books, viz., Fire upon the Altar, and a volume of poems entitled Ourania. At the time of the testator's death, these books were apparently in the printer's hands, and are spoken of as being "in sheets." I should be glad to know whether they were ever published, and if the author's name was attached to them. There can be no doubt from the terms of the will that Cheyne Rowe was himself the author, though it may seem somewhat strange to find in such a quarter undoubted proof of the fact. Cheyne Rowe was third son of Sir William Rowe of Higham, and grandson of William Rowe, by Anne, daughter of John Cheyne of Chesham, co. Bucks. C. J. R. DR. JONATHAN WAGSTAFFE. In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1739, there is a paper dedicated to the Lord Oen in Ireland, the object of which is to demonstrate that the relations in Mr. Gulliver's voyages are no fictions. The writer signs himself Jonathan Wagstaffe, M.D. Who was this Dr. Wagstaffe? He dates from the Inner Temple, and he speaks of himself as being a member of the University of Oxford. But the internal evidence leaves little doubt on my mind that Dean Swift was himself the writer of the paper. Was Dr. Jonathan Wagstaffe related to the undoubted Dr. William Wagstaffe, whose name appears in the List of the College of Physicians? Or was he the representative of the more mysterious Dr. William Wagstaffe, whose personal identity has been discussed in your columns? (3rd S. i. 381.) Perhaps your correspondent D. S. A. could throw some light upon this point. MELETES. Queries with Answers. FONT AT CHELMORTON. -Can you inform me of the meaning of an inscription on an ancient octagon font in an old church at Chelmorton, co. Derby, said to be the highest site of any in England. The church was built in the twelfth century, and on the eight sides of the font, in old English, are the following letters, preceded by a kind of cross, query a T. Nos. 1 and 3 are somewhat alike, but in the first the upright is longer, and the cross-bar much lower: ots cb s I m. W. H. E. [We should have much preferred a rubbing. Thanking our Correspondent, however, for such particulars as he has been able to supply, we offer a conjectural interpretation; subject of course to such amendments as may be are the framework, or skeleton, of Chelmorton, which is the name of the Chapelry. The r, as often in old inscriptions, may have been omitted. Or it may have been represented by a flourish over the m (m), overlooked by the copyist, perhaps obliterated by time. How s should hold the place of the initial Ch of Chelmorton, may perhaps be explained on the supposition of diversities in spelling, such as commonly occur in the old names of places. Or Sel-, by use, may have hardened into Chel-. Granting simto (or slinto) to be Chelmorton, the rest is easy. Let it be only borne in mind that Chelmorton is a Chapelry of Bakewell (in Domesday book Badeqvella), and the whole inscription may be read thus: s | eb | slṁtō | + Sacellum Ecclesie de Badeqvella | Chelmorton | +. That is, "Chapelry of the Church of Bakewell, Chelmorton. + " Should it be objected that Chelmorton, according to Pilkington, was formerly Chelmerdon, which puts our t out of court, it may be sufficient to reply that, though -morton may at some former period have been -merdon, yet still -morton also may have been an old spelling. Thus another place in Derbyshire, now called Morton, in Domesday Book is MORTVNE, not Mordune or Mordon; so that the t may be fairly permitted to do duty, as a constituent part of Chelmorton.] GRAMMAR OF THE GAY SCIENCE. The conventional jargon in which Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and others wrote, must have its key somewhere, and a Grammar of the Gay Science is most likely extant. The inquirer is by no means a linguist, but, having access to one of the best libraries, he wishes to know what early English poets, or writers, were in the habit of writing in an exoteric and esoteric manner. He would also be glad of any hints whereby he can be led to trace the Grammar of the Gay Science. B. I. C. E. [The "Gay Science," in Fr. "Gaie Science," in Rom. "Gaya Sciensa," "Gaya Sciença," and sometimes "Gay Saber," in its largest sense meant poetry generally; more particularly and more frequently, it signified the poetry of the Troubadours; and in a more special sense still their erotic poetry. See Bescherelle, ed. 1857, and Supplement to the Encyc. Catholique. The following are examples of the two phrases, as used in the Romance :"La presens sciença del gay saber." (The present knowledge of the gay science.) (The fountain of this gay science.) A short grammar of Romance may be found in vol. i. of Raynouard's Lexique Roman; a longer in vol. i. of his Poésies des Troubadours; but the most complete work on the subject is F. Diez's Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, 3 vols. 8vo; the Introduction to which Grammar has been translated by Mr. Cayley, and published by Williams and Norgate, who are about to publish the same author's Romance Dictionary, translated by Mr. T. C. Donkin. The best account of the Troubadours and their writings is that given by Diez in his Poesie des Troubadours, 8vo, 1826; and Leben und Werke des Troubadours, 8vo, 1829. But our correspondent will probably find all the information he requires in the late Sir George C. Lewis's Essay on the Romance Language, 8vo, 1840.] "COLIBERTI," &c. Can I be informed what species of villenage is indicated by the term colibertus? In the Cornish portion of Domesday Book, I find that the canons of St. Pieran held Lanpiran, and that due terræ had been taken from it; which, in the time of King Edward, re turned to the canons "firma iv. septimanarú." What is meant by "firmam quatuor septimanarum "? There is probably an omission of the word acre in this passage. THOMAS Q. COUCH. [The learned Dr. Cowel, in his Law Dictionary, fol. 1727, informs us, that "these Coliberts in civil law were only those freemen, who at the same time had been manumised by their lord or patron. But the condition of a Colibert in English tenure, was (as Sir Edward Coke asserts) the same with a soke-man, or one who held in free soccage, but yet was obliged to do customary services for the lord ... They were certainly a middle sort of tenants; between servile and free, or such as held their freedom of tenure under condition of such works and services; and were, therefore, the same landholders whom we meet under the name of Conditionales.The "Firma" of so many "Septimana" is supposed by Du Cange, who refers to Spelman and Selden, to signify so many weeks' provision or maintenance. "Firma noctis pro cœna, ut firma diei pro prandio: Firma denique7 septimanarum pro pastu tantidem temporis videtur usurpari." It might, however, be commuted for a payment in money. We find also the phrase "Firma unius noctis" in the sense of one night's provision or entertainment for the king. It appears to have escaped our modern lexicographers that the idea of "firma," a farm, in connection with that of maintaining or provisioning, has not yet disappeared entirely from our language. Thus, when a contract is made for the "finding" or provisioning of a number of persons, this is sometimes called "farming them out." Conf. the old English word "farme," food, a meal.] QUOTATION.-Whence are the following lines? [The authorship of these well-known lines has already occasioned some discussion. In Shakspeare we find Antonio thus addressing Proteus: "My will is something sorted with his wish; For what I will, I will, and there an end." Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Sc. 3. Similar lines occur in Sir Samuel Tuke's play, The Adventures of Five Hours, Act V.: "He is a fool, who thinks by force or skill, To turn the current of a woman's will." Aaron Hill, too, claims two of the lines in his Epilogue to his play of Zara : "A woman will, or won't, depend on't; The lines, however, as quoted by our correspondent, occur on a pillar erected on the Mount in the Dane-John Field, formerly called the Dungeon Field, Canterbury, if we may believe the Examiner of May 31, 1829. As an act of gallantry, we hope some Kentish antiquary will tell us what misogynist placed these intrusive lines on the pillar at Canterbury.] JAMES VI.'S NATURAL SON.- Who was the mother of King James VI.'s natural son, who was the father of the forfeited Earl of Bothwell mentioned in Old Mortality (edit. Edinburgh, 1816)? No SCANDAL. [Sir Walter Scott's genealogy is at fault. The father of the forfeited Earl of Bothwell [Francis Stewart] was the natural son of James V. In Douglas's Peerage, by Wood, i. 231, we read that "John Stewart, prior of Coldinghame, natural son of King James V. by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Carmichael, captain, of Crawford, afterwards married to Sir John Somerville of Cambusnethan, obtained a legitimation under the great seal 7th Feb. 1550-1, and he died at Inverness in 1563. He married, at Seton, 4th Jan. 1561-2, Lady Jane Hepburn, only daughter of Patrick, third Earl of Bothwell, and by her had two sons:-1. Francis, created by James VI. Earl of Bothwell. 2. Hercules."] "CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND " (1st S. xii. 168, 252.)-The name of the author of this anonymous work was inquired after, and not answered. Some time ago, I bought a copy of the work called "Trifles" (of which the Chronicle forms part), by R. Dodsley, of a respectable second-hand bookseller. Underneath The Chronicle of the Kings of England is filled up, in handwriting "By Lord Chesterfield." By whom this was written, and on what authority, I know not; my copy of the work is dated 1745. D. W. S. [This work was attributed to Robert Dodsley in our 1st S. xii. 168; and is entered under his name in Bohn's Lowndes, p. 657, and in the Catalogue of the British Museum. It is also printed in Dodsley's Miscellanies, or Trifles in Prose and Verse, 2 vols. 1777. The Economy of Human Life has frequently been attributed to the Earl of Chesterfield. See "N. & Q.." 1st S. x. 8, 74, 318.] Replies. HERALDIC QUERY. (3rd S. v. 241.) Certainly the brothers or other relatives" of A have no right to the arms granted to A and his descendants. I know the case of two families, one member of each of which obtained a grant of arms to himself. The other members of the families never used those arms. The case of A is illustrated by the examples given by Cainden in his Remaines concerning Britain (London, 1657), p. 221, et seqq. under "Armories." These are examples "touching the granting of arms from some great Earls, and passing of coats from one private person to another. .... all before the reduction of the Heralds under one regulation." That is to say, before the Crown interfered with the property and liberty of the subject; an interference which has ended in our day in the advertisements of "Arms found," and "Heraldic Offices." Camden's first example is a gift from "Humfry Count de Staff. et de Perche Seigneur de Tunbrigg et de Caux" to Robert Whitgreve, of the arms still borne by that antient and honourable house. I preserve Camden's spelling. The Earl says: "Saches que nous... luy avoir donne et donons par icestes presentes pour memory d'onneur perpetuell, auportre set armes ensigne de Noblesse un Escue de Azure a quatre points d'or, quatre cheverons de Gules, et luy de partire as autres persones nobles de son linage en descent avecques les differences de Descent au dit blazon." This is dated "Le xiii jour d'August, l'an du reigne le Roy Henry le Sisme puis le Conquest vintisme." Next, in the fifteenth year of Richard II., Thomas Grendale of Fenton grants arms which he had himself inherited, to William Moigne, "a ces heires et assignes a tous jours." And Thomas de Clanvowe, chivalier, transferring his arms to William Criketot, "consanguineo meo," in the eleventh year of Henry IV., adds, "et ego prædictus Thomas et hæredes mei prædicti, arma, et jus eadem gerendi, præfato Willielmo hæredibus et assignatis suis, contra omnes gentes Warrantizabimus in perpetuum." But in some cases a grant has been made retrospective. I have before me a copy, transcribed by my own hand, of a grant made by Sir Isaac Heard, Garter, and George Harrison, Clarencieux. This assigns arms to the petitioner and his descendants, and authorises him to place those on any monument or otherwise in memory of his said late father." I do not know how old this practice is; but it is plainly a way of accelerating, by one descent, the period at which a family becomes a family of "gentlemen of blood." arms "At this time," says Camden, having mentioned in the preceding clause, "the siege of Caerlaveroc, the battail of Sterling, the siege of Calice, and divers Tourniaments,". "there was a distinction of Gentlemen of bloud and Gentlemen of coate-armour, and the third from him that first had coate-armour was to all purposes held a Gentleman of bloud." And such a grant as this of Sir Isaac Heard might easily place the whole issue of the father in the rank of armigeri. Here the petitioner was an only son. But supposing such a grant to be made when the deceased father had left several children, the terms of the grant might be so varied as to give the right of using the arms to them all. If, however, the grant only specified one out of several children, and the issue and descendants of that one child, then, I presume, that not even the permission to place the arms "on any monument or otherwise," in memory of the father of the grantee, would imply a right given to the other children to carry those arms. D. P. Stuarts Lodge, Malvern Wells. In reply to J., on reference to an old document issued from the Heralds' College, granting and depicting the arms and crest to be borne and used by an ancestor, I find this paragraph : "To be borne and used for ever by him the said T. B., and his descendants, and the descendants of his late father deceased. . . . . with due and proper differences according to the laws of Arms," &c. &c. If the foregoing is, and has been the usual wording of such patents, I am inclined to think that it is so comprehensive, that J.'s brothers and their descendants would be entitled to use the arms and bear the crest of those grants to himself, "with due and proper differences." SITUATION OF ZOAR. (3rd S. v. 117, 141, 181, 262.) T. C. B. is more accurately a "mound or ridge;" and that Lot's wife was actually turned into the ridge of Khashm Usdum-is not without its difficulties. 1. The word in question, netsib, is derived from a root natsab, which has simply the force of "standing," "being fixed;" no idea of height, length, or breadth, or any other quality appertaining to a ridge or mound, is present in the root. (See Gesenius's Lexicon; Fürst, Handwörterbuch, &c., &c.) Netsib itself, besides meaning a pillar or column (something set up), has a secondary meaning of an officer (one set over); and also, though this is uncertain, of a garrison or military post (see the lexicons as above, and "Garrison," in Smith's Dict. of Bible). 2. It seems less suitable to the biblical narrative to suppose that Lot's wife was turned into a ridge, which is more than five miles long, a mile or so wide, and 300 feet high (see Smith's Dict., ii. 1180), than into a column or statue nearer the size and proportions of the human figure. Such columnar fragments appear to be in the habit of splitting off from the Khashm Usdum; and do actually suggest to those who see them, even in our own day, identity with Lot's wife. (See the quotations in the Dict., ii. 144; also, ii. 1180). 3. Is it so certain, as E. H. assumes, that the neighbourhood of the Khashm Usdum was the scene of this catastrophe? I am aware that such is the general opinion; but the question of the site of the "cities of the plain" has not yet received the consideration which it deserves, and I observe that the latest inquirer, viz. Mr. Grove, in Smith's Dict. of Bible, ii. 1339-41, and 1856-7, brings forward some reasons which are not without force for believing that these cities lay at the north, instead of the south end of the lake. 4. Khashm Usdum can hardly be said to be a ridge of salt, in that strict and literal sense in which E. H. accepts the narrative of Gen. xix.: since the rock-salt, of which the bulk of the mountain is formed, is mixed with other strata, and has a capping of a marly deposit of considerable thickness. 5. How far is it necessary to take the narrative of Gen. xix. as a literal statement of facts? Are we bound to believe, historically, that a torrent of burning sulphur was poured down from the sky at a temperature sufficient to ignite the walls and houses of the towns? Or may not this be merely the impressive imagery, in which a writer of those early times clothed the fact of the final doom, which the luxury and recklessness of the inhabitants had, through more natural means, brought on their cities? Such modes of speech are in every day use with orientals. The Jews of Monastir, within the last few weeks, in language which might be that of one of the authors of the Pentateuch itself, describe the conflagration which destroyed their city-a conflagration produced by the most ordinary means-as "fire from heaven." (See their letter to Sir M. Montefiore.) Travellers, even in our own day, often speak of the burnt calcined look which pervades the shores of the Dead Sea, as a remnant and token of the catastrophe in which the cities were consumed. There is every reason to believe that the appearance in question is there, as elsewhere, due to entirely natural causes. It is also becoming recognised, as our knowledge of the spot and the subject increases, that the Bible does not demand that the formation of the Dead Sea was in any way connected with the destruction of the cities; and that its formation dates from an age long anterior to the historic period. (See Smith's Dict., ii. 1187, 1308.) If, even in our own day, natural agencies have been thus supernaturally interpreted, surely it is not unreasonable or irreverent to ask if they may not have been similarly interpreted in an earlier and less critical age; and if the statuesque columns, which must during many centuries have been periodically splitting off from the Khashm Usdum, may not have suggested to an early Hebrew poet the impressive and profitable apologue of Lot's wife. 0. L. Not only the authorities already quoted in the first and second centuries of our era attest the existence in their time of "the pillar of salt," but many subsequent historians and travellers, even up to the present day, profess to have identified it in some outlying fragment of the Khasm Usdûm, or Jebel Usdûm. According to Rabbinical tradition, the name of Lot's wife was Hedith (signifying "witness "), given to her in judicial forecast of her terrible destiny, and the permanence of its testimony. How it came to endure, with all the members entire, is curiously narrated by Irenæus (iv. 51, 64); but the evidence is more than dubious on this point, the Hebrew word denoting rather fixation than form: and it is probable that the unbelieving lingerer was suddenly destroyed by the rushing lava below, while showers of sulphurous salts from above enveloped the charred body in a shapeless mass, thus becoming an isolated object upon the plain of Sodom. But the very nature of the material would necessarily yield to atmospheric agencies (it may be also to the destroying hand of man), except preserved by a miraculous intervention, of which we have no authentic record. Rachel's memorial pillar was intact 600 years after her death (1 Samuel x. 2), but there is no allusion in Holy Writ to the permanence of the "pillar of salt.' Before the infliction of a fiery doom upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the regions around "the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea,' were both populous and fruitful (Gen. xiv.) And, again, 2000 years afterward they seem to have attained a high degree of prosperity according to Strabo, who mentions numerous villages built of the rock-salt, or volcanic debris, in the vicinity of the Asphaltites, then, as now, termed by the Arabs (Edomites) Bahr Lût, the Sea of Lot. The proximate or physical causes of sterility throughout the medieval East are in every instance the same; and the restoration of primitive fertility depends on wells and irrigation, or an industrial appropriation of the substratal water, in the present day, just as it did 4000 years ago in the days of Abraham and Lot. The information in Smith's Dictionary is interesting and erudite, yet unsatisfactory; and I rather expect, from a more careful geological research, that we shall discover in "the testimony of the rocks" the only genuine clue to the ancient sites of Zoar and the cities of the plain. In the salt mines of Cracow there is a rude isolated block, somewhat resembling the human figure, which the superstitious people believe to be the actual "pillar of salt" into which Lot's wife was metamorphosed. The moral of that standing monument of an unbelieving soul (Wisdom of Solomon x. 7) was truly, though quaintly, drawn by Thomas Jordan two hundred years ago in his fancied inscription: "In this pillar I do lie Dublin. Buried, where no mortal eye You, to whom my corpse I show, That way let your whole hearts lie; PUBLICATION OF DIARIES. J. L. (3rd S. v. 107, 215, 261.) Since PROFESSOR DE MORGAN's memory fails him, I must now further state that, neither in the communication alluded to, nor in any other with which I have subsequently been favoured, did he ever express any "wish that I should make "amends" for "my own deficiency." This is a new idea which was only given to the world on March 26, 1864. I was totally ignorant of having committed any offence by the publication of Burrow's journals, until the morning of Christmas Day last; when I accidentally turned to the article "Tables" in a copy of the English Cyclopædia, in the library of a friend. The scurrility from "N. & Q." is there reprinted, together with the implied charge, which has now become expanded into such large dimensions. I expressed my surprise in a letter to MR. DE MORGAN shortly after, and informed him where the journals could be inspected. The weapons with which I am now assailed have, therefore, been furnished from my own quiver. The Howe case, it appears, is still standing over; but since part of the charge only is now enforced, the rest ought to be abandoned on the ground that, when Burrow speaks of Howe, he is venturing an opinion on things which we know he did not understand; but when he speaks of "mathematics and mathematicians," we know that he understood a great deal about both. The testimony in the two cases, therefore, rests upon very different foundations. We do not put mathematicians into the witness-box in order to give evidence on questions relating to the efficiency or non-efficiency of naval commanders. Were such a thing to be attempted, "ne sutor ultra crepidam" would soon be urged with effect by some modern Apelles in the garb of an opposing counsel. I am not to be deterred from attempting my own justification by the threat contained in the fourth paragraph; but will certainly prefer giving the allusions myself, rather than trust to its being done by an opponent who only selects one instance in illustration from "the last page of all." 66 noted. In the Philosophical Magazine for March, 1853 (p. 186), I stated broadly that Mr. Burrow s superiority in geometry" did not enable "him to subdue his natural irritability: for, at various periods of his career, he had differences with almost every person of eminence with whom he came in contact." In the same page, his "special education" is stated to have been "in advance of his general." His "antipathy to Dr. Hutton," and his quarrel with Dr. Maskelyne, are also Further down, I propose to "select" some passages from his journals for preservation, "accompanied by such remarks as may serve to render the extracts intelligible." On p. 187, I place the expression-"Hutton, by-the-bye, does not know how to make an Almanack"-in italics, as a caution to the reader not to interpret the passage literally; and on pp. 188 and 189, the same caution is repeated when I direct attention to the surmise, that "Mr. Burrow, it seems, would have had no objection to 100l. a-year from the Stationers' Company." In a previous extract he had charged this Company with giving Dr. Hutton this sum, in order "to stop his mouth," and this is also given in italics on p. 188. His motives in assisting to establish Carnan's Diary, are also |