Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 | Page 8

for God and me, J. Rex."
The ring, which belonged to the family of Graham of Duntrune
(representative of Viscount Dundee), has for several years been lost or
mislaid; perhaps, through some of the numerous readers of the
"NOTES AND QUERIES," information {71} might be obtained as to
the place where that ring is at present preserved, and whether there
would be any possibility of the family recovering it by purchase or
otherwise.
W. C. TREVELYAN.
Duntrune, near Dundee.
The Kilkenny Cats.--I would feel obliged if any of your correspondents
could give me information as to the first, or any early, published
allusion to the strange tale, modernly become proverbial, of the ferocity
of the cats of Kilkenny. The story generally told is, that two of those
animals fought in a sawpit with such ferocious determination that when
the battle was over nothing could be found remaining of either
combatant except his tail,--the marvellous inference to be drawn
therefrom being, of course, that they had devoured each other. This
ludicrous anecdote has, no doubt, been generally looked upon as an
absurdity of the Joe Miller class; but this I conceive to be a mistake. I
have not the least doubt that the story of the mutual destruction of the
contending cats was an allegory designed to typify the utter ruin to
which centuries of litigation and embroilment on the subject of
conflicting rights and privileges tended to reduce the respective
exchequers of the rival municipal bodies of Kilkenny and
Irishtown,--separate corporations existing within the liberties of one
city, and the boundaries of whose respective jurisdiction had never
been marked out or defined by an authority to which either was willing
to bow. Their struggles for precedency, and for the maintenance of
alleged rights invaded, commenced A.D. 1377. (see Rot. Claus. 51 Ed.

III. 76.), and were carried on with truly feline fierceness and
implacability till the end of the seventeenth century, when it may fairly
be considered that they had mutually devoured each other to the very
tail, as we find their property all mortgaged, and see them each passing
by-laws that their respective officers should be content with the dignity
of their station, and forego all hope of salary till the suit at law with the
other "pretended corporation" should be terminated, and the
incumbrances thereby caused removed with the vanquishment of the
enemy. Those who have taken the story of the Kilkenny cats in its
literal sense have done grievous injustice to the character of the
grimalkins of the "faire cittie," who are really quite as demure and
quietly disposed a race of tabbies as it is in the nature of any such
animals to be.
JOHN G. A. PRIM.
Kilkenny.
Robert de Welle.--Can any of your correspondents inform me of what
family was Robert de Welle, who married Matilda, one of the co-heirs
of Thomas de Clare, and in 15th Edward II. received seisin of
possessions in Ireland, and a mediety of the Seneschalship of the Forest
of Essex in her right? (Rotul. Original., Record Commission, pp. 266,
277.) And how came the Irish title of Baron Welles into the family of
Knox?
Again, where can I meet with a song called the Derby Ram, very
popular in my school-boy days, but of which I recollect only one
stanza,--
"The man that killed the ram, Sir, Was up to his knees in blood; The
boy that held the bucket, Sir, Was carried away in the flood."
I fancy it had an electioneering origin.
H. W.
Lady Slingsby.--Among many of the plays temp. Car. II. the name of

"The Lady Slingsby" occurs in the list of performers composing the
dramatis personæ. Who was this Lady Slingsby?
T.
God save the Queen.--Can any correspondent state the reason of the
recent discontinuance of this brief but solemn and scriptural ejaculation,
at the close of royal proclamations, letters, &c., read during the service
of the Church?
J. H. M.
Meaning of Steyne--Origin of Adur.--Can any of your correspondents
give the derivation of the word "Steyne," as used at Brighton, for
instance? or the origin of the name "Adur," a small river running into
the sea at Shoreham?
F.
Col. Lilburn.--Who was the author of a book called Lieut.-Colonel
John Lilburn tryed and cast, or his Case and Craft discovered, &c.,
&c., published by authority, 1653?
P. S. W. E.
French Verses.--Will one of your readers kindly inform me from what
French poet the two following stanzas are taken?
"La Mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles. On a beau la prier, La
cruelle, qu'elle est, se bouche les oreilles, Et nous laisse crier.
"Le pauvre en sa cabane, que le chaume couvre, Est sujet à ses lois; Et
la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre N'en défend pas les rois."
E.