According to the 1892 edition of the Handbook,' these two portraits are in the Crimson Drawing-room. Lord Sackville is the owner of Knole.

Bifrons is, or was, according to the "Handbook quoted above, adjoining the Vicarage of Patrixbourne, which is on the Little Stour river or "bourn," half a mile from Bridge:—

"In the drawing-room is a fine full length of George IV. by Lawrence. Along the front a Mr. Taylor, who rebuilt it in 1770, placed this inscription in commendation of his wife': 'Diruta ædificat uxor bona, ædificata diruit mala.'" According to Paterson's Roads,' 18th ed., by Edward Mogg, 1826, p. 3, the occupant of Bifrons was then Edw. Taylor, Esq.

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ROBERT PIERPOINT.

MATCHES" IN CONGREVE (10 S. vii. 269). -The association of matches with tinderboxes in the quotation from 'Love for Love' seems natural enough, for surely tinderboxes were of no service without matches -those sulphur-tipped splints of thin wood, which kindled into flame on application to the rag-tinder already ignited by sparks

from the flint.

There used to be, fifty to sixty years ago, slips of white wood tipped with sulphur for getting a light from a fire, &c. Perhaps they were the same as those used with the tinder-box. There were also, and probably are now, slips of cedarwood. Both of these were, I think, called matches.

Is not "to break into matchwood" an old phrase for "to break into little pieces " ? ROBERT PIERPOINT.

Matches are not necessarily lucifer matches. The old tinder-boxes always contained matches tipped with sulphur to catch the

long-sought spark on the tinder. The lucifer (phosphorus) matches, producing a real flame themselves, were introduced about 1830, and were a great advance in the art of fire-producing; but surely the old sulphur matches are as old as the tinderboxes themselves, for without them the tinder would have been useless. J. FOSTER PALMER.

8, Royal Avenue, S. W.

The matches here alluded to are evi

dently the thin slips of wood tipped at each tinder-boxes until the latter went out of use. end with sulphur which were used with When a spark ignited the tinder, the sulphur match was put on to the little ring of fire, and blown upon until it caught and set The making of these light to the wood. matches was a gipsy industry. Genuine old ones are not often met with nowadays, but they are easy enough to make. I have often made them to demonstrate the way of using a tinder-box. E. E. STREET.

The old tinder-box contained a flint, a steel, a quantity of tinder, and some matches. The matches were of the same shape and size as those now in use, but were tipped only with sulphur, and of course did not ignite by friction. By the striking together of the flint and steel, sparks fell on the tinder, and where they fell the tinder ignited, and was for some minutes like the red coals in a grate. A match was ignited by touching the sulphur tip on one of these red spots. Matches are referred to in The Spectator, but I cannot point out the exact passage, as I have not the book at hand.

M. N. G.

Although suggestive of an early name for friction matches-namely, "Congreves" (so termed from the famous rocket manufacturer), the matches referred to in Love for Love would be the ordinary ones made of thin slips of pinewood or pasteboard, dipped in brimstone at both ends, and used with the on Saturday evenings, when the week's tinder-box. Although mostly made at home factured for sale and hawked about in tinder was prepared, they were also manuthem, being repulsed by a villager with the country places. A peripatetic vendor of

remark,

No, we never buy of strangers," tain strangers, for thereby some have entermeekly replied, "Be not forgetful to entertained angels unawares!" but was crushed by the retort, Get out! Angels don't come round with brimstone matches." RICHD. Welford.

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Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

MARLY HORSES (10 S. vii. 190, 211, 251, 277). It is strange that no reply has given with certainty the name of the sculptor of the two groups at the entrance of the Champs Élysées. M. N. D. gives "Coustou the Younger "; but there were three sculptors named Coustou: Nicolas, 16581733; Guillaume (his brother), 1678-1746; and Guillaume (son of the latter), 1716–77.

The Biographie Universelle' says nothing about the Horses,' but mentions that Guillaume the elder made a marble group representing the ocean and the Mediterranean, which adorned the "tapis vert des jardins de Marly."

Chalmers in his Dictionary of Biography says that Nicolas was the sculptor of the 'Horses,' and relates an anecdote about a fop who took exception to the reins being slack, and what the sculptor said in reply. Galignani's New Paris Guide for 1854 (p. 192) gives "Coustou junior as the sculptor; and Baedeker's Paris,' 15th ed., 1904, p. 69, gives "G. Coustou." Paris,' by A. J. C. Hare, 1887, p. 457, gives "Guillaume Coustou.'

If the date of the erection of the Horses' in the gardens of the Château de Marly given by L. P. at the third reference is correct, viz., 1745, it appears most probable that Guillaume the younger was the sculptor.

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In that reply should not " Marly's Horses " read "the Marly Horses "? Couston is of course a misprint for Coustou. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

this name.

NAVAL ACTION, 1814: T. BARRATT POWER (10 S. vii. 246).—If F. D. L. has access to The Gentleman's Magazine for the year 1814, he will find in part ii. p. 399, an obituary notice of a young midshipman of He was killed in an attempt to board an armed American vessel of ten guns off the coast of Connecticut, on 21 July (not June), 1814. He was the fourth son of Dr. Power, of Atherstone, co. Warwick, and at the time of his death was in his nineteenth year. If F. D. L. has no means of obtaining The Gentleman's Magazine account of the incident, and will send me his address, I will copy out the entry for him.

JOHN OXBERRY.

21, Grasmere Terrace, Gateshead.

Thos. Barratt Power was a midshipman on board H.M. ship Superb, under the command of the Hon. Commodore Chas. Paget. He had been sent out on the evening of 21 July in command of the ship's gig, manned and armed, for the purpose annoying the coasting trade of the enemy,

as was the custom. His enterprise and intrepidity carried him alongside a vessel, which, owing to the darkness of the night, he did not discover to be an armed ship of ten guns. Seeing no other chance to escape, he bravely determined to attempt to board her, but received a musket-ball through his head, and instantly expired. His remains were interred at Stonington, in Connecticut, with every attention and respect which an enemy could bestow. ALFRED SYDNEY LEWIS. Library, Constitutional Club.

'REBECCA,' A NOVEL: A. C. HOLBROOK

(10 S. iii. 128, 176, 293, 435; v. 72, 117, 377).-It may be worth while to sum up what has been ascertained about this book.

The third volume has not been found. The only copy known of the other two bears the cote R 107 at the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, to which they were presented on 19 April, 1904. Mr. A. Enander found in that library, on p. 200 of the catalogue of the publishers, Messrs. Lackington, Allen & Co., for the year 1815, the proof that the third volume had been published, and a quotation from a review of it which appeared (p. 198) in vol. liii. of The European Magazine and London Review, 1808, from the pen of Joseph Moser. The theory that the novel was written by Ann Catharine (or Catherine, as it is spelt in two of her books) Holbrook-who, according to the 'D.N.B.,' died in 1837, in the London district (within living memory), seems to be confirmed by a comparison between the style of Rebecca' and that of the four books attributed to her in the catalogue of the British Museum, particularly in the 'Tales,' published (like Rebecca ') at Uttoxeter in 1821. Of these the fourth edition appeared at Thame in 1834, with a dedication To Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent,' and 'Lines on the visit to Oxford of her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria.' There is a copy of the second edition of this work (Burton-upon-Trent, 1822) in the possession of Mr. Cecil Clarke, the novelist, who has pointed out that Ashby," the name of the family of Rebecca,' is one of the places where Mrs. Holbrook found subscribers. Has the third edition disappeared entirely? In the first, with a preface written at Hixton (now Hixon), one remarks, p. 80, "norations," apparently in the sense of "imprecations ; p. 81, mention of St. James's Square, as in 'Rebecca," p. 4, the same interest in " The Negro.'

If the other books of Mrs. Holbrook do

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not resemble 'Rebecca' so much, it is accounted for by the fact that the one (The Dramatist') is "the life of the Authoress,' and the other an Historical Tale." Moser had been reminded of The Vicar of Wakefield' on perusing Rebecca'; and on p. 105 of the Tales' the authoress mentions Goldsmith's Country Pastor." In the two works one finds similar sentiments, and frequent quotations from English poetry. Mrs. Holbrook had been a Miss Jackson, and a "Jackson" is one of the well-behaved characters (as we know from Moser) in the missing volume of 'Rebecca.' From the title-page of Constantine Castriot' (Rugeley, 1829)-one of the four volumes of A. C. Holbrook to be found in the British Museum, and recorded in the D.N.B.'-we learn that she had also published Strictures on the Stage' (which may be the same book as that entitled 'The Dramatist; or, Memoirs of the Stage,' Birmingham, 1809) and Eleanor of Brittany.' From that of the Tales' (1821) we see that she had published 'Sorrows not Merited.' There are, therefore, three of her works quite unrepresented in our national library. It certainly is remarkable that neither in 1821 nor in 1809 she should have claimed to be the authoress of her (if hers it was) earliest contribution to litera

ture.

The perusal of 'Aphorisms for Youth,' 1801 (printed by Knight & Compton, Middle Street, Cloth Fair, and published by Lackington, Allen & Co.), suggests the possibility that it also was compiled by Mrs. Holbrook. There are copies of it in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. As a frontispiece it has an engraving of Cornelia giving lessons to her two sons.

On p. 13 of The Dramatist' Mrs. Holbrook quotes an epitaph, written in 1806, for her father, who died, 22 March, 1798, at Norwich. Was it set up on his grave? P. 27, she uses the word "callet"; p. 47, she writes, "it would, indeed, have been a miracle, and ranked higher than the famous Countess's 365 children at a birth, or the noted female of rabbit-breeding memory.' Her mother " was a native of Cork," and

she had "friends in Staffordshire." where 'Rebecca' was printed. On. p 68 of the first volume one'finds: "I love free enquiry -truth will never lose by free enquiry.'

EDWARD S. DODGSON.

"HAMMALS " (10 S. vii. 248).-I feel sure that the word used by the Northumbrian woman referred to by MR. MACMICHAEL

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or

was not 'hammals," but almons awmuns." The custom of " giving the bairn its awmuns (pronounced in this neighbourhood like the word almonds without the d sound) was formerly common all over the north of England, and still prevails in country districts. It is mentioned by Brand under the section in vol. ii. dealing with christening customs. Mackenzie, in his History of Northumberland' (vol. i. p. 205), writing in 1825 of the manners and customs of the people of this county, said: "It would be thought very unlucky to send away a child the first time its nurse has brought it on a visit without giving it an egg, salt, or [and ?] bread." These were the child's awmuns."

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Nowadays in this neighbourhood the child receives three things in the first three houses it enters. Usually the three things are a silver coin (a threepenny bit or a sixpence), an egg, and a piece of salt. The last, I am told, is considered an essential; the other two, so far as I can learn, are occasionally varied. In the case of my eldest son, his mother tells me he got the three things mentioned, together with a piece of sugar. The awmuns are placed the child's lap, and it is thus made to carry its awmuns out of the house itself, as they are not removed from its lap until the house has been left. This would seem also to be an essential part of the ceremony.

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Gateshead.

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JOHN OXBERRY.

on

What the witness from Northumberland in the Divorce Court intended to say was most likely "alms." pronounced "allums " and misreported "hammals." hammals." Henderson, Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties,' p. 12. describes the gift as follows:

'Much importance attaches to the baby's first visit to another house, on which occasion it is expected that he should receive three things-an egg, salt, and white bread or cake: the egg a sacred emblem from the remotest antiquity, and the cake and salt, things used alike in Jewish and pagan sacrifices......I have heard an old woman in Durham speak of this as the child receiving alms. He could not claim them before he was baptized,' she said; but now he is a Christian he has a right to go and ask alms of his fellow Christians.""

RICHD. WElford.

Is not this a misreported word, or an operator's' ill-reading of "hansels ". the gifts for luck placed in the hands of babies on their presentation to friends of the mother? The custom is not yet dead in the Midlands. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.