Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 | Page 9

abstained from drinking with them; because that was a ceremonie vsed in striking of couenants."
This is the only notice I can find among old writers touching this custom, which is certainly one of considerable antiquity: though I should like confirmation of Dyke's words, before I can recognise an ancestry so remote.
R. C. WARDE.
Kidderminster.
School-Libraries.--I am desirous of ascertaining whether any of our public schools possess any libraries for the general reading of the scholars, in which I do not include mere school-books of Latin, Greek, &c., which, I presume, they all possess, but such as travels, biographies, &c.
Boys fresh from these schools appear generally to know nothing of general reading, and from the slight information I have, I fear there is nothing in the way of a library in any of them. If not, it is, I should think, a very melancholy fact, and one that deserves a little attention: but if any of your obliging correspondents can tell me what public school possesses such a thing, and the facilities allowed for reading in the school, I shall take it as a favour.
WELD TAYLOR.
Bayswater.
Queen Elizabeth and her "true" Looking-glass.--An anecdote is current of Queen Elizabeth having in her later days, if not during her last illness, called for a true looking-glass, having for a long time previously made use of one that was in some manner purposely falsified.
What is the original source of the story? or at least what is the authority to which its circulation is mainly due? An answer from some of your correspondents to one or other of these questions would greatly oblige
VERONICA.
Bishop Thomas Wilson.--In Thoresby's Diary, A.D. 1720, April 17 (vol. ii. p. 289.), is the following entry:
"Easter Sunday ... after evening prayers supped at cousin Wilson's with the Bishop of Man's son."
Was there any relationship, and what, between this "cousin Wilson," and the bishop's son, Dr. Thomas Wilson? I should be glad of any information bearing on any or on all these subjects.
WILLIAM DENTON.
Bishop Wilson's Works.--The REV. JOHN KEBLE, Hursley, near Winchester, being engaged in writing the life and editing the works of Bishop Wilson (Sodor and Man), would feel obliged by {221} the communication of any letters, sermons, or other writings of the bishop, or by reference to any incidents not to be found in printed accounts of his life.
Hobbes, Portrait of.--In the Memoirs of T. Hobbes, it is stated that a portrait of him was painted in 1669 for Cosmo de Medici.
I have a fine half-length portrait of him, on the back of which is the following inscription:
"Thomas Hobbes, ?t. 81. 1669. J^{os}. Wick Wrilps, Londiensis, Pictor Caroli 2^{di}. R. pinx^t."
Is this painter the same as John Wycke, who died in 1702, but who is not, I think, known as a portrait painter?
Can any of your readers inform me whether a portrait of Hobbes is now in the galleries at Florence, and, if so, by whom it was painted? It is possible that mine is a duplicate of the picture which was painted for the Grand Duke.
W. C. TREVELYAN.
Wallington.
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Minor Queries with Answers.
Brasenose, Oxford.--I am anxious to learn the origin and meaning of the word Brasenose. I have somewhere heard or read (though I cannot recall where) that it was a Saxon word, brasen haus or "brewing-house;" and that the college was called by this name, because it was built on the site of the brewing-house of King Alfred. All that Ingram says on the subject is this:
"This curious appellation, which, whatever was the origin of it, has been perpetuated by the symbol of a brazen nose here and at Stamford, occurs with the modern orthography, but in one undivided word, so early as 1278, in an Inquisition, now printed in the Hundred Rolls, though quoted by Wood from the manuscript record."--See his Memorials of Oxford.
CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.
[Our correspondent will find the notice of King Alfred's brew-house in the review of Ingram's Memorials in the British Critic, vol. xxiv. p. 139. The writer says, "There is a spot in the centre of the city where Alfred is said to have lived, and which may be called the native place or river-head of three separate societies still existing, University, Oriel, and Brasenose. Brasenose claims his palace, Oriel his church, and University his school or academy. Of these Brasenose College is still called, in its formal style, 'the King's Hall,' which is the name by which Alfred himself, in his laws, calls his palace; and it has its present singular name from a corruption of brasinium, or brasin-huse, as having been originally located in that part of the royal mansion which was devoted to the then important accommodation of a brew-house." Churton, in his Life of Bishop Smyth, p. 277., thus accounts for the origin of the word:--"Brasen Nose Hall, as the Oxford