. He was the father of Hugh Clopton, Mayor of London 7 Hen. VII. His brother was Thomas of Stratford.

Hugh Clopton, Mayor of London, had a grandson William. This William received a pardon temp. Hen. VIII with these words: Perdonamus p'presents Wmo Clopton nuper de Clopton Argr. als d'cto Willmo Clopton nuper de Clopton in Coun Warr gener als dicto Willo Clopton de Coxfield in Coun Essex Armig. etc. etc."-Warwickshire Visitations p. 108.

Query, should Coxfield be described as in Suffolk and not in Essex? For there is a place called Cockfield adjoining Whelnethan Co. Suffolk, and Margery de Whelnethan had a granddaughter Margery, who died 1384. She married first John de Cockfield alias John de Clopton, and secondly, John de Broxesborne, Co. Essex.

those of Essex and Suffolk, Gules a chevron engrailed between three fleur de lys. Many ancient families, including the Berkeleys and Rainsfords, when they went on crusade adopted the sign of the cross in lieu of their original arms. The Rainsford lines of Lancashire, Oxfordshire, Northants and Gloucestershire bear to this day, Argent a cross sable.

The connection of Walgrave, Clopton and Rainsford was a clerical error, when I used the word grand-daughter instead of grandmother. See cxlviii. p. 347). ALFRED RANSFORD.

East Elloe, Hunstanton.

IRREGULAR NUMERAL ADJECTIVES (cliii. 45). The stonemason reading his cwn inscription would have said "in her one, and sixtieth year so that "61th " though perhaps irregular was not altogether incorrect. Until quite recently many oldfashioned people preferred to say, for to saying forty instance, "five and forty five" when speaking of a person's age. remember, myself, the slight shock which I received as a little boy on hearing an educated person say when asked the time, had been accustomed to hearing twenty-five minutes to seven," whereas Í "five and twenty to seven.' This would be in 1878 or about then. A. E. S.

In

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granddaughter Elinor (b. 1390; d. 1428) who married William Rainsford, who died 1434 and jure uxoris became lord of Alpheton near

Whelnethan.

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His grandson, Sir John Rainsford of Bradfield Hall, Co. Essex, who died in 1521, refers in his will to his lands in Whelnethan and Alpheton in Suffolk. The Essex and Suffolk Cloptons bore, as stated, Sable bend argent between two cotises dancetté or. The fact that the Cloptons of Warwickshire and the Cloptons of Suffolk and Essex bore different arms, is no proof that they are not descended from a common ancestor. Before the College of Arms was founded in the fifteenth century arms, like surnames at an earlier date, had not become fixed, and were more or less arbitrarily adopted. For example, the Rainsfords of Cumberland and Longdon Co. Worcester bore, Azure an eagle displayed argent ducally gorged or; and

SERGEANT AT ARMS: HOUSE OF COMMONS (clii. 442; cliii. 13).-I beg so much space as will enable me to thank the correspondents at the latter reference for their replies. I fear my query did not make it quite clear that I want only those Ser. geants who were appointed to attend the Speaker of the House of Commons. There were, of course, many others (there is still a small body of Sergeants-at-Arms in ordinary) and I have lists of scores of them. But I have nothing to connect any of these with the particular office in question. William Smith, of Greenwich, does not come into my rather narrow vista. Richard Powell, of Edenhope, probably does not. for he died in 1558 (apparently) and St. John attended the House of Commons from 1533 to 1555.

was

Bryan O'Lynn, his wife and wife's mother, All went over the bridge together, The Bridge it broke down, they all fell in, "The Divil much loss," said Bryan O'Lynn. In Castlebar gaol (my father Governor), Co. Mayo, in 1881, a boy used to whistle and hum words in Irish (he was bi-lingual) to this tune. I asked him if it was not Bryan O'Lynn' and told him the words I knew. His comment was: "Aah that's only common nonsense, it's a real old Irish tune with good words to it. " Alas, I knew no Irish at that time.

'The Kinnegad Slashers' is the marching tune of the First Gloucesters (the old 28th Regt.), "the old Braggs,' The Slashers,' from a victory against the Americans at the battle of White Plains; later "The Right Abouts.” I am almost sure I have seen this regiment referred to by the name of the tune; I can't find the reference.. It would interest me to know. Were they the soldiers who fought the Irish in the so-called rebellion at Kinnegad (in the Pale, Ireland)? Did they have this Irish tune before that time as a marching tune, or did they get it then? Were they already known as

G. E.

I copy the following text of 'Bryan 'Lynn from Stephens' Fenian Songster,' New York, 1866.

Bryan O'Lynn was a gentleman born,

He lived at a time when no clothes they were worn,

But as fashions walked out of course Bryan walked in,

Whoo! I'll soon lead the fashions, says Bryan O'Lynn.

Bryan O'Lynn had no breeches to wear, He got a sheepskin for to make him a pair, With the fleshy side out, and the woolly side in,

Whoo! they're pleasant and cool, says Bryan O'Lynn.

Bryan O'Lynn had no shirt to his back,

He went to a neighbor's and borrowed a sack, Then he puckered the meal bag up under his chin,

Whoo! they'll take them for ruffles, says Bryan O'Lynn.

Bryan O'Lynn had no hat to his head,

He stuck on the pot being up to the dead, Then he murdered a cod for the sake of its

Robert Fuller Murray was the eldest child of John Murray of Roxbury in Massachusetts, a unitarian minister, who died in 1886. Born at Roxbury on Dec. 23, 1863, Robert was taken to England in 1869, and lived at Kelso 1869-71, at York 1871, and then at Canterbury. He was educated at Ilminster and Crewkerne grammar schools, and in 1881 entered St. Andrews University with a scholarship won as an external student of Manchester New College, where he wrote verse in the University paper afterwards called College Echoes. He assisted Professor J. M. D. Meiklejohn of St. Andrews in literary and academic work from 1886 to 1889. After leaving St. Andrews in May, 1889, he wrote leader

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notes for the Scottish Leader until Aug. 6 of the same year, and contributed pieces of verse in Longman's Magazine, Punch, and St. James's Gazette. In addition to The Scarlet Gown,' his poems, with memoir by Andrew Lang, were published by Longmans and Co. in 1894, the edition being limited to fifty copies. He died at Laurel Bank, Ilminster, Somerset, on Jan. 17, 1894. An article on his life and work by Andrew Lang will be found in vol. xxiii. of Longman's Magazine (1894) pp. 644-654. ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

"THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE.' (cliii. 47).- Bold General Wolfe' was sung to me in the year 1900 by an old farmer who came from near Midhurst in Sussex. The line in question ran :

I see them falling like the maws in

TEA LEAF SANDWICHES (clii. 441).This matter came before the meeting of the London County Council on 12 July, when, according to The Times report,

Mr. J. P. BLAKE asked the Chairman of the Parks and Open Spaces Committee whether the Council supervised the historical statements exhibited in the Council's parks by the Empire Marketing Board. Had his attention been drawn to the statement that tea is better and a hundred times cheaper than any Queen Elizabeth tasted"; and was it not a fact that tea was only introduced into England nearly a century later? Could a representation be made to the Empire Marketing Board that they were confusing Queen Elizabeth with Queen Anne?

LORD HADDO replied that the Council did not exercise any supervision. The quotation was misleading apart from its context, which stated that once upon a time in the reign of Queen Elizabeth an old couple were given some tea as a present. They ate the tea-leaves in a sandwich and threw the tea away. Fifty years later the first London tea-shop was opened selling tea at £10 per lb. Now-a-days everyone knows how to make tea. You can buy within the Empire from Ceylon and India teas that are both better and are 100 times cheaper

was

The authority for this statement would appear to be Southey, who, in his Common place book' (1851) 4th series, p. 402, states Miss Hutchinson's great-grandmother one of a party who sat down to the first_pound came into Penrith. It was of tea that ever sent as a present, and without directions how to use it. They boiled the whole at once in a kettle, and sat down to eat the leaves with butter and salt; and they wondered how any person would like such a dish.

PETER THE WILD BOY (clii. 380, 398, 466; cliii. 20, 32).--The following is an extract from The Norfolk and Norwich Remembrancer, published 1882.

1751, Oct. 22.-A fire broke out, which destroyed the Bridewell and several adjoining houses. That extraordinary and well-known man, Peter the Wild Youth, was confined here at this time. This person, when a child, was found, naked and wild, at about the age of 12. lost in a wood in Germany, and was afterwards

GEO. W. G. BARNARD.

A long article on "Peter" the Wild Boy and the Savage of Aveyron appeared in The Penny Magazine of May 4, 1833.

CLIFFORD C. WOOLLARD. 68, St. Michael's Road, Aldershot.

NINE CHINESE IMMORTALS THE (cliii. 46).-There are really only eight immortals, namely: Li T'ieh-kuai; Chung-li Ch'uan; Lan Ts'ai-ho; Chang Kuo; Ho Hsien Ku; Lu Tung-pin; Han Hsiang Tzu; and Ts'ao Kuo-chiu.

The eight immortals are one of the most popular subjects of representation in China, and the number eight has become lucky in association with this tradition. The legend is supposed to be not earlier than the time of the Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1280) and is probably to be assigned to the Yuan Dynasty (1280

1368). A long account of each of these immortals will be found in Werner 'Myths and legends of China' (1922). ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

LEGENDARY PEDIGREES (cliii. 45).— A member of a family, that claims relationship to that of Fitzgerald of Ireland,

told me that she was descended from

Eneas of Troy, through the family of the

Gherardini of Florence!

Those interested in the legend may see its origin in Unpublished Geraldine Documents (Dublin, 1881), No. 6, The Gherardini of Tuscany. This is the only claim that I know of for a descent from a hero of classical antiquity. Numerous legendary pedigrees are to be found in the works of fashionable genealogical editors, of which large numbers have been exposed by Professor Round and by other masters in genealogy.

C.S.C. (B/C.)

THE KINGFISHER AS WEATHER INDICATOR (cliii. 45).-Your corres. pondent is no doubt aware that the 10th chapter of the 3rd book of Pseudodoxia Epidemica' is devoted to this subject, though whether he will consider that Sir Thomas Browne gives the " origin of this belief" is uncertain. Courthope refers to this passage in a couplet to be found in the ever charming Paradise of Birds ':For indeed it is said a kingfisher when dead has his science alive in him still; And, hung up, he will show how the wind means to blow, and turn to the point with his bill.

It [the death of Dickens] is an event worldwide; a unique of talents suddenly extinct No death since 1866 has fallen on me with such a shock. No literary man's hitherto ever did. The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever friendly, noble Dickens-every inch of him an Honest Man.

A longer extract from this, and another letter from Carlyle on the same subject is given in Forster's Life' vol. iii. page 475 (first edition). See also 'The Dickens Circle' by J. W. T. Ley, Chapman and Hall, T. W. TYRRELL.

1918.

St. Elmo, Sidmouth.

LPHABET AS A CHRISTIAN NAME A Saltus appears a character called Alphabet (clii. 460).-In the novels of Edgar stock figure in the Saltus stories) is called Sometimes the writer (a Jones, a writer. Ten Eyck Jones, or Broadway Jones. Saltus' half-brother, Francis, composed verses under the pseudonym Cupid Jones, and while this is obviously the source of the name, it is not improbable that an Alphabet Jones lived, as did a person calling himself Broadway Jones, at a time ulterior to the appearance of the novels. Some of the curious names given by Saltus to his fictional characters he took from actual persons: Julian Verplanck he used with the slightly more exotic spelling Giulian for the given name. PAUL MCPHARLIN.

particular case before me, so many instances are chronicled in which the hair of human beings, under the influence of strong mental emotion due to terror or grief, has become suddenly blanched within a single night or some such period of time, that the occasional occurrence of such a phenomenon must apparently be accepted as a fact. Such a change is, of course, due to the bleaching of the pigment with which the hair is coloured, although we need not stop to enquire by what particular means this bleaching is accomplished.

These remarks called forth a letter from Sir W. R. Gowers, M.D., which appeared under the title Sudden Blanching of Human Hair' in the October issue. It

relates to a case which came under his own observation, but the change was due not to emotion but to disease. He says

A man, in consequence of an injury, had hæmorrhage over the greater part of the left hemisphere of the brain. During the next two days the hairs of his beard and moustache on the opposite side, the right, were observed to become paler and paler, until they were almost white at the time of his death on the third day. The change extended up to the middle line and there ceased. A very curious fact is that the pale region was separated from the normal brown by a very narrow darker zone, almost black in the middle line. Of course, emotion must act by its profound derangement of the function of the cortex of the brain. Here we had a like effect produced by an organic influence, occurring under observation, within two days, and limited to the opposite side to that which the disease would influence The hairs were made pale throughout their length. This, as an absolute fact, a result produced in two days, is significant. The only possible explanation is that the process, at the root of the hair, by which the normal pigment is produced, is so changed that a material is formed capable of discharging the colour of the pigment, and that this

ascends the tubular hair and causes its effect,

at least as far from the root as the length of the hairs on the face.

The following cases of hair being turned white by grief are from Cassell's The World of Wonders' vol. ii.

The hair of Ludwig of Bavaria, who died in 1294, became almost suddenly as white as snow when he learned of the innocence of his wife whom he had put to death for infidelity.

The same thing happened to the Hellenist Vanvilliers, as the result of a terrible dream. The French comedian Blizard fell into the Rhone and only saved his life by clinging to an iron ring in one of the piles of a bridge. The agony of suspense caused the blanching of his hair.

It is also recorded that a like change was wrought in the case of Charles I in a single