DINNER-JACKET.-Can some reader of 'N. & Q.' say when the dinner-jacket first came into fashion in England, and whether it is an English or an American invention, or was imported from any other country? Further, was it always known by this name? In Germany it is generally called smoking (probably = smoking jacket) or smocking. The latter seems to be merely a corruption of smoking. It would be interesting to know whether either of these forms was ever in use in English-speaking countries, or whether one or both of them are "made in Germany." F. J. C.

Frankfurt-am-Main.

over by a Mr. Solee for the City Theatre, Charleston, South Carolina. They remained long enough at New York to fulfil an engagement in the Old John Street Theatre, and among the pieces which they played was the popular farce of The Spoiled Child,' in which Miss Arnold performed the part of Maria. Who Miss Arnold was, except that she was an English actress, and what was her rank in the theatrical profession, can only be conjectured. The company played in other cities. Miss Arnold is said to have appeared in Baltimore while David Poe, jun., was a member of the Thespian Club, and is the time. also said to have been a Mrs. Hopkins at

David Poe and Miss Arnold married in the spring of 1806. In the summer season at the New Vauxhall Gardens, New York, she played (16 July) the part of Priscilla Tomboy. In the winter of 1809 the husband (who had gone on the stage) and the wife were both engaged at the Boston Theatre. The Boston Gazette contains announcements of her appearance on a number of dates from January to May, 1809. Her son Edgar was born there during this engagement. From Boston she proceeded with her husband and her two children to New York, and played at the Park Theatre. Sight is lost of her until the autumn of 1811, when she was attached to the Richmond Theatre. She was then the mother of three children-William Henry, who was in his fourth or fifth year; Edgar, who was in his third year; and Rosalie, who was a babe in arms. She was ill, she was destitute, and, if the recollections of those who knew her at this time are to be trusted, she was abandoned by her husband. Her public record closed with the paragraph in The Richmond Enquirer of Tuesday, 10 December, 1811: "Died, on Sunday last, Mrs. Poe, one of the actresses of the company at present playing on the Richmond boards," &c.

Will

earlier career, birth, parentage, and place Is anything further now known of the of origin in England of Poe's mother? Was she really twice married, and was her true maiden name Elizabeth Arnold? the readers of N. & Q.' on both sides of the Atlantic assist me in my search? If we assume Miss Arnold was 25 or 26 years of age in 1806 at the time of her marriage to David Poe, she would be born about 1780. Whose was the company of comedians engaged by Mr. Solee from England? Are there any means of tracing such a company or an ordinary member of the

I shall be most obliged to any readers who can assist me in my quest.

LIONEL CRESSWELL.

The Hall, Burley-in-Wharfedale.

DECORATED SHOE-HORNS BY R. MINDUM. In the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Second Series, vol. vii. pp. 121-2 (1877), Sir John Evans publishes notes on three shoe-horns bearing dates 1593, 1600, and 1604, and inscriptions showing that they were made by one "Robart Mindum." Another, in the Saffron Walden Museum, is inscribed round the edge, "Robart Mindum made this shooing-horn for Bridget Dearsley, 1605." The decorations are carried out in dots and incised lines, into which some dark substance has been worked. The crowned Tudor rose is the principal ornament employed in the last specimen.

Who or what Robart Mindum may have been was not known to Sir J. Evans, who states that the above three were the only decorated specimens of the period which he had been able to trace.

I should be glad to know if any light has been cast on the matter since 1877, and also to hear of any other signed or dated specimens of English make.

GUY MAYNARD.

Has Mr. Gery ever been identified, or is anything known about him?

I cannot trace a reference to the name in any of the ten General Indexes of ' N. & Q.,' numerous as are the entries under Swift. FREDK. CHARLES WHITE.

26, Arran Street, Cardiff. SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT'S ENTERAT RUTLAND HOUSE.' - In TAINMENT 'N. & Q.' for 20 March, 1858 (2 S. v. 231), MR. RAYMOND DELACOURT made an inquiry regarding Sir William Davenant's 'Entertainment at Rutland House,' &c., and quoted a description of the scene "from a contemporaneous MS." MR. DELACOURT further stated that "five shillings a head was the charge for admission, and 400 persons were expected, but we learn that there appeared no more than 150 auditors."

Can any one furnish me with information respecting the MS. referred to ? WATSON NICHOLSON.

20, Gordon Square, W.C.

J. R. LETTERS TO LORD ORRERY."Observations upon Lord Orrery's Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift. By J. R., Dublin, 1754," sm. 8vo. Who was the writer of the above, which are of considerable interest and value ? CHARLES S. KING, Bt.

St. Leonards-on-Sea.

MINER FAMILY. (See 2 S. iii. 170.)— According to an old pedigree now in the library of the Connecticut Historical Society, the descent of the Miners of Chew, Somerset, is as follows: Henry Bullman, of Mendippe Hills, Somerset, having proffered himself

and his "domesticall and menial servants," armed with battleaxes and in number a hundred, for service in the French wars, was rewarded by Edward III. with the name of Miner and the coat of arms Gules, a fesse argent between three plates. The crest now borne by the family, a mailed hand holding a battleaxe armed at both ends, all proper, and the motto "Fortis qui prudens," are, I believe, of later date. Henry died in 1359, leaving issue Henry, Edward, Thomas, and George. Henry married Henretta, daughter of Edward Hicks of Gloucester, and had issue William and Henry. William married Hobbs of Wiltshire, and had issue Thomas and George. Thomas (1399) married "Gressley, daughter of Cotton" of Staffordshire, and had issue Lodovick, George, and Mary. Lodovick

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, "UNUS DE
CONSORTIO MEDII TEMPLI."

(11 S. iv. 347, 414, 490.)

IN reference to this query, which has only just been brought to my notice, though I find it has already been dealt with by my successor, MR. BEDWELL, at the second reference, I would ask, as the writer of the statement out of which it arose ('Notable Middle Templars,' p. 78), to be permitted, though late in the day, to make some reply.

66

Your querist, MEDIO-TEMPLARIUS, seems to doubt my inference, from the above description of Sir Francis Drake that he was a member of the Middle Temple, reminding us, truly, that the word used to denote that community was not Consortium," but " Societas," and, to designate a single member, not consors," but 'socius." But, though this may have been the case generally, or, indeed, universally, as he says, throughout the 'Records,' may not an exception have been made, I would ask, and appropriately made, on this particular and!

66

very remarkable festive occasion, when the famous sailor, fresh from the sea, came to "consort with his old friends and, so to speak, "messmates "-a term he would appreciate in the ancient (but then newbuilt) Hall? If not, and if "Consortium " be not here a synonym for “ Societas," what, I ask, can it mean? As for its use in the plural, that certainly presents a difficulty, but I would suggest that it may have a subtle reference to the custom or method (still observed) of dining in messes-" fellowships (consortia)—and this suggestion seems to me to derive confirmation from the expression "omnibus de consortiis in aulâ præsentibus," which I think may be translated as meaning that "all the tables were full up," as they naturally would be on such an auspicious occasion.

I am ready to admit, however, that there is a good deal of speculation in this attempted interpretation of the interesting "memorandum" which puzzles your querist, and it may be that this is the only instance of "consortium" being used, either in the singular or the plural, for the conventional "Societas"; but the occasion was peculiar, and the writer of the "report (as "the memorandum " may be called) may be excused some deviation from strict form and some play of fancy in drawing it up, fresh, as he evidently was, from the festivities he was recording.

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That Sir Francis Drake, however, was a member (socius " or consors") of the Middle Temple I think there can be no doubt-elected probably honoris causâ, like so many other celebrities, to that Inn. That his name does not appear on the Register may probably be accounted for by his being absent-perhaps at sea-at the time of his election, and no note being entered of it. The Middle Temple Records are not without omissions.

As regards the afterwards famous Admiral's provisional 66 admission to the Inner Temple, I suppose there can be no denying that fact in the face of the entry to that effect on the Register of that Inn in 1582; but, if he afterwards paid his fine and proceeded to "membership," of which Master Inderwick admits there is no record, the question why, after his “ prosperous return from his voyage in 1586, he was not entertained and fêted there, instead of by the "consortia generosorum of the Middle Temple, is, it seems to me, a very difficult

one to answer.

JOHN HUTCHINSON (late Librarian to the M.T.). Dullatur House, Hereford.

KEATS'S ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE (11 S. iv. 507).—Mr. A. R. Weekes's edition of 'The Odes of John Keats,' in "The University Tutorial Series," says in the Notes (p. 95):

Faery lands are not so much countries where the fairies live-for that matter they used to live in England-but rather legendary countries of romance,' with probably an underlying thought of the realm of faery in which befel the adventures of Spenser's Faery Queen and her knights.

"Critics trace in this famous stanza an allusion to Claude's picture of the Enchanted Castle,' of which Keats had already written a detailed study in his Epistle to Reynolds."

Mr. Buxton Forman, in his small edition of 'The Complete Works of Keats' (Gowans & Gray, 1901), vol. ii. p. 102, notes, says :

"It seems to me unlikely that any particular story is referred to, though there are doubtless many stories that will answer more or less nearly to the passage."

if we bear in mind that Attica specially favoured the worship of Poseidon, and that a poet may take liberties when he uses topography for illustrative purposes. Thomas Francklin's version of a celebrated chorus in the Edipus Coloneus' might be the source whence Keats derived his idea of the region :—

Where, beneath the ivy shade,
In the dew-besprinkled glade,
Many a love-lorn nightingale
Warbles sweet her plaintive tale.

Here first obedient to command,
Formed by Neptune's skilful hand,
The steed was taught to know the rein,
And bear the chariot o'er the plain;
Here first along the rapid tide
The stately vessels learned to ride,
And swifter down the currents flow
Than Nereids cut the waves below.
THOMAS BAYNE.

Mr. H. Buxton Forman's note on this passage in 1889 was as follows:

"In the last line of this stanza the word fairy instead of faery stands in the MS. and in the Annals; but the Lamia volume reads faery, which enhances the poetic value of the line in the subtlest manner."

"shout

A. R. BAYLEY.

seem

Why did the nightingale's song make Keats I beg to move the previous question. think of fairyland at all? Can it have been for the same reason that made the cuckoo's make "the earth we pace to Wordsworth "an unsubstantial fairy place ? Can it have been because he was a poet? Surely such literalism as your the charm of poetry. And why are these correspondents' queries imply is fatal to particular points chosen for inquiry? might as well ask what particular reason Keats had for associating the nightingale with Ruth-or why the full-throated song of summer in the first stanza turns into a

We

the eglantine should be pastoral any more than the hawthorn--" or any other reason why." What would the stanza gain in beauty-what would it not lose in significance-if we could "hook it to " some legend C. C. B. or bit of folk-lore?