MERCHANT ADVENTURERS: MUSCOVY COMPANY. Can any of your readers tell me where to find an account of the Company of Merchant Adventurers and the Muscovy Company of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? I should like especially to find some lists of names of members. R. M. [Several works on the general history of the Muscovy Company were named at 10 S. vi. 252.]

FILDIEU.-At the French Revolution a Madame Fildieu with two sons and two daughters fled from France and landed in Devonshire. The family in England would be very glad to obtain any information possible as to the origin and history of the Fildieu family. Replies may be sent direct (Mrs.) FILDIEU SARGENT.

32, Annandale Road, Chiswick, W.

WALL-PAPERS.-Can any one refer me to any sources of information concerning the first designers of wall-papers in France and England, and also concerning the firms who first produced them? Is it known whether any of the earliest French designs are preserved ? If so, where may they be seen? HYLLARA.

"THERE'S SOME WATER WHERE THE STAGS DROWN."-A friend of mine recently quoted this proverb with the meaning

There is no smoke without fire.' She has been familiar with it since her early childhood, which was spent under South Yorkshire and Hampshire influences. I desire to know whether the proverb is generally known.

ALEXANDER INNES, D.D., was Preacher Assistant at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and published in 1728 An Enquiry into the He was assoOriginal of Moral Virtue. ciated with George Psalmanazar, and it is stated that he was "Chaplain to a British Regiment in the pay of the Dutch, and stationed at Sluys." Who was he? A. N. I.

A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY SEAL.-The seal of Thomas Jekes, clerk, of Surrey, 1362, shows a shield with a cross paty accompanied by five roses. The legend is [DAT CRUCE CRUX BINA CRISTUM ROSA VULNERA QUINA. The letters in brackets are broken away. Can any reader of N. & Q.' explain the legend and indicate its origin ?

Montreux.

DONALD L. GALBREATH.

He was the

FREDERIC CHAPMAN. founder of The Fortnightly Review, and is said to have been born in Cock Street, Hitchin, in a house reputed to have belonged to his collateral ancestor, George Chapman the poet.

Where can I obtain further particulars W. B. GERISH. concerning him?

[Frederic Chapman died 1 March, 1895. There the D.N.B. and in Boase's Modern English are accounts of him in the First Supplement to Biography,' Supplement, Vol. I. Both give the place of his birth as Cork Street, Hitchin.]

If only local, is it current in the neighbourhood of the New Forest, or in the district round Wakefield, which was once a woodland forming part of Robin Hood's country? M. P. FOLK-LORE QUERIES. 1. Robins.-A countrywoman tells me that robins have a THE FAMILY OF CHILDE OR CHILD.-A bad name in this neighbourhood (Bucking-reference was made to a William Child of hamshire). People believe that the young Blockley, Worcestershire, in the interesting ones, when ready to fly, peck the mother- letter from Sir Robert Throckmorton (11 S. bird's eyes out. Is this belief generally ix. 405). The family of Child seems to have known? and if So, what traditional settled at Northwick, near Blockley, in foundation for it is there? 1320, and continued to reside there, certainly till 1679, for in that year Thomas Child of Northwick was buried at Blockley. About that time they sold the manor, or more probably the lease of it, to Sir James Rushout, Bart. Can any of your readers kindly tell me whether William Child (born at Bristol), au eminent doctor of music in the reign of Charles II., belonged to the Northwick family? and also what connexion

2. Swallows. I was told not long ago by a farmer's daughter that, if a swallow's nest on a farm be taken, and the young destroyed, the cows on the farm will give no milk-or yield blood instead of milk. She related an instance of this in her own home. Can any reader tell me of other-recent-cases of belief in this superstition? PEREGRINUS.

(if any) there was between the Childs of Northwick and Mr. Child the London banker, who purchased Upton House in the parish of Ratley, Warwickshire, in 1757, and whose daughter was married at Gretna Green to John, tenth Earl of Westmorland ? A. C. C.

"THE D-D STRAWBERRY." (See 11 S. ix. 293.)-Will PROF. BENSLY kindly indicate where his quotation, "The d-d strawberry at the bottom of the glass," is to be

found?

I have heard it stated that strawberries

66

in a bowl absorb alcohol. Is this the meaning? Further information on the subject would be gratefully received by

W. ROBERTS CROW.

MCJANNET SURNAME. Can any reader suggest the origin of the name McJannet ? It has been said that the name originated from MacIan, head of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and that after the massacre one of the sons settled in Carrick, Ayrshire. R. M. HOGG.

Irvine, Ayrshire.

Replies.

REGISTERS OF

PROTESTANT DISSENTERS.

(11 S. ix. 489.)

Although Dr. Williams's Library has yielded up its chief Register, there are still lodged in Gordon Square (i.e., in that library) a large number of MSS. relating to Dissenters. These are reported upon in the Hist. MSS. Comm. Report, iii. 365–8. It is as well to remember that the Friends or Quakers, with their usual care and admirable arrangements, had their Registers transcribed before yielding them up, with the result that at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, E.C., it is possible to refer to any name by paying a small fee. I should like to make use of this opportunity to express an opinion, formed after some experience, that of all Dissenting bodies, the Friends are more ready to help students, and better equipped to do so, than any other sect. Nothing could exceed the courtesy which is at once extended by them to any genuine student.

The Registers of the Friends, the Independents, and the Baptists are the oldest at Somerset House, and these begin at different seventeenth-century dates. The Bible Christians begin as late as 1817; Lady Huntingdon's Connexion in 1752; the Primitive Methodists in 1813; the Wesleyans in 1772. Bunhill Fields Register begins in April, 1713, although the burial-ground was first used in 1665. Looked at from every point of view, it has been a benefit to have the NonParochial Registers lodged in London. They were carelessly looked after locally, and often strayed from the vestry rooms of

THESE are at Somerset House, and are the chapels into the hands of ministers described as

•The Non-Parochial Registers of Baptisms, Births, Burials or Deaths, and in a few instances of Marriages, being the Registers or records kept by various bodies and congregations of Nonconformists prior to the general system of registration begun in 1837."

These include the Registers kept formerly at Dr. Williams's Library, and dating from 1742; at the Bunhill Fields burial-ground, from 1713; by the Society of Friends, and also at some foreign churches in England. By the Acts 3 and 4 Vict., cap. 92, and 21 Vict., cap. 25, extracts from these Registers stamped with the seal of the General Register Office are accepted as evidence in all civil cases.

In 1841 there was issued an official list of these Non-Parochial Registers, arranged under counties, and in 1857 there was printed a further Report on Non-Parochial Registers. Both these publications are now out of print, and rarely turn up. They should, of course, be reprinted.

and deacons. Very many are still thus astray.

The Dissenters have had some grievances with regard to these Registers. By the Stamp Act of 1783, 23 Geo. III., c. 71, a duty of 3d. was imposed upon every entry in the parish registers. The Dissenters were encouraged to hope that if their Registers were impressed with the Government stamp, they would be placed on an equality with the Parish Registers. Upon this understanding they consented to share the tax, and in 1785, 25 Geo. III., c. 75, the Stamp Act was extended to all Protestant Dissenters. By a gross breach of faith, the privilege granting an official value to the Registers was withheld, although the fees were taken. Many years later (18 June, 1838), after a Government inquiry had been held, the Commissioners appointed brought in a report recommending that about three thousand volumes of Non-Parochial Registers which they had collected and authenticated should be deposited with the Registrar

11 S. X. JULY 11, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

General, and should be made of official value. Those recommendations were carried into effect 10 Aug., 1840, 3 and 4 Vict., cap. 92. Another Commission was appointed later (1 Jan., 1857), and the provisions of the Act of 1840 (supra) were extended in 1858 to 265 other Registers which had been collected since 1838.

As to fees, I believe they vary, and there have been reasonable complaints. A Congregational minister wrote to the papers a few years ago, stating the difficulty of consulting the registers of his own chapel lodged at Somerset House without paying Another Dissenter wrote:the full fees. "For the general search lasting two days they charged me a guinea, although I made special request to the Registrar General that my purpose was literary research."

-

It is a pity that all Dissenters have not done as the Friends have done, and made copies of their Registers before parting with them.

Bibliography.

3. One shilling is charged for every con-
a certificate of an entry. I have a certifi-
gregation's books consulted, and 2s. 7d. for
cate which runs :—

"William the twenty seventh son and thirty
first child of Peter Magee baptized at Whitehaven
50 year old. She is his 8th Wife."
May 30, 1756. The sd. Peter is 86 and his Wife
R. M. GLENCROSS.
Surely a good 38. 7d. worth!
Makshufa, Harefield Road, Uxbridge.

(11 S. ix.

"SPEAK TO ME, LORD BYRON be found in a ballad entitled Devil Byron,' 388).—The line which L. G. R. asks for will by Ebenezer Elliott. This poem appeared on 23 Jan., 1847, in a publication known as The People's Journal, edited by John Sanders, and published at The People's Journal Offices, 69, Fleet Street.

The poem has to do with the Lord Byron, In a Foreword of the father of the poet. ballad the poet relates the following:

"I had the facts on which this ballad is founded 'Lists of Non-Parochial Registers and Records in from old Luke Adams, a forgeman, who had the custody of the Registrar-General,' 1841. 'Report on Non-Parochial Registers,' 1857. Both these are Blue-books.

Parish Registers and the 'Observations on Marriages of Nonconformists, with the outlines of a Bill for establishing a more certain General Register of Marriages, Births, and Deaths in each Parish,' London, 1819.

6

Sims's Manual,' pp. 365 and onwards, is, as always, invaluable, and the same can Records and certainly be said of Rye's Record Searching,' 2nd ed., 1897. Cox's Parish Registers in England' has references, and Phillimore's How to Write the History of a Family, 'pp. 336-7, has titles of numerous Dissenting Registers which have been printed. Lyon Turner's Original Records relating to Nonconformists,' recently completed, is a monumental work of immense Chester value from the Indexes alone. Waters's Parish Registers in England,' 1887, has much information which I have found useful. In The Daily News, 18 and 25 Dec., 1893, and 2 Jan., 1894, there was a correspondence of some importance upon Non-Parochial Registers; and in January, 1894, the subject was discussed in Parliament (see Times reports, 5 Jan., 1894). A. L. HUMPHREYS.

6

187, Piccadilly, W.

1. A vast majority, if not all that now exist, are at Somerset House under the Registrar-General. There is a full Calendar at the office, under counties.

2. These are not indexed.

were,

6

worked many years, when young, in a small
charcoal Bloomery near Newstead Abbey; but
I have not adhered strictly to his narrative. The
words uttered by the lady (she was quite sane)
Do speak to
Speak to me, my Lord!
me, my Lord!' uttering which words with pas-
sionate calmness, she was often seen on horse-
back, accompanying her Brother in his drives.
She was pitied, respected, and-must I add?
slandered.

I am not willing to record scandalsand to hint at them is to record them; I have alluded to them, but not to give them credence. The character which Luke Adams gave me of the old Lord of Newstead differs from the received and accredited one."

There is a very lurid illustration to this poem by William Harvey. "Devil Byron is riding on what might be the box seat of an old-fashioned curricle with four wheels, driving two horses, while his sister rides by his side with clasped hands, and an imploring expression on her face. Evidently a storm is raging, and the storm fiend is seen at the back with upraised hands, while the lightning is playing round. The horses are galloping furiously, apparently uncontrolled by any harness.

If L. G. R. will send me his address, I will J. H. MURRAY. send him my copy to have a look at.

100, Lothian Road, Edinburgh.

WILDGOOSE (11 S. ix. 330, 397, 438).— John Wildegoos, a member of the Company He lent 400l. to in 1664. of Carpenters in 1651, is described as an "old Master the Company prior to the latter date. E J. C. WHITEBROOK.

6

66

66

Thomas Philpot was Corrector of the Press" to several very important printers up to and after the Restoration. I gave an outline biography of him in the chapter on the 'Beginnings of Journalism' in vol. vii. of The Cambridge History of English Literature,' with a reference note to my authorities.

"CONDAMINE" (11 S. ix. 511).—According may really have been Philpot's child by to Joanne's Dictionnaire de la France Cromwell's illegitimate daughter. (vol. ii. Paris, 1892, p. 1044), this term (with the variants condomine and contamine") comes from the Low Latin word "condomina" (i.e., cum domino), and designates uncultivated land which has been handed over by its owner to some one to clear and put in order, the profits being shared between the lord and his tenant who held by this feudal tenure-in short, the well-known métayer system.

66

Grindelwald.

W. A. B. COOLIDGE.

66

The proper line of inquiry would be, in the first instance, to find out the entries of Jonathan Hartop's marriages. Probably the earliest of these took place in London. After the Restoration Thomas Philpot was described as of Snow Hill," London. He was M.A. of Cambridge, and had also been a schoolmaster in Kent, which is why I added a caution against confusing him with the Thomas Philpot or Philipot of the 'D.N.B.,' who was a Kentish man.

J. B. WILLIAMS.

"Condamine" is derived from "campus domini." A relative of mine married a gentleman named De la Condamine, a descendant of Charles Marie de la Condamine, and he and others have told me that this is the derivation of Condamine. Is it possible that one of the Condamines was once the property of a religious house? I see in a gazetteer of the world that a Condamine is a town in Queensland, co. Bulwer, 240 miles west of Brisbane, and there is a river of that name there, a head stream of the River Darling. It would be interesting to find why that name was given to those Queens-tory of "the howshold stuffe at Browsholme," land localities.

CROMWELL'S

M.A.OXON.

ILLEGITIMATE DAUGHTER, MRS. HARTOP (11 S. ix. 29, 94, 372, 452, 497). -The difficulties raised by the Editor at 11 S. ix. 452 occurred to me before I made my inquiry about the passage in The Wolverhampton Chronicle. If Hartop's third wife really was an illegitimate daughter of the pseudo-Protector, she probably was a very old woman when he married her, and the marriage must have been a fortune-hunter's match. Cash to the extent of 500l. was a considerable fortune in the seventeenth century quite enough to live upon. That is why I drew attention to the case of Thomas Philpot, who in 1654 signed his printed petition to Cromwell your son-in-law Thomas Philpot," with the intention, I have no doubt, of being disagreeable.

Cromwell's legitimate children are all well known, and this claim of relationship must have meant that Philpot had married an illegitimate daughter of Cromwell.

Those who are familiar with the dreadful way in which eighteenth- century writers often contrive to confuse the most ordinary issues will realize that Hartop may very well have said that his third wife was a daughter of an illegitimate daughter of Cromwell. She

A

TRAWN CHAER (11 S. ix. 488).— Thrown chairs, i.e., chairs constructed of turned or twisted bars, were in fairly common use to the end of the sixteenth century. The original sense of the O.E. word thrawen, to twist, is retained by potters. In an inven

dated 28 Dec., 1591, “in the schole chamber," appears, "Item, one wiker chayre and a thrawen chayre-viijs." The "thrawen chayre" is still here.

I understand that a good specimen has been recently added to the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

MOORE OF WINSTER (11 S. ix. 490).The late Mr. T. N. Ince contributed a number of pedigrees to The Reliquary, but I fear the

one MR. SEROCOLD names is not among them.

If, however, he has not referred to this
excellent journal, the following information
may be useful to him. On p. 45 of vol. iv.
is a copy of the will of Thomas Eyre of
Rowtor, dated 2 Sept., 1717. By this will
the testator appoints his trusty & well
beloved Friend Robert Moore ye elder of
Winster" one of his trustees. On p. 224
of vol. vi. is a list of baptisms, marriages,
and burials of persons of the name of Smedley
extracted from the registers of Melbourne,
co. Derby. These commence in 1655, and
end 1808.
CHARLES DRURY.