"NUTS IN MAY." Has this children's Volkslied been discussed in 'N. & Q.'? I have an etymological guess anent the word "nuts," which I will not particularize till I get further evidence. T. WILSON.

[See 7th S. ix. 168, 257, 415; 8th S. v. 426; vi. 58, vii. 231.]

ORDER OF THE ROYAL OAK.-Can any one tell me where I can find a list of the names of those persons chosen by King Charles II. to form the Order of the Royal Oak, which he intended to institute? DULCE.

[Lists are printed at vol. i. p. 688 of Burke's "History of the Commoners,' ed. 1836, and in Noble's "History of the House of Cromwell.']

[The lines seem to be an expansion of Longfellow's translation from Von Logau. Consult 8th S. x. 468; xi. 358; also Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.']

Friends, when you see I'm like to die
Carry me where the sea is roaring;
There on my last bed let me lie

And list to the long waves homeward pouring,
Beating, beating, and ever repeating
The cry it cried when it first was hurled,
With a myriad shocks, on the barrier rocks,
On the very birthday of the world.

ST. ANDREW'S, ANTWERP.-There is a handsome monument in this church erected by Mary, Queen of Scots, to the memory of two of her ladies-in-waiting, or it may be to two of her governesses. I should be very grateful to any reader of N. & Q.' who would give me a translation of the long inscription it bears, or who would inform me where I could get it. F. K. H. Bath.

Can

BURNEY'S THEATRICAL PORTRAITS. you tell me if there is a printed catalogue of " "Burney's Collection of Theatrical Portraits," and if so, the name of the publisher and the price? JOHN CHADWICK. 6, Stanley Grove, Sale, near Manchester.

118, Pall Mall. SHAKESPEARE FOR FOREIGNERS. — Which would be the best annotated edition of well up in modern English, but who knows Shakespeare for use by a foreigner who is little or nothing of Elizabethan literature?

F. W.

BALASORE.-What is the meaning of this?
Anderton Clarke, in his 'New Lancashire
Gazetteer,' 1830, speaks of a Balasore hand-
kerchief.
M.A. OXON.

[Probably so named from being originally made in the town or district of the name in Bengal.]

ST. GENIUS. This patron saint of players was an actor who was ordered to be crucified or put to death by Diocletian because of his being suddenly converted to the teachings of Christ, A.D. 285. Where can I find details? S. J. A. F.

DIRECTION POST v. - These words appear to be variously used; but surely "direction post" as applied to crossroads is alone correct. Punch, I submit, used the word wrongly in a cartoon a few months ago. Information is desired.

JAS. CURTIS, F.S.A.

"MINININ," A SHELL.-By the above name the people of Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, call a small shell, Nassa incrassata, dwarf variety. The word does not occur in any dictionary that I have been able to consult, nor have I seen it written. Is it merely a form of Minikin? or is it perhaps connected

with the Icelandic Minni, a month, influenced by Minni, lesser, while the termination might then be a form of the suffixed article? I cannot find Anglo-Saxon roots to suit, and Norse influence is strong on the east coast. Nassa incrassata is given in a list of Icelandic shells by A. C. Johansen, Copenhagen, 1901; but I can find no Icelandic name for it. Will PROF SKEAT or some other throw light on this seemingly new word?

1, Castlebar Road, Ealing.

G. W. MURRAY.

the MISS METEYARD. According to D.N.B.' this lady died on 4 April, 1879, at Stanley Terrace, Fentiman Road, South Lambeth. Could not the London County Council see their way to put one of their Where tablets on the particular house? was she buried? Can any one send a copy of the inscription on her tombstone? Mr. Roach Smith says in his 'Retrospections' that none of her friends or admirers were notified of the funeral. Is any portrait of her known other than the Fontana medallion? T. CANN HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A.

Lancaster.

BANNER OR FLAG. Can any of your readers say if there is a proper name for the banner often seen on gala days hanging by a cord from a cross pole? The lower portion of it is triangular in shape. I am unable to find anything about it in the books I have.

C. H. ORFEur.

MARY MUNDAY AT MULLION COVE.-Some years ago (fifty) at Mullion Cove, Cornwall, the once-famed Mary Munday kept an inn, visited by Prof. Blackie and other literary lights. Can your readers say what became of her, and if the visitors' books of the inn are F. W. A. still in existence?

GILD CHURCHES.-Can any readers supply a list of churches (not chapels or chantries) built and maintained by gilds in mediæval J. B. MORRIS. times?

87, Holyhead Road, Coventry.

RUSKIN AND TAORMINA. It is stated in
'Sunny Sicily,' by Mrs. Alec Tweedie, that
"when Ruskin was an old man, not long before he
died, he told a relative of his, who chanced to be at
Taormina when we were there, that the one spot
on earth he would like to revisit before death
claimed him for its own was Taormina."

Are there any references to Taormina in
Ruskin's works or letters?

Dublin.

W. A. HENDERSON.

Beylies.

BLANDINA.

(10th S. v. 409.)

I HEARD of Blandina at Lyons, and, when visiting the ancient church of St. Martin d'Ainay, saw the little crypt in which, during the persecution under Marcus Aurelius, she and Bishop Pothinus, a nonagenarian, were imprisoned before their martyrdom was complete. I copy the following passage from the Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyon to the Brethren in Asia and Phrygia,' which I find quoted in Hare's 'South-Eastern France' (p. 124) :—

"Blandina, bound to a stake, also was exposed to the wild beasts. She was bound in the form of a cross, and employed in ardent prayer. None of the beasts at that time touched her, so she was taken down from the stake and thrown again into prison to be reserved for a future contest......On the last day of the show she was brought in again with Ponticus, a boy of fifteen, who had daily been brought with her to behold the sufferings of the rest. They were commanded to swear by the idols, and when the mob saw that they remained firm, and despised their threats, their fury was so excited that no mercy was shown either to the sex of the one, or the youth of the other. Their sufferings were increased by every imaginable torture, the whole chapter of agony was exhausted, but all was powerless to move them. Ponticus, encouraged by his sister to the end, at length gave up his spirit.

"Then the blessed Blandina, the last of all, having like a mother exhorted her children, and sent them before her victorious into the presence of the King, having watched over all their sufferings, prepared for the pains of death herself, rejoicing as one going to a marriage feast, not as one to be devoured by wild beasts. Having endured scourging, the tearing of beasts, and the iron chair, she was enclosed in a net and thrown to a bull, when, having been long tossed by the animal, raised beyond pain through the power of hope and realization of her fellowship with Christ, she at last expired." ST. SWITHIN.

The following particulars about Blandina, the martyr slave of Ireland, appeared in The Churchman's Shilling Magazine, xxi.(1877), p. 411. She was carried from Ireland by the Romans, and bought by a Christian matron in Lyons, who converted her. In 177 A.D. was tortured by the Blandina there was a fierce persecution of the Christians. scourge, and laid upon a red-hot gridiron, followed by barbarities "too revolting to be recorded." Amongst other fearful cruelties, lighted torches were held to her sides, and a lion was let loose upon her, but it is said it refused to harm her. She was then exposed to the fury of a wild bull, but the animal failed to kill her, and she finished her course of sufferings, which is said to have

"John Gawler was in business in Quebec when he married E. Buckley, the intimate friend of Mrs. Chapone. He was present (probably as a volunteer) at Wolfe's attack, and on his return to England furnished Benjamin West with some of the details for his famous picture of the death of Wolfe. By way of acknowledgment of the service thus rendered the artist put him into the picture. He is shown on the right of the officer who bears the colours." H. H.

·

Firenze, 1781, &c. ; 'Il giuoco delle Minchiate capitolo,' Livorno, 1752; and Giuochi delle Minchiate, Ombre, &c.,' Roma, 1747 (by Brunetti). The last work is the one most frequently quoted by modern writers, but as it is the only one of the four that I possess, I cannot say if it is the best. F. JESSEL.

The pack-a minchiate or germimi pack—is incomplete. It should contain 97 cards: four suits of 14, the matto, 35 numbered atouts, and 5 unnumbered-stella, luna, sole, il mondo, and fama volans. A full list is to found in Archæologia (1900), lvii. 185; a description in Journal of the Society of Arts, vol. xlix. (1901), p. 317; illustrations in Merlin, Origine des Cartes' (1869), plates ROBERT LEWIS STEELE.

13-19.

This pack is apparently an incomplete set of that described by Papus ('The Tarot of the Bohemians,' trans. Morton, 1892) as the "PLANE" SYCAMORE (10th S. v. 407).—The minchiate of Florence, which consists of the quotation is from Clyde: a Poem,' canto i. 56 cards of the four suits and of 40 major 1.565. The author was John Wilson (1720-89), numbered 0, making 97 in all. Mantegna's arcana, besides the "fool," which is who was born at Lanark, and, after having pack mentioned in the same book had 50 been for a time parish schoolmaster of clefs," as Eliphaz Lévi called them. MR. Lesmahagow in his native country, con- PLATT may consult the works of the latter, ducted Greenock Grammar School from 1767 either in the original or in Waite's 'Mysteries till within two years of his death. The of Magic' (Redway, 1886). I would refer latter appointment was given him on the him also to Westcott's understanding that he was to avoid "the the Sanctum Regnum' (Red way, 1896) and Magical Ritual of profane and unprofitable art of poem- Mathers's 'The Tarot' (Redway, 1888). making," a thing, writes Scott in 1803, now as unlikely to happen in Greenock as in London "(Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,' ii. 176, note). Wilson's 'Clyde' appeared in 1764, and Leyden, editing from an enlarged and imperfectly amended copy, included it in his Scottish Descriptive Poems.' 1803. The editor justifiably considers Wilson's work "the first Scottish loco-descriptive poem of any merit." THOMAS BAYNE.

66

E. E. STREET.

[MR. J. S. McTEAR also thanked for reply.] MR. BRADLEY'S 'HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SOUTH WALES' (10th S. v. 143, 209).—I shall say no more to disturb Mr. Bradley's confidence in the superiority of his knowledge of Welsh to Miss Braddon's, beyond confronting that lady's "Loch withian" with his own "Glencothi." But when he accuses me of being wrong about the Welsh name for the Bridge of the Blessed Ford, he is not playing the game, for I said nothing about the ending which does not appear in his book, but criticized -aiad, which does. I have said that these mistakes can be easily corrected in a second edition, for more often than not they vary the meaning of the words rather than make nonsense of them. Mr. Bradley's "Pontrhydfen-digaiad" is capable of bearing the meaning "Bridge of Unenclosed Ben's Ford."

TAROT CARDS (10th S. v. 407).-The cards referred to by MR. PLATT are 96 of the 97 cards of a pack for the game of minchiate-aid, of Florence. Such packs are Nos. I. 256 and 257 of the collection in the British Museum (Willshire. Supplement, pp. 3-6), and Nos. 44-63 of Lady. Charlotte Schreiber's collection.

An account of the game of minchiate by Robert Smith is to be found in Archeologia, vol. xv. p. 140. Shorter notices of the game are given in the works on playing-cards by Singer, Merlin, and D'Allemagne. The principal Italian treatises on the game are Regole generali del nobilissimo gioco delli Minchiate,' Roma, 1728 (by Luigi Bernardi); 'Regole generali del giuoco delle Minchiate,

Mr. Bradley's readers should be cautioned that their guide's statement, "In the Welshspeaking districts, whether north or south, if you have once mastered the alphabet and a few leading rules of accent, you can scarcely go far wrong in a place-name" (p. 79), is not

warranted by his own practice. Thus, what
he intends to be Welsh for "stinking well"
(fynon ddrewllyd), is good Welsh for "Lloyd's
town well." His curw-dda is not only wrong
in gender, but implies a calumny on the
Principality as well, for the popular English
sentiment 66
It is a shame to rob a poor man
of his beer" would fall quite flat on the ears
of a Welsh audience. When telling at con-
siderable length the story of Twm Shon
Catti, he invariably calls the scene of his
hero's most famous exploit Ystryd ffyn ("the
Street of Staves"), in defiance of the well-
known old jingle:
:-

In Ystrad ffin this year
There's loud alarm and fear,

The stoutest heart like melting lead
For dread that Twm is near.

The following sentence (p. 32) exposes Mr.
Bradley's weakness on another and a more
important side: "When first I knew the
place, the burly figure of a celebrated pulpit
orator of the Methodist persuasion was a
familiar one...... Kilsby' Jones.' After that,
one is not surprised to find the Welsh Dis-
senters-the three sects-absolutely ignored.
At Llangeitho, the Mecca of Methodism, the
tourist is independent of vernacular guides,
and he cannot go far wrong in his facts. At
Lampeter St. David's College is alive and
flourishing, and he who runs may read its
story and its lesson; but from Lampeter to
Llandyssul is a country over which the Church
has no hold, and where Methodism is quite a
secondary phase of religious life. But here
is found the most unflinching antagonism to
the Church, and the entire district is known
as the "Black Spot." Can Mr. Bradley,
perchance, have heard that term and mis-
understood it? At any rate, it is the very
district where he misspells the Welsh for
corpse candle," talks of "sin eaters" and their
ghoulish" feasts, combines his information
about the cyhyraeth (heard, but not seen) and
Y Wrach (oftener seen than heard), and creates
therefrom the weird monstrosity Cyoewraeth.
In my copy of J. Downes's 'Mountain Deca-
meron' (i. p. 207) there is a MS. note on this
word which may not be inappropriate here:
'Quasi ab Austr. abor. 'coee'+Angl.-Scot.
wraith'; v. A.L. opp. passim. T. L. P.'s
ghost." As a matter of fact, the district is
not behind, but in advance of, the rest
of Wales in mental culture and enlighten-
ment. Out of a score of well-known names
that I could readily supply, I need only
mention Silvan Evans, Prof. Rhys, and Mr.
Gwenogfryn Evans as typical products of
this" Black Spot." The name, I may explain,
has been bestowed upon the district by the

66

"orthodox," because it is the heart of the smallest, but most "advanced" of the Three Sects, namely, the Unitarians, whose excellent monthly organ Yr Ymofynydd (The Inquirer) is actually published at Llandyssul. But I must hurry on. The tale of Dafydd [Meirig] of Bettws Bledrws. which Mr. Bradley has dumped down at Llandy bie, has nothing whatever to do with that locality. The folk-lore of Llandybie is curiously free from the greed-for-hidden-treasure motif, and there is no trace of such a thing in the real Owen Lawgoch legend of that parish.

I now come to Mr. Bradley's indebtedness to John Davies. He has the names of the following living persons in his book: Dr. Henry Owen, Miss Braddon, Marie Corelli, and Hall Caine. No one would complain that he does not give the names of the "fair mail-cart driver" of the Vale of Aeron, of the cockney whom he met in Pembrokeshire, or the acquaintance of George Borrow whom he met at Llandovery. The case of John Davies stands by itself. Half a dozen of the most interesting items in the book are given on his authority; and from high above Lampeter to far below Llandyssul the references to a "local chronicler," a "local antiquary," &c., can be easily pieced together by the careful reader who knows the ground (and John Davies). There is more than mere "tactless" curiosity involved in this matter. When Mr. Bradley relates the romantic tale of the vanished mansion of Maesyfelin ("Millfield "), one would like to know whether he got the very clumsy version of the "Vicar's Curse from John Davies or from some printed book. In the original the curse is given in the well-known "Vicar's Metre," as follows:

66

The curse of God on Millfield fall, On tree and twig, on stone and wall: Headlong it hurled Llandovery's pride To meet his death in Towy's tide. The fact that the curse is in that metre is not improbably the very reason why the tale has been connected with the vicar's son-a fact obscured in Mr. Bradley's version. Elsewhere Mr. Bradley introduces into Vicar Prichard's meagre biography the old "goat" story-quite a modern "fake" in that connexion, for it used to be told of a Sir Philip, Monmouthshire. a pre-Reformation priest of Aberystruth, in J. P. OWEN.

PRISONER

(10th S. iv. 307, 353, 432;
SUCKLED BY HIS DAUGHTER
Although not a reply to the specific question,
V. 31, 132).-