Another motto, under a coat of arms on some old china, cannot meet with an interpreter:
_Curious Bequest._--In the parish of Eardisland in Herefordshire, I am informed that some charitable person, whose name I could not ascertain, left to certain poor persons, parishioners, the following singular bequest, viz., to each poor person--
13 bushels of wheat 13 red herrings 13 tennis balls 13 pepper corns 13 pence.
This was to be distributed on Maunday Thursday. Can any of your correspondents throw light upon this, or mention similar instances of such singular bequests?
_Wilkie's Blind Fiddler._--I should be much obliged if you, or any of your correspondents, could give me some information respecting Sir David Wilkie's picture of "The Blind Fiddler." I believe he painted as many as four, if not more, copies of the original, and that the first picture was finished by him in the year 1807; that in the National Gallery is dated, as I am informed, 1808. What I wish to ascertain is, the real number of the pictures of this subject that Wilkie painted, _with their dates_; and if possible, in whose hands they are at present.
_Lode._--It seems to be a provincial word, according to Forby, and means "an artificial water-course," from A.-S. _lodian_, _haurire_; he also adduces the instance I have named, and also a water-course in Fincham, called in old writings "the Lode ditch." It would be interesting to know if it is used elsewhere than in Norfolk, and it may be Suffolk; but, at all events, I should much like to come at the real meaning.
_Ballad quoted by Sir Walter Scott._--Effie Deans, in the _Heart of Mid-Lothian_, sings this stanza of a ballad:
"The elfin knight sate on the brae, The broom grows bonnie, the broom grows fair, And by there cam' lilting a lady so gay, And we daurna' gang down to the broom nae mair."
There is a traditional ballad, very similar, of which the following is the only stanza preserved:
"Ae kings dochter said to anither, Broom blooms bonnie, an' grows sae fair, We'll gae ride like sister and brither, But we'll never gae down to the broom nae mair."
Sir Walter Scott delighted in preserving scraps of old ballads; and perhaps the two fragments above quoted may be part and parcel of the same original. Some friend in the "north countrie" may perhaps settle this point.