Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/493

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

12 8. I. JUNE 17, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


487


P.C.C.) wherein she bequeathed legacies to the Protector's daughter Frances Russell, and a number of the latter's descend- ants; the Protector's granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth Frankland, was executrix. Rabsey Smithsby the younger was receiving a pen- sion from Queen Mary at the time of her death. William Smithsby 's brother Thomas was " saddler to King Charles " (1635), and had a son Thomas, who was Keeper of the Privy Seal under the Commonwealth, dying in 1655.

It appears, therefore, that some of the Smithsbys were Royalists and others the reverse, like the Cromwells, and they suffered or prospered accordingly. It is clear, more- over, that Rabsey the elder must have been a near relative of the Protector.

Finally I would ask if any one can throw ligfyt on the name of Rabsey, sometimes spelt Rabsy or Rabsha, which does not occur in any list of names hitherto consulted.

G. H. F. NUTTALL, Sc.D., F.R.S.

Magdalene College, Cambridge.


FRANCIS . BACON : " LORD BACON." In Sotheby's catalogue of a recent sale, a number of books were catalogued under Francis, Lord Bacon. In view of the many warnings against the error of describing Sir F. Bacon as Lord Bacon, it is somewhat bewildering to find this " howler " per- petuated in a place where one looks for accuracy and correctness. In the ' D.N.B.' he is described as Francis Bacon, first Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans. Is there any early authority for the description

  • ' Lord Bacon," as, for instance, a title-page

of an early edition of his works, or a con- temporary usage of a peer's surname with the title, interchangeably with the strict legal denomination ?

REGINALD ATKINSON.

Forest Hill, S.E.

[Bacon's editor, MB. JAMES SPEDDING, contri- buted at 4 S. vi. 177 a very interesting article on this subject, in the course of which he said : " There can be no doubt that ' Lord Bacon ' is a title which never belonged to him at any time of his life, either

by law or custom When and by whom it was

-first given him, I do not know ; but it seems to have become familiar by the middle of the seventeenth century." Some instances are then cited, the first being 1654.]

MOKRIS. (See 11 S. viii. 68 and 156.) Could your correspondent W. M. add .anything further to the account of William Morris, who died in 1790 ? I understand Lord Collingwood went to sea in one of the ships of which he was mas r. X. Y. Z.


KERRY PLACE-NAMES. 1. On July 22, 1580, Sir Nicholas White, Master of the Rolls in Ireland, writes to Lord Burghley (P.R.O., S.P. Ir. Eliz., vol. Ixxiv. No. 56) as follows : [baven whifces and]

'* In the Irishe Ventry is called coon fyntra, which is as moche to say as whitesand ha von, because the strande is white sande full of white shelles, and Dingill havon is called in the Irishe [haven ox red]

coon edaf deryclc, which is as moche to say as *ed ox havon, and toke that name of the drownyng of an ox in the havon at the first comynge over of Englishmen from Cornewall, which brought some cattell with them."

In Murray's ' Handbook to Ireland,' 1912 ed., at p. 529, Ventry is derived from Fionn Traigh= white strand.

What is the proper form of Coon Edaf Deryck ?

2. Sir Nicholas White goes on :

" One of the eldest of [the Burgesses of Dingle] tolde me that, sone upon the conquest of English- men in Irlande, a gentilman named de la Couson was Lord of that Towne and bylded it, whose issue in many yeres after failing, the Towne jesehated to the house of Desmonde, and by that reason it is called at this day Dengill de couse."

According to Murray's ' Ireland,' loc. cit., the name of Dingle in " Irish is Daingean-in- Chuis, i.e.,

" The fortress of O'Cush, an Irish chief, or, as some assert, the Castle of Hussey, an Anglo-Norman settler."

I should like further particulars about de la Couson, O'Cush, and Hussey.

3. Sir Nicholas, continuing, says that they "went to see the fort of Smerycke, v myles from

the Dengill to the westwards The thing itselfe

is but the eride of a rocke, shooting oute into the bay of Smerycke under a long cape, whereon a merchant of the Dengill called Piers Ryce, abowtes a yere before James Fitz Morice's landing, bylt a prety castell under pretence of gayning by the reasort of strangers thither afisshinge, when, in very trouthe, it was to receave James at his landing. And because at that instant tyme a shipp leaden with Capten Furbussher's [i.e. Frobisher's] new founde ryches hadpned to perishe upon the sandes nere that place (whose carcase and stores I saw lye there), carying also in his mynde a golden Imagynacion of the comyng of the Spaynardes, called his bylding downe enoyr, which is as moche to say as the golden downe."

I believe the Irish is Dun-an-oir, i.e., golden fort. The Italians called it Castel dell' Oro.

4. Sir Nicholas proceeds :

" The auncient name of the bay in the Irishe tonge is the havon of Ard Canny, composed ot these words Ard and Canny. Ard signifieth height, and canny is dery ved of a certen devoute man named Canitius, which upon the height of the cliff apers at this day a litle hermitage for him- selfe to live in contemplacion there, and so it is as