Vol. 4, No. 99. NOTES & QUERIES: A way to communicate FOR Writers, artists, historians, genealogists, etc.

VOL. IV.—No. 99.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. 1851.

Price Threepence. Stamped Edition, 4d.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

If our own ancient British sage, the Venerable Bede, could rise up from the dust of eleven centuries, he might find us, notwithstanding all our astounding improvements, in a worse position, in one respect at least, than when he left us; and as the subject would be one in which he was well versed, it would indubitably attract his attention.

He might then set about teaching us from his own writings a mental resource, far superior to any similar device practised by ourselves, by which the day of the week belonging to any day of the month, in any year of the Christian era, might easily and speedily be found.

And when the few, who would give themselves the trouble of thoroughly understanding it, came to perceive its easiness of acquirement, its simplicity in practice, and its firm hold upon the memory, they might well marvel how so admirable a facility should have been so entirely forgotten, or by what perversion of judgment it could have been superseded by the comparatively clumsy and impracticable method of the Dominical letters.

Let us hear his description of it in his own words:

"QUÆ SIT FERIA IN CALENDIS.

"Simile autem huic tradunt argumentum ad inveniendam diem Calendarum promptissimum.

"Habet ergo regulares Januarius II, Februarius V, Martius V, Apriles I, Maius III, Junius VI, Julius I, Augustus IIII, September VII, October II, November V, December VII. Qui videlicet regulares hoc specialiter indicant, quota sit feria per Calendas, eo anno quo septem concurrentes adscripti sunt dies: cæteris vero annis addes concurrentes quotquot in præsenti fuerunt adnotati ad regulares mensium singulorum, et ita diem calendarum sine errore semper invenies. Hoc tantum memor esto, ut cum imminente anno bisextili unus concurrentium intermittendus est dies, eo tamen numero quem intermissurus es in Januario Februarioque utaris: ac in calendis primum Martiis per illum qui circulo centinetur solis computare incipias. Cum ergo diem calendarum, verbi gratia, Januarium, quærere vis; dicis Januarius II, adde concurrentes septimanæ dies qui fuerunt anno quo computas, utpote III, fiunt quinque; quinta feria intrant calendæ Januariæ. Item anno qui sex habet concurrentes, sume v regulares mensis Martii, adde concurrentes sex, fiunt undecim, tolle septem, remanent quatuor, quarta feria sunt Calendæ Martiæ."—Bedæ Venerabilis, De Temporum Ratione, caput xxi.

The meaning of this may be expressed as follows:—Attached to the twelve months of the year are certain fixed numbers called regulars, ranging from I to VII, denoting the days of the week in their usual order. These regulars, in any year whereof the concurrent, or solar epact, is 0 or 7, express, of themselves, the commencing day of each month: but in other years, whatever the solar epact of the year may be, that epact must be [202] added to the regular of any month to indicate, in a similar manner, the commencing day of that month.

It follows, therefore, that the only burthen the memory need be charged with is the distribution of the regulars among the several months; because the other element, the solar epact (which also ranges from 1 to 7), may either be obtained from a short mental calculation, or, should the system come into general use, it would soon become a matter of public notoriety during the continuance of each current year.

Now, these solar epacts have several practical advantages over the Dominical letters. 1. They are numerical in themselves, and therefore they are found at once, and used directly, without the complication of converting figures into letters and letters into figures. 2. They increase progressively in every year; whereas the Dominical letters have a crab-like retrogressive progress, which impedes facility of practice. 3. The rationale of the solar epacts is more easily explained and more readily understood: they are the accumulated odd days short of a complete week; consequently the accumulation must increase by 1 in every year, except in leap years, when it increases by 2; because in leap years there are 2 odd days over 52 complete weeks. But this irregularity in the epact of leap year does not come into operation until the additional day has actually been added to the year; that is, not until after the 29th of February. Or, as Bede describes it, "in leap years one of the concurrent days is intermitted, but the number so intermitted must be used for January and February; after which, the epact obtained from cyclical tables (or from calculation) must be used for the remaining months." By which he means, that the epacts increase in arithmetical succession, except in leap years, when the series is interrupted by one number being passed over; the number so passed over being used for January and February only. Thus, 2 being the epact of 1851, 3 would be its natural successor for 1852; but, in consequence of this latter being leap year, 3 is intermitted (except for January and February), and 4 becomes the real epact, as obtained from calculation.

To calculate the solar epact for any year, Bede in another place gives the following rule:

"Si vis scire concurrentes septimanæ dies, sume annos Domini et eorum quartum partem adjice: his quoque quatuor adde, (quia) quinque concurrentes fuerunt anno Nativitatis Domini: hos partire per septem et remanent Epactæ Solis."

That is: take the given year, add to it its fourth part, and also the constant number 4 (which was the epact preceding the first year of the Christian era), divide the sum by 7, and what remains is the solar epact. (If there be no remainder, the epact may be called either 0 or 7.)

This is an excellent rule; the same, I believe, that is to this day prescribed for arriving at the Dominical letter of the Old Style. Let it be applied, for example, to find upon what day of the week the battle of Agincourt was fought (Oct. 25, 1415). Here we have 1415, and its fourth 353, and the constant 4, which together make 1772, divided by 7 leaves 1 as the solar epact; and this, added to 2, the regular for the month of October, informs us that 3, or Tuesday, was the first day of that month; consequently it was the 22nd, and Friday, the 25th, was Saint Crispin's day.

But this rule of Bede's, in consequence of the addition, since his time, of a thousand years to the number to be operated upon, is no longer so convenient as a mental resource.

It may be greatly simplified by separating the centuries from the odd years, by which the operation is reduced to two places of figures instead of four. Such a method, moreover, has the very great advantage of assimilating the operation of finding the solar epact, in both styles, the Old and the New; the only remaining difference between them being in the rules for finding the constant number to be added in each century. These rules are as follow:—

For the Old Style.—In any date, divide the number of centuries by 7, and deduct the remainder from 4 (or 11); the result is the constant for that century.

For the New Style.—In any date, divide the number of centuries by 4, double the remainder, and deduct it from 6: the result is the constant for that century.

For the Solar Epact, in either Style.—To the odd years of any date (rejecting the centuries) add their fourth part, and also the constant number found by the preceding rules; divide the sum by 7, and what remains is the solar epact.

As an example of these rules in Old Style, let the former example be repeated, viz. A.D. 1415:

First, since the centuries (14), divided by 7, leave no remainder, 4 is the constant number. Therefore 15, and 3 (the fourth), and 4 (the constant), amount to 22, from which eliminating the sevens, remains 1 as the solar epact.

For an example in New Style, let the present year be taken. In the first place, 18 divided by 4 leaves 2, which doubled is 4, deducted from 6 results 2, the constant number for the present century. Therefore 51, and 12 (the fourth), and 2 (the constant), together make 65, from which the sevens being eliminated, remains 2, the solar epact for this year.

But in appreciating the practical facility of this method, we must bear in mind that the constant, when once ascertained for any century, remains unchanged throughout the whole of that century; and that the solar epact, when once ascertained for any year, can scarcely require recalculation during the remainder of that year: furthermore, that [203] although the rule for calculating the epact, as just recited, is so extremely simple, yet even that slight mental exertion may be spared to the mass of those who might benefit by its application to current purposes; because it might become an object of general notoriety in each current year. And I am not without hope that "NOTES AND QUERIES" will next year set the example to other publications, by making the current solar epact for 1852 a portion of its "heading," and by suffering it to remain, incorporated with the date of each impression, throughout the year.

Let us now recur to the allotment of the regulars at the beginning of Bede's description. Placed in succession their order is as follows:—

There is no great difficulty in retaining this in the memory; but should uncertainty arise at any time, it may be immediately corrected by a mental reference to the following lines, the alliterative jingle of which is designed to house them as securely in the brain as the immortal and never-failing, "Thirty days hath September." The order of the allotment is preserved by appropriating as nearly as possible a line to each day of the week; while the absolute connexion here and there of certain days, by name, with certain months, forms a sort of interweaving that renders mistake or misplacement almost impossible.

Now, since we have ascertained, from the short calculation before recited, that the solar epact of this present year of 1851 is 2, and since the regular of October is also 2, we have but to add them together to obtain 4 (or Wednesday) as the commencing day of this next coming month of October. And, if we wish to know the day of the month belonging to any other day of the week in October, we have but to subtract the commencing day, which is 4, from 8, and to the result add the required day. Let the latter, for example, be Sunday; then 4 from 8 leaves 4, which added to 1 (or Sunday), shows that Sunday, in the month of October 1851, is either 5th, 12th, 19th, or 26th.

This additional application is here introduced merely to illustrate the great facilities afforded by the purely numerical form of Bede's "argumentum,"—such as must gradually present themselves to any person who will take the trouble to become thoroughly and practically familiar with it.

A. E. B.

Leeds, September, 1851.

Where our ancestors wanted words, they made them, or imported them ready made. But we are become so particular about the etymological force of newly coined words, that we can never please ourselves, but rather choose to do without than to tolerate anything exceptionable. We have to learn again that a word cannot be like Burleigh's nod, but must be content to indicate the whole by the expression of some prominent part, or of some convenient part, prominent or not.

Among the uses to which the "NOTES AND QUERIES" might be put, is the suggestion of words. It very often happens that one who is apt at finding the want is not equally good for the remedy, and vice versâ. By the aid of this journal the blade might find a handle, or the handle a blade, as wanted, with the advantage of criticism at the formation; while an author who coins a word, must commit himself before he can have much advice.

The above remarks were immediately suggested by my happening to think of a word for a thing which gives much trouble, and requires more attention than it has received, but not more than it may receive if it can be fitly designated by a single word. A clause of a sentence, both by etymology and usage, means any part of it of which the component words cannot be separated, but must all go together, or all remain together: it is then a component of the sentence which has a finished meaning in itself. The proper mode of indicating the clauses takes its name from the means, and not from the end: we say punctuation, not clausification. This may have been a misfortune, for it is possible that punctuation might have been better studied, if its name had imported its object. But there is another and a greater misfortune, arising from the total want of a name. In a sentence, not only do collections of words form minor sentences, but they also form compound words: sometimes eight or ten words are really only one. When two words are thus compounded, we use a hyphen: but those who have attempted to use more than one hyphen have been laughed out of the field; though perspicuity, logic, and algebra were all on their side. The Morning Post adopted this practice in former days; and Horace Smith (or James, as the case may be,) ridiculed them in a parody which speaks of "the not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-universally-detested monster Buonaparte." It is, I think, much to be regretted that the use of the hyphen is so restricted: for [204] though, like the comma, it might be abused, yet the abuse would rather tend to clearness.

But, without introducing a further use of the hyphen, it would be desirable to have a distinct name for a combination of words; which, without being such a recognised and permanent compound as apple-tree or man in the moon, is nevertheless one word in the particular sentence in hand. And the name is easily found. The word hyphen being Greek (ὑφ' ἕν), and being made a substantive, we might join Greek suffixes to it, and speak of hyphenisms and hyphenic phrases. For example, the following I should call a hyphenic error. When the British Museum recently published A Short Guide to that Portion of the Library of printed Books now open to the Public, a review pronounced the title a misnomer; because the books are not open to the public, but are in locked glass cases. The reviewer read it "library of printed-books-now-open-to-the-public," instead of "library-of-printed-books now open to the public." And though in this case the reviewer was very palpably wrong, yet there are many cases in which a real ambiguity exists.

A neglect of mental hyphenization often leads to mistake as to an author's meaning, particularly in this age of morbid implication. For instance, a person writes something about "a Sunday or other day-for-which-there-is-a-special-service;" and is taken as meaning "a Sunday-or-other-day for which," &c. The odds are that some readers will suppose him, by speaking of Sundays with special service, to imply that some are without.

M.

Some spirited publisher would confer a serious obligation on the classical world by bringing out an edition of Gray's Poems, with the parallel passages annexed. "Taking him for all in all," he is one of our most perfect poets: and though Collins might have rivalled him (under circumstances equally auspicious), he could have been surpassed by Milton alone. In 1786, Gilbert Wakefield attempted to do for Gray what Newton and Warton had done for Milton (and, for one, I thank him for it); but his illustrations, though almost all good and to the point, are generally from books which every ordinary reader knows off by heart. Besides, Wakefield is so very egotistical, and at times so very puerile, that he is too much for most people. However, his volume, The Poems of Mr. Gray, with Notes, by Gilbert Wakefield, B.A., late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge: London, 1786, would furnish a good substratum for the volume I am now recommending.

Not to speak of Milton's English poems and the great masterpieces of ancient times, with which so learned a scholar as Gray was, of course, familiar, he draws largely from the Greek anthology, from Nonnus, from Milton's Latin poems, from Cowley, and I had almost said from the prose works of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. His admiration of the great "Shakspeare of Divinity" is proved from a portion of one of his letters to Mason; and some other day I may furnish an illustration or two. Indeed, were any publisher to undertake the generous office I mention, I dare say that many a secret treasure would be unlocked, and many an "orient pearl at random strung" be forthcoming for his use. Let me first mention Gray's opinion of Cowley, and then add in confirmation one or two passages out of many. He says in a note to his "Ode on the Progress of Poesy:"

"We have had in our language not other odes of the sublime kind than that of Dryden 'On St. Cecilia's Day:' for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man."

We must submit to Gray's oracular sentence, for he himself was pre-eminently gifted in the three great qualities in which he declares the deficiency of Cowley (at least if we are to judge from his English poems; for the prosody of his Latin efforts seems sadly deficient). At times Cowley's "harmony" is not first-rate, and his "style" is deeply impregnated with the fantastic conceits of the day; but he is still a poet, and a great one too. And I think that in some of his writings Gray had Cowley evidently in mind; e.g. in the epitaph to his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard:"

Cowley had previously written:

Again—

[205] Again:

I do not mean that Gray may not have had other poets in his mind when writing these lines (for there is nothing new or uncommon about them); but rather a careful going over of Cowley's poems convinces me that Gray was sensible of his "merits," and often corrects his want of "judgment" by his own refined and most exquisite taste. I must give one more instance; and I think that Bishop Hall's allusion to his life at Emmanuel College, and Bishop Ridley's "Farewell to Pembroke Hall," must every one fall into the background before Cowley. Gray's poem ought to be too well known to require quoting:

Cowley was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; and if I rightly remember Bonney's Life of Bishop Middleton, his affecting allusions to Cambridge had the highest praise of that accomplished scholar and divine:

RT.

Warmington, Sept. 8. 1851.

—I "keep under my body," &c. 1 Cor. ix. 27. One can scarcely allude to this passage without remembering the sarcastic observations of Dr. South upon a too literal interpretation of it. (Sermons, vol. i. p. 12. Dublin, 1720.) And yet deeper and more spiritual writers by no means pass the literal interpretation by with indifference. Bishop Andrewes distinctly mentions ὑπωπιασμός, or suggillatio, amongst the "circumstantiæ orationis;" as also ἐκδίκησις, vindicta, or revenge, 2 Cor. vii. II. (Preces Privatæ, pag. 14. Londini, 1828.) Bishop J. Taylor is equally explicit in a well-known and remarkable passage:

"If the lust be upon us, and sharply tempting, by inflicting any smart to overthrow the strongest passion by the most violent pain, we shall find great ease for the present, and the resolution and apt sufferance against the future danger; and this was St. Paul's remedy: 'I bring my body under;' he used some rudeness towards it."—Holy Living, sect. iii. Of Chastity. Remedies against Uncleanness, 4.

The word ὑπώπια occurs only once in the LXX, but that seems in a peculiarly apposite way: "ὑπώπια καὶ συντρίμματα συναντᾷ κακοῖς, πληγαὶ δὲ εἰς ταμιεῖα κοιλίας." As our English version translates it: "The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil (or, is a purging medicine against evil, margin), so do stripes the inward parts of the belly." (Proverbs xx. 30.) If it were not absolute presumption to differ from the great [206] Dr. Jackson, one would feel inclined to question, or at least to require further proof of some observations of his. He says, in treating of our present passage:

"The very literal importance of those three words in the original—ὑποπιάζω, κηρῦξας, and ἀδόκιμος—cannot be so well learned from any Dictionary or Lexicon, as from such as write of the Olympic Games, or of that kind of tryal of masteries, which in his time or before was in use. The word ὑποπιάζω is proper (I take it) unto wrestlers, whose practice it was to keep under other men's bodies, not their own, or to keep their antagonists from all advantage of hold, either gotten or aimed at. But our apostle did imitate their practice upon his own body, not on any others; for his own body was his chief antagonist."—Works, vol. ii. p. 644. Lond. 1673.

Suidas makes some remarks upon the word, but they are not very much to our purpose.

RT.

Warmington.

—I long ago suggested in your pages that Whitsun Day, or, as it was anciently written, Witson Day, meant Wisdom Day, or the day of the outpouring of Divine wisdom; and I requested the attention of your learned correspondents to this subject. I cannot refrain from thanking C. H. for his fourth quotation from Richard Rolle (Vol. iv., p. 50.) in confirmation of this view.

H. T. G.

—Your correspondent's Query concerning Oldys's Account of London Libraries (Vol. iv., p. 176.), reminded me of the following punning anagram on the name of that celebrated bibliographer, which may claim a place among the first productions of its class. It was Oldys himself, and is attached to one of his own transcripts in the British Museum:

BLOWEN.

—Addison, in his critique on the ballad of "Chevy Chase," after quoting the stanza—

says that "the thought" in that stanza "was never touched by any other poet, and is such a one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil." It is perhaps true that there is no passage in any other writer exactly resembling this, but it is not quite true that the thought has not been touched; for there is something approaching to it in Ovid's Metamorphoses, where the slaughter of Niobe's children by the arrows of Apollo is described:

The author of this ballad would appear, from the passages cited by Addison, to have been well read in the Latin poets. Had Addison recollected the above passage of Ovid, he would doubtless have adduced it.

J. S. W.

Stockwell.

—The following anecdote of Horace Walpole while at Eton was related by the learned Jacob Bryant, one of his school-fellows, and has not, I believe, been printed; it is at all events very much at your service.

In those days the Etonians were in the habit of acting plays, and amongst others Tamerlane was selected for representation. The cast of parts has unluckily not been preserved, but it is sufficient for us to know that the lower boys were put into requisition to personate the mutes. After the performance the wine, which had been provided for the actors, had disappeared, and a strong suspicion arose that the lower boys behind the scenes had made free with it, and Horace Walpole exclaimed, "The mutes have swallowed the liquids!"

BRAYBROOKE.

The inquiries I made in Vol. iii., p. 324., respecting the Bellman and his Songs, have been answered by most interesting information (pp. 377. 451. 485.); and the references made by the Editor to V. Bourne's translation was most acceptable. The interest of this subject is increased by finding that the Custos Nocturnus exists at the present day in other countries, resembling very much in duties, costume, and chants the Westminster Bellman. I venture to send you extracts from W. Hurton's Voyage from Leith to Lapland, and Dr. Forbes's Physician's Holiday.

"During the past year of 1849 it has been my lot to reside at four of the most remarkable capitals of Europe, and successively to experience what spring is in London, what summer is in Paris, what autumn is in Edinburgh, and what winter is in Copenhagen. Vividly, indeed, can I dwell on the marvellous contrast of the night aspect of each: but one of the most interesting peculiarities I have noticed in any of them, is that presented by the watchmen of the last-named. When I first looked on these guardians of the night, I involuntarily thought of Shakspeare's Dogberry and Verges. The sturdy watchers are muffled in uniform [207] great coats, and also wear fur caps. In their hand they carry a staff of office, on which they screw, when occasion requires, that fearful weapon the 'morning star.' They also sometimes may be seen with a lanthorn at their belt: the candle contained in the lanthorn they place at the top of their staff, to relight any street-lamps which require trimming. In case of fire, the watchmen give signals from the church towers, by striking a number of strokes, varying with the quarter of the city in which the fire occurs; and they also put from the tower flags and lights pointed in the direction where the destructive element is raging. From eight o'clock in the evening, until four (Query, until five) o'clock in the morning, all the year round, they chant a fresh verse at the expiration of each hour, as they go their rounds. The cadence is generally deep and guttural, but with a peculiar emphasis and tone; and from a distance it floats on the still night air with a pleasing and impressive effect, especially to the ear of a stranger. The verses in question are of great antiquity, and were written, I am told, by one of the Danish bishops. They are printed on a large sheet of paper, with an emblematical border, rudely engraved in the old style; and in the centre is a large engraving exactly representing one of the ancient watchmen, in the now obsolete costume, with his staff and 'morning star' in hand, a lanthorn at his belt, and his dog at his feet.

"A copy of the broadside has been procured me, and my friend Mr. Charles Beckwith has expressly made for me a verbatim translation of the verses; and his version I will now give at length. I am induced to do this, because, not only are the chants most interesting in themselves, as a fine old relic of Scandinavian customs, but there seems to me a powerful poetical spirit pervading them. At the top of the sheet are the lines which in the translation are—

"In large letters over the engraving of the watchman are the words (translated):

"I will now give the literal version, printed exactly in the same arrangement of lines, letters, and punctuation, as the original:

"Every hour between eight and five o'clock inclusive has its own chant. The last is—

Dr. Forbes writes:

"We had very indifferent rest in our inn, owing to the over-zeal of the Chur watchmen, whose practice it is to perambulate the town through the whole night, twelve in number, and who on the present occasion displayed a most energetic state of vigilance. They not only called, but sung out, every hour, in the most sonorous strains, and even chanted a long string of verses on the striking of some.... I suppose the good people of Chur think nothing of these chantings, or from habit hear them not; but a tired traveller would rather run the risk of being robbed in tranquillity, than be thus sung from his propriety during all the watches of the night."—A Physician's Holiday, pp. 80, 81.

Dr. Forbes gives a copy of a "Watch Chant at Chur," with a translation, pp. 81, 82. At p. 116. he says:

"In our hotel at Altorf we were again saluted, during the vigils of the night, but in a very mitigated degree, with some of the same patriotic and pious strains which had so disturbed us at Chur. As chanted here, however, they were far from unwelcome. The only other place, I think, where we heard these Wächterrufe was Neufchatel. These calls are very interesting relics of the old times, and must be considered indicative as well of the simple habits of the old time, as of the pious feelings of the people of old."

He then gives the Evening and Morning Chants in the town of Glarus, and the chant in use in some places in the canton of Zurich; but in Zurich itself the chant is no longer heard.

Dr. Forbes concludes the twelfth chapter with the following observation:

"The same antiquity, and also the inveteracy of old customs to persist, is strikingly shown by the fact that in some parts of the canton of Tessino, where the common language of the people is Italian, the night watch-call is still in old German."

The apparent universality of the Bellman throughout Europe gives rise to questions that would, I apprehend, extend beyond the object of "NOTES AND QUERIES;" such as, Is pure religion benefited by the engrafting of it upon stocks so familiar as the bellman or watchman? What are the causes that the old ecclesiastic bellman is no longer heard in some countries, whilst in others he continues with little or no variation? Has religion lost or gained by the change?

Dr. Forbes's notice of the Tessino watchman calls up the public crier in England, another class of bellmen, asking for a hearing, with his "O yes! [208] O yes!" Little does he think that he is speaking French.

F. W. J.

—In Lord Campbell's Life of Lord Bacon (Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 314.) he gives an extract from Lord Bacon's speech in the House of Commons, on his proposed bill for "Suppressing Abuses in Weights and Measures." In the following sentence there is a word which seems to require explanation:

"The fault of using false weights and measures is grown so intolerable and common, that if you would build churches you shall not need for battlements and halls, other than false weights of lead and brass."

The use of lead for the battlements of churches seems obvious enough: but what can halls mean, unless it be a misprint for bells, for which brass would be required?

PEREGRINUS.

—Can any of your readers tell me the exact meaning of the Carmagnoles of the French Revolution? Is the "Marseillaise" a Carmagnole song? If the word be derived from Carmagnuola in Piedmont, what is the story of its origin?

W. B. H.

—In An Introduction to English Antiquities, by James Eccleston, B.A., 8vo. 1847, p. 306., the author, speaking of the ladies of the reign of Elizabeth, has the following passage:

"It is with regret we add, that their teeth were at this time generally black and rotten, a defect which foreigners attributed to their inordinate love for sugar, but which may, perhaps, be quite as reasonably ascribed to their frequent habit of taking the Nicotian weed to excess."

Does the author mean to insinuate by the above, that the Elizabethan ladies indulged in the "filthy weed" by "smoaking" or "chewing?" I have always understood that the "Nicotian weed" whitened the teeth rather than blackened them, but should be glad to be enlightened upon the subject by some of your scientific readers.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

—Remembering to have seen it stated by one of your correspondents, that witches or sorcerers were formerly divided into classes or companies of twelve, called covines, I should feel obliged by a reference to the authorities from which this statement is derived. They were not alleged at the time.

A. N.

—Jeremy Taylor (Duct. Dubit., book iii. chap. ii. rule 5. quæst. 2.) states:

"The Greek that denied the depositum of his friend, and offered to swear at the altar that he had restored it already, did not preserve his conscience and his oath by desiring his friend to hold the staff in which he had secretly conveyed the money. It is true, he delivered it into his hand, desiring that he would hold it till he had sworn; but that artifice was a plain cozenage, and it was prettily discovered. For the injured person, in indignation at the perjury, smote the staff upon the ground, and broke it, and espied the money."

Whence is the above incident derived?

A TR.

—I shall be glad to learn the scientific name of the plant to which the following extract from the Athenæum (1847, p. 210.) refers:—

"It is a well-known fact that in the vast prairies of Texas a little plant is always to be found which, under all circumstances of climate, changes of weather, rain, frost, or sunshine, invariably turns its leaves and flowers to the north," &c.

.ת.א

—Can any of your readers inform me how discount originated, and where first made use of?

JAMES C.

—The motto of the arms of the family of Halifax of Chadacre in Suffolk, and of Lombard Street, is—

"SACRE CHEVEUX."

It does not seem to bear allusion to the crest, a griffin, nor to any of the charges in the coat, which I do not at the moment accurately remember. If you will enlighten me as to the meaning and origin of the motto, I shall be obliged.

S. A.

—In Mr. Mayhew's very interesting work, London Labour and the London Poor, Part xxxiii. p. 112., a collector of hareskins, in giving an account of his calling, says:

"Hareskins is in—leastways I c'lects them—from September to the end of March, when hares, they says, goes mad."

Perhaps the allusion to the well-known saying, "as mad as a March hare," on this occasion was made without the collector of hareskins being aware of the existence of such a saying. Is anything known of its origin? I imagine that Mr. Mayhew's work will bring many such sayings to light.

L. L. L.

—Can you afford me any information as to the authority (act of parliament, or otherwise,) by which churchwardens in old times paid sums of money for the destruction of vermin in the several parishes in England; and by what process of reasoning, animals now deemed innocuous were then thought to merit so rigorous an extirpation?

In some old volumes of churchwardens' accounts to which I have access, I find names which it is impossible to associate with any description [209] of vermin now known. Perhaps some of your correspondents may be able to identify them: such as glead, ringteal, greas'head, baggar. My own impression as to the latter name was, that it was only another way of spelling badger; but as, in the volume to which I refer, the word bowson occurs, which the historian Dr. Whitaker pronounces to be identical with that species of vermin, my surmise can scarcely be correct.

J. B. (Manchester).

—Leibnitz (Sur l'Entendement humain, liv. i. § 4.) speaks of certain islanders to whom fire was unknown. Is there any authentic account of savages destitute of this essential knowledge?

C. W. G.

—During the last few years I have made occasional, but unsuccessful, inquiries after the Historia Minor of Matthew Paris. It is quoted at some length by Archbishop Parker (Antiquit. Eccles. Brit., ed. Hanov. 1605, p. 158.). It is also referred to, apparently upon Parker's authority, by several divines of the succeeding age; by one or more of whom (as well as by Watt) the MS. is spoken of as deposited in the Royal Library at St. James's. The words produced by Parker do not occur in Matthew Paris's Major History; though the editor of the second edition of the larger work would appear to have consulted the Hist. Minor, either in the Biblioth. Reg., or the Cottonian Library, or else in the Library of Corpus Coll., Cambridge. Can any one gratify my curiosity by saying whether this MS. is known to exist, and (if so) where?

J. SANSOM.

—Who wrote Mother Bunche's Fairy Tales?

DALSTONIA.

—In the south aisle of Tylehurst church, Berks, is a beautiful monument to the memory of Sir Peter Vanlore, Knight, and his lady, in recumbent positions, at whose feet is the statue of their eldest son in armour kneeling. In the front of the tomb are the figures of ten of their children in processional form—first, two daughters singly; the rest two and two, four of which have skulls in their right hands, and a book in their left, probably to denote their being deceased at the time the monument was erected. At the feet of one of the youngest children is represented a very small figure of a child lying in a shroud, the date 1627.

Query, What do the books symbolise?

JULIA R. BOCKETT.

Southcote Lodge.

—In Wm. Browne's Pastoral, "The Squirrel Hunt," we read of—

The word stickle appears to me to be used here for a pool. Is it ever so used now, or has that meaning become obsolete? I do not find it in Richardson's Dictionary.

In the Lake District, in the Langdales, is Harrison's Stickle or Stickle Tarn, which I think confirms my view of the meaning.

Cowper uses the word dray with reference to the same animal:

What is the correct meaning of this word? Richardson, from Barrett, says, "a dray or sledde, which goeth without wheels." And adds, "also applied to a carriage with low, heavy wheels, dragged heavily along, as a brewer's dray."

He then quotes the passage from Cowper, containing the above line.

F. B. RELTON.

How many read the above beautiful stanza from Childe Harold, Canto II. Stanza 3., without asking themselves who the "Son of the morning" is. Perhaps some of your literary correspondents and admirers of Byron may be able to tell us. I enclose my own solution for your information.

AN OLD BENGAL CIVILIAN.

—The Gild-Book of the "Holy Trinity Brotherhood" of St. Botolph's without Aldersgate, London, once belonged to Mr. W. Hone, by whom it is quoted in his Ancient Mysteries, p. 79. If any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" would be so kind as to let me know where this MS. is to be found, I should be very thankful.

D. ROCK.

Buckland, Faringdon.

In the edition of Pope's Works published by Knapton, Lintot, and others, 1753, 9 vols., I find [210] the following note to the Ode entitled "The Dying Christian to his Soul:"—

"This Ode was written in imitation of the famous Sonnet of Hadrian to his departing Soul, but as much superior to his original in sense and sublimity as the Christian religion is to the pagan."

This is confirmed by the correspondence of Pope with Steele, vol. vii. pp. 185, 188, 189, 190. Letters 4, 7, 8, and 9.

That Pope also derived some hints at least from Flatman's Ode is, I think, certain, from the following extract from a bookseller's catalogue of a few years' date:

"Flatman, Thos., Poems and Songs. Portrait slightly damaged. 8vo., new, cf. gt. back, 8s. With autograph of Alex. Pope.

"MS. Note at p. 55.—'This next piece, A Thought on Death, is remarkable as being the verses from which Pope borrowed some of the thoughts in his Ode of The Dying Christian to his Soul.'"

F. B. RELTON.

The question whether Flatman borrowed from Pope or Pope from Flatman (the former seems far more probable) may perhaps be decided by the date of Flatman's composition, if that can be ascertained. Pope's ode was composed in November, 1712, as recorded in the interesting series of letters in the correspondence between Pope and Steele (Letters iv. to ix.) and in the 532nd number of the Spectator. From Steele's letter it appears that the stanzas were composed for music: is any setting of them known, anterior to that by Harwood, which has obtained such universal popularity, in spite of its many undeniable errors in harmony? Is anything known of this composer? he certainly was not deficient either in invention or taste, and must have written other pieces worthy to be remembered.

E. V.

It seems probable that the coincidence between the passages of Thomas Flatman and Pope, indicated at p. 132., arises from both imitating the alliteration of the original:

Casaubon (Hist. Ang. Script., t. i. p. 210. ed. Lug. Bat.) has totally lost sight of this in his Greek translation.

THEODORE BUCKLEY.

Although unable to answer all the Queries of TOXOPHILUS, the subjoined information may possibly advantage him. His Queries of course have reference to the long bow, and not to the arbalest, or cross-bow. The length of this bow appears to have varied according to the height and strength of the bowman; for in the 12th year of the reign of Edward IV. an act was passed ordaining that every Englishman should be possessed of a bow of his own height. Bishop Latimer also, in one of his sermons, preached before Edward VI., and published in 1549, wherein he enforces the practice of archery, has the following passage:

"In my time my father taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of arms, as other nations do, but with strength of body. I had my bows brought me according to my age and strength: as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger."

The length of the full-sized bow appears to have been about six feet: the arrow, three.

The distance to which an arrow could be shot from the long bow of course depended, in a great measure, upon the quality and toughness of the wood, as well as upon the skill and strength of the archer; but I believe it will be found that the tougher and more unyielding the bow, the greater the strength required in bending it, and consequently the greater the force imparted to the arrow. The general distance to which an arrow could be shot from the long bow seems to have been from eleven to twelve score yards; although there are instances on record of individuals shooting from 400 to 500 yards.

The best bows used by our ancestors were made of yew, as it appears from a statute made in the thirty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII., by which it was enacted—

"That none under the age of seventeen should shoot with a bow of yew, except his parents were worth 10l. per annum in lands, or 40 marks in goods: and for every bow made of yew, the bowyer not inhabiting London or the suburbs should make four, and the inhabitant there two, bows of other wood."

These restrictions were doubtless owing to the great scarcity of yew. The other woods most in request were elm, witch-hazel, and ash. By the statute 8th of Elizabeth, cap 3., it was ordained that every bowyer residing in London should have always ready fifty bows of either of the before-mentioned woods. By this statute also the prices at which the bows were to be sold were regulated.

I believe the ancient bows were made of one piece; whether there is any advantage to be derived in having a bow of more than two pieces, I leave for some one better qualified than myself to determine.

As regards arrows, Ascham, in his Toxophilus, has enumerated fifteen sorts of wood of which arrows were made in his time, viz. brasell, turkie-wood, fusticke, sugercheste, hard-beam, byrche, ash, oak, service-tree, alder, blackthorn, elder, [211] beach, aspe, and sallow; of these aspe and ash were accounted the best; the one for target-shooting, the other for war. The author of The Field Book says:

"That an arrow weighing from twenty to four-and-twenty pennyweights, made of yew, was considered by archers the best that could be used."

DAVID STEVENS.

Godalming.

The method of trying and proving a bow is stated by Ascham to be thus:

"By shooting it in the fields, and sinking it with dead heavy shafts; looking where it comes most, and providing for that place betimes, lest it pinch and so fret. When the bow has thus been shot in, and appears to contain good shooting wood, it must be taken to a skilful workman, to be cut shorter, scraped, and dressed fitter, and made to come circularly round; and it should be whipped at the ends, lest it snap in sunder or fret sooner than the archer is aware of."

It is calculated that an arrow may be shot 110 yards for every 20 lbs. weight of the bow.

As regards the length of the old English bow, the statute 5th of Edward IV. cap. 4., runs thus:

"That every Englishman, and Irishmen that dwell with Englishmen and speak English, that be between sixteen and sixty in age, shall have an English bow of his own length."

Ascham recommended for men of average strength arrows made of birch, hornbeam, oak, and ash.

The foregoing is extracted from a work entitled The English Bowman, by T. Roberts, 1801.

PHILOSOPHUS.

Hansard's Typographia, i. 8vo. 1825, Preface, p. xii—xiii.:

"Of the more modern portraits something remains to be said, and particularly of that of Baskerville. It has been hitherto supposed that no likeness is extant of this first promoter of fine printing, and author of various improvements in the Typographic Art, as well as in the arts connected with it. At the time when I was collecting information for that part of my work in which Mr. Baskerville is particularly mentioned (p. 310. et seq.), I thought it a good opportunity to make inquiry at Birmingham whether any portrait or likeness of him remained; for a long time the inquiry was constantly answered in the negative, but at last it occurred to a friend to make a search among the family of the late Mrs. Baskerville, and he was successful. Mr. Baskerville married the widow of a Mr. Eaves; her maiden name was Ruston; she had two children by her former husband, a son and a daughter: the latter married her first cousin, Mr. Josiah Ruston, formerly a respectable druggist at Birmingham, and she survived her husband. At the sale of some effects after her decease, portraits of her mother and her father-in-law, Mr. Baskerville, were purchased by Mr. Knott of Birmingham. Some of Mr. Ruston's family and friends who are still living, consider this likeness of Mr. Baskerville as a most excellent and faithful resemblance. It was taken by one Miller, an artist of considerable eminence in the latter part of Baskerville's time. The inquiries of my friend Mr. Grafton, of Park Grove, near Birmingham, at once brought this painting into notice: and at his solicitation Mr. Knott kindly permitted Mr. Raven of Birmingham, an artist of much celebrity, to copy it for my use and the embellishment of this work; to which, I think, the united talents of Mr. Craig and Mr. Lee have done ample justice."

The portrait faces p. 310. of Mr. Hansard's book, and there may be found an account, though somewhat different, of the exhumation alluded to by MR. ST. JOHNS (Vol. iv., p. 123.), which took place in May, 1821.

CRANMORE.

In answer to an inquirer I beg respectfully to state that the body of the eminent printer now reposes, as it has for some years, in the vaults of Christ Church in our town.

WILLIAM CORNISH.

New Street, Birmingham.

—The following extract from Hone's Year Book, p. 858., will add to the explanation furnished by S. S. S., and will also give an instance of the singular practices which prevailed among our ancestors:—

"Among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum are statements in Aubrey's own handwriting to this purport. In the county of Hereford, was an old custom at funerals, to hire poor people, who were to take upon them the sins of the party deceased. One of them (he was a long, lean, ugly, lamentable, poor rascal), I remember, lived in a cottage on Rosse highway. The manner was, that when the corpse was brought out of the house, and laid on the bier, a loaf of bread was brought out, and delivered to the sin eater, over the corpse, as also a mazard bowl of maple, full of beer (which he was to drink up), and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him, ipso facto, all the sins of the defunct, and freed him or her from walking after they were dead."

Perhaps some of your readers may be able to throw some light on this curious practice of sin-eating, or on the existence of regular sin-eaters.

E. H. B.

Demerary.

[Mr. Ellis, in his edition of Brande's Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 155. 4to. has given a curious passage from the Lansdowne MSS. concerning a sin-eater who lived in Herefordshire, which has been quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xcii. pt. i. p. 222.]

—If D. Q. should succeed in finding [212] this saying in Montaigne's Works, I hope he will be kind enough to send an "Eureka!" to "NOTES AND QUERIES," as by referring to pp. 278. 451. of your second volume he will see that I am interested in the question.

I am still inclined to think that the metaphor, in its present concise form at all events, does not belong to Montaigne, though it may owe its origin to some passage in the Essays. See, for example, one in book i. chap. 24.; another in book ii. chap. 10., in Hazlitt's second edition, 1845, pp. 54. 186.

But I have not forgotten Montaigne's motto, "Que sçais-je?" The chances are that I am wrong. I should certainly like to see his right to the saying satisfactorily proved by reference to book, chapter, and page.

C. FORBES.

Temple.

At the conclusion of the preface to the thick 8vo. edition of the Elegant Extracts, Verse, published by C. Dilly, 1796, you will find these words:—

"I will conclude my preface with the ideas of Montaigne. 'I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them.'"

R. S. S.

56. Fenchurch Street.

—See Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxi., Antiq. pp. 3-15, and some specimens in the museum of the Academy. (Proceedings, vol. iii. p. 74.)

R. H.

—I cannot find this word in any authority to which I have access. I derive it from

Sax. {briþan}, to brew, and {Eafel}, a tax; and think it the same as tolsester, a duty payable to the lord of the manor by ale-brewers, mentioned in Charta 55 Hen. III.: "Tolsester cerevisie, hec est pro quolibet braccino per annum unam lagenam cerevisie."

F. J.

—T. very sensibly suggests that Lambert Simnel is a nickname derived from a kind of cake still common in the north of England, and eaten in Lent. I have never met with Simnel as a surname, and have actually been told, as a child, that the Simnels were called after Lambert; which is so far worthy of note as that it connects the two together in tradition, though, no doubt, as T. suggests, it is Lambert who was called after the Simnels. As a child I took the liberty to infer, in consequence, that Parkins (gingerbread of oatmeal instead of flour, and also common in the north of England) were called after Perkin Warbeck. I am aware of the superior claim of Peterkin now; but the coincidence may perhaps amuse your correspondents.

†

—I would suggest to your correspondents S. S. S. (2) another derivation for our word berth.

The present French berceau, a cradle, was in the Norman age written berȝ, as appears in a MSS. Life of St. Nicholas in the Bodleian Library. This Life has been printed at Bonn by Dr. Nicolaus Delius, 1850; but in the print the character ȝ has been represented by the ordinary z. This is a pity, because, as all know who are familiar with our MSS. of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this figure ȝ took not unfrequently the place of ð (th); and on this account it is a character which ought to be scrupulously preserved in editing. Berȝ then was probably pronounced berth, or possibly with a little more of the sibilant than is now found in the latter. How easily the sibilant and the th run into one another may be seen by the third person singular of our present Indicative:

J. E.

Oxford, August 2. 1851.

—P. M. M. makes inquiry respecting a practice formerly observed of burying murderers in cross-roads. I have often heard that suicides were formerly interred in such places, and that a stake used to be driven through the body. I know of two places in the neighbourhood of Boston in Lincolnshire, where such burials are stated to have taken place. One of these is about a mile and a half south of Boston, on what is called the low road to Freiston; a very ancient hawthorn tree marks the spot, and the tree itself is said to have sprung from the stake which was driven through the body of the self-murderer. The tradition was told me sixty years since, and the interment was then said to have occurred a hundred years ago; the suicide's name was at that time traditionally remembered, and was told to me, but I cannot recall it. The tree exhibits marks of great age, and is preserved with care; it still bears "may," as the flower of the whitethorn is called, and haws in their season.

The second grave (as it is reported) of this kind is on the high road from Boston to Wainfleet, at the intersection of a road leading to Butterwick, at a place called Spittal Hill; near the site of the ancient hospital or infirmary, which was attached to the Priory of St. James at Freiston. This spot is famous in the traditions of the neighbourhood as the scene of the appearance of a sprite or hobgoblin, called the "Spittal Hill TUT;" which takes, in the language of the district, the shape of a SHAG foal, and is said to be connected with the history of the suicide buried there. [213]

TUT is a very general term applied in Lincolnshire to any fancied supernatural appearance. Children are frightened by being told of Tom Tut; and persons in a state of panic, or unreasonable trepidation, are said to be Tut-gotten.

P. T.

Stoke Newington, Aug. 30.

—The sword-blade note, to which R. J. refers, was doubtless a note of the Sword-blade Company, which was intimately connected with the South Sea Company. In the narrative respecting the latter company, given in The Historical Register for 1720, is an account of a conference between the South Sea Directors and those of the Bank of England: therein is the following passage:

"And when it was urg'd that the Sword Blade Company should come into the Treaty; By no means, reply'd Sir Gilbert [Heathcote]; for if the South Sea Company be wedded to the Bank, he ought not to be allow'd to keep a Mistress. The Event show'd that the Bank acted with their usual Prudence, in not admitting the Sword Blade Company into a Partnership."—Historical Register for 1720, p. 368.

At p. 377. of the same work it is stated, that on the 24th of September the Sword-blade Company, "who hitherto had been the chief cash keepers to the South Sea Company," stopped payment, "being almost drain'd of their ready money."

Perhaps some of your correspondents may be able to elucidate the rise, transactions, and "winding up" of the Sword-blade Company.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge, Sept. 6. 1851.

—Your correspondent ABERDONIENSIS is informed that what he is in quest of was published by the "Bannatyne Club," under the name of the "Ragman Rolls," in 1834, 4to. It is entitled, Instrumenta Publica sive Processus super Fidelitatibus et Homagiis Scotorum Domino Regi Angliæ factis, A.D. M.CC.XCI.—M.CC.XCVI.

"The documents contained in this volume have not been selected in the view of reviving or illustrating the ancient National Controversy as to the feudal dependence of Scotland on the English Crown. It has been long known that in these Records may be found the largest and most authentic enumerations now extant of the Nobility, Barons, Landholders and Burgesses, as well as of the Clergy of Scotland, prior to the fourteenth century. No part of the public Records of Scotland prior to that era has been preserved, and whatever may have been their fate, certain it is, that to these English Records of our temporary national degradation, are we now indebted for the only genuine Statistical Notices of the Kingdom towards the close of the thirteenth century."

*** "This singular document, so often quoted and referred to, was never printed in extenso."

T. G. S.

Edinburgh.

—In processions on Holy Thursday, it was usual to deal cakes and bread to the children and the poor of the parish at boundary-banks, that they might be duly remembered. Hence the name.

R. S. H.

Morwenstow.

—If S. S. will turn again to my remarks on this letter, he will see that I did not state that Tiverton was ever pronounced Terton. I accede to what he has said of Twiverton; Devonshire was inadvertently written for Somersetshire. With regard to the observations of A. N. (p. 162.), he will find those remarks were confined to the v between two vowels, i.e. without any other consonant intervening; and, therefore, other forms of contraction did not fall within the scope of them. I refrained from adverting to any such words as Elvedon and Kelvedon (pronounced respectively Eldon and Keldon), because the abbreviation of these may be referable to another cause. In passing I would mention that I think there can be no reasonable doubt that the word dool, about which he inquires, is no other than the Ang.-Sax. dāl, a division, from daelan, to divide; and whence our words deal and dole. But to return to the letter v, if MR. SINGER be correct as to devenisch in the MS. of the Hermit of Hampole being written for Danish (p. 159.), it seems an example of the peculiar use of this letter to which I have invited attention, for the writer hardly intended it to be pronounced as three syllables if he meant Danish. However, if that MS. be a transcript, may not the supposed v have been originally an n, which was first mis-read u, and then copied as a v?

W. S. W.

—The following anecdote, taken from a common-place book of Sir Roger Wilbraham, who was Master of the Requests in the time of Queen Elizabeth, appears to have some bearing on the subject referred to in the page of your publication which I have quoted above:—

"Cooke, attorney, at diner Whitsunday [1] ista protulit.

"Wolsey, a prelate, was flagrante crimine taken in fornication by Sr Anthony Pagett of ye West, and put in ye stokes. After being made Cardinall, Sr Anthony sett up his armes on ye middle Temple gate: ye Cardinall passing in pontificalibus, and spying his owne armes, asked who sett them up. Answare was made yt ye said Mr. Pagett. He smiled saying, he is now well reclaymed; for wher before he saw him in disgrace, now he honoured him."

[1] This was probably in 1598.

W. L.

—Nervous has unquestionably the double meaning assigned to it in [214] MR. BANNEL'S Query. The propriety of the English practice, in this respect, may be doubted. Nervous is correctly equivalent to Lat. nervosus; Fr. nerveux, strong, vigorous. In the sense of nervous weakness, or, perhaps more correctly, nervine weakness, the word should probably be nervish, analogous to qualmish, squeamish, aguish, feverish, &c. In Scotland, though the English may regard it as a vulgarism, I have heard the word used in this form.

F. S. Q.

—I have copies of the Essays referred to. They were republished about 1836 in Fraser's Literary Chronicle.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

Guernsey.

—I have already answered GOMER upon the imaginary word naw, a ship: I beg now to remark on MR. FENTON'S nav. If nav was a ship at all, I am at a loss to know why it should be "a much older term." It would probably be subsequent to the introduction of the Latin noun, which it docks of its final is. The word or name is quoted from a Triad, the ninety-seventh of that series which contains the mention of Llewelyn ap Griffith, the last prince of Wales; and what makes it "one of the oldest" Triads, I have no idea. Nor do I know what ascertains the date of any of them; or removes the date of the composition of any one of them beyond the middle ages.

But Nevydd is no very uncommon proper name of men and women, derived from nev, heaven; and nav neivion is simply "lord of lords." It forms the plural like mab, meibion, and march, meirchion. Mr. Walters gives nav under no words but lord. David ap Gwelyn either mentions the navigation of the lords, the Trojan chieftains, to Britain; or else that of Nevydd Nav Neivion, cutting short his title. But the former is the plain sense of the thing. If MR. FENTON will only turn to Owen's Dictionary (from which naw, a ship, is very properly excluded) he will there find the quotation from Gwalchmai; in which the three Persons of the Trinity are styled the Undonion Neivion, "harmonizing or consentaneous Lords." He will scarcely make bold to turn them into ships.

A. N.

—Your correspondent P. P. proposes to interpret this word, horse-stones, from hengst, the Saxon for a horse; and to understand thereby large stones, as the words horse-chesnut, horse-daisy, horse-mushroom, &c., mean large ones. But, if he had duly considered the arguments contained in Mr. Herbert's Cyclops Christianus, pp. 162-4., he would have seen the necessity of showing, that in Anglo-Saxon and English the description can follow, in composition, the thing described; which it seems it can do in neither. In support of his stone-horse, he should have produced a chesnut-horse in the vegetable sense; a daisy-horse, or a mushroom-horse. Till he does that, the grammatical canon appealed to by that author, will remain in as full force against the stone-horse as against the stone-hanging.

E. A. M.

—A rude species of music very common amongst the boys in Sheffield, called by them nick-a-nacks. It is made by two pieces of bone, sometimes two pieces of wood, placed between the fingers, and beaten in time by a rapid motion of the hand and fingers. It is one of the periodical amusements of the boys going along the streets.

"And with his right drew forth a truncheon of a white ox rib, and two pieces of wood of a like form; one of black Eben, and the other of incarnation Brazile; and put them betwixt the fingers of that hand, in good symmetry. Then knocking them together, made such a noise, as the lepers of Britany use to do with their clappering clickets; yet better resounding, and far more harmonious."—Rabelais, book ii. c. 19.

H. J.

—E. J. S. says "Carfoix reminds me of Carfax in Oxford. Are the names akin to each other?" When at Oxford I used to hear that Carfax was properly Quarfax, a contraction for quatuor facies, four faces. The church, it will be remembered, looks one way to High Street, another to Queen Street, a third to the Cornmarket, and the fourth to St. Aldates's.

H. T. G.

—Rabbi Bechai tells us of the solemn blessing in Numbers vi. 25, 26, 27., in which the name Jehovah is thrice repeated, that, when the high priest pronounced it on the people, "elevatione manuum sic digitos composuit ut TRIADA exprimerent."

W. FRASER.

—I beg to inform COWGILL that Irishwomen of the lower order almost invariably refuse to be sworn while pregnant. Having frequently had to administer oaths to heads of families applying for relief during the famine in Ireland in 1847-8-9, I can speak with certainty as to the fact, though I am unable to account for the origin of the superstition.

BARTANUS.

Dublin.

—Burgh or Borough-English is a custom appendant to ancient boroughs, such as existed in the days of Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror, and are contained in the Book of Domesday. Taylor, in his History of Gavelkind, p. 102., states, that in the villages round the city of Hereford, the lands are all held in the tenure of Borough-English. There appears also to be a customary [215] descent of lands and tenements in some places called Borow-English, as in Edmunton: vid. Kitchin of Courts, fol. 102. The custom of Borough-English, like that of gavelkind, and those of London and York, is still extant; and although it may have been in a great measure superseded by deed or will, yet, doubtless, instances occur in the present day of its vitality and consequent operation.

FRANCISCUS.

—I suspect that the charter to which MR. HAND refers, is one of the time of Henry II., and not of Henry III. The latter sent no daughter to Sicily; but Joan, the daughter of the former, was married to William, king of Sicily, in the year 1176, 22 Henry II. In the Great Roll of that year (Rot. 13 b.) are entries of payments for hangings in the king's chamber on that occasion, and of fifty marks given to Walter de Constantiis, Archdeacon of Oxford, for entertaining the Sicilian ambassadors. See Madox's Exchequer, i. 367., who also in p. 18. refers to Hoveden, P. 2. p. 548. This may perhaps assist in the discovery of the precise date, which I cannot at present fix.

Φ.

The Jansenists: their Rise, Persecutions by the Jesuits, and existing Remnant; a Chapter in Church History: by S. P. Tregelles, LL.D., is an interesting little monograph, reprinted with additions from Dr. Kitto's Journal of Biblical Literature, and enriched with portraits of Jansenius, St. Cyran, and the Mère Angelique. The history of the Jansenist Church lingering in separate existence at Utrecht affords a new instance of Catholicity of doctrine apart from the Papal communion; and as such cannot fail to have a peculiar interest for many of our readers.

The long, brilliant, and important reign of Louis XIV. has had many chroniclers. The Mémoires written by those who figured in its busy scenes are almost innumerable; many, as may be supposed from the character of the monarch and the laxity of the court, being little calculated for general perusal. Mr. James therefore did good service when he presented the reading world with his historical view of The Life and Times of Louis XIV., a work in which, while he has done full justice to the talents and genius of the monarch, and the brilliancy of the circle by which he was surrounded, he has not allowed that splendour so to dazzle the eyes of the spectator as to blind him to the real infamy and heartlessness with which it was surrounded. We are therefore well pleased to see Mr. James's history reprinted as the two new volumes of Bohn's Standard Library.

Mr. L. A. Lewis of 125. Fleet Street will sell on Friday next two extraordinary Collections of Tracts on Trade, Coinage, Commerce, Banks, Public Institutions, and Trade generally. The First, in 167 Vols., in fol., 4to., and 8vo., commences with Milles' Customer's Replie, 1604. The Second, in 20 Vols., collected upwards of a century since, commences with H. Gilbert's Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to Cataia, 1576. Both series should be secured for a Public Library.

CATALOGUE RECEIVED.—J. Millers' (43. Chandos Street) Catalogue No. 28 of Cheap Books for Ready Money.

*** Letters, stating particulars and lowest price, carriage free, to be sent to MR. BELL, Publisher of "NOTES AND QUERIES," 186. Fleet Street.

F. R. A. The lines referred to by DR. RIMBAULT (Vol. iv., p. 181.) are not those quoted in that page by A TEMPLAR from the Cobleriana, but those beginning—

respecting which a Query appeared in our 3rd Vol. p. 450.

J. VARLEY, Jun. The lines are quoted by Washington Irving, from Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 3.

RT. will perceive that his communications reach us in a very available form.

O. T. D. is thanked for his suggestions, which shall be adopted as far as practical. He will find that his communication respecting Pallavicino has been anticipated in our 3rd Vol., pp. 478. 523.

PHILO, whose Query appeared in our Number of July 19th, will find a letter at our Publisher's.

ALTRON. There is no Agent for the sale of "NOTES AND QUERIES" in Dublin. It will however no doubt be supplied by any bookseller there from whom it may be ordered.

REPLIES RECEIVED.—Dr. M. Sutcliffe—Description of a Dimple—Carli the Economist—Decretorum Doctor—Versicle—Querelle d'Allemand—Ellrake—Sir W. Raleigh in Virginia—M. Lominus Theologus—Pope's Translations—Wyle Cop—Collar of SS.—What constitutes a Proverb—Visiting Cards—Going the whole Hog—Lord Mayor a Privy Councillor—Inscription on a Claymore—Queen Brunéhaut—Cagots—Written Sermons—Tale of a Tub—Cowper Law—Murderers buried in Cross-roads—Thread the Needle—Borough English—Gooseberry Fool—Darby and Joan—Print Cleaning—Serpent with a Human Head.

Copies of our Prospectus, according to the suggestion of T. E. H., will be forwarded to any correspondent willing to assist us by circulating them.

VOLS. I., II., and III., with very copious Indices, may still be had, price 9s. 6d. each, neatly bound in cloth.

NOTES AND QUERIES is published at noon on Friday, so that our country Subscribers may receive it on Saturday. The subscription for the Stamped Edition is 10s. 2d. for Six Months, which may be paid by Post-office Order drawn in favour of our Publisher, MR. GEORGE BELL, 186. Fleet Street; to whose care all communications for the Editor should be addressed. [216]

Printed by THOMAS CLARK SHAW, of No. 8. New Street Square, at No. 5. New Street Square, in the Parish of St. Bride in the City of London; and published by GEORGE BELL, of No. 186. Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Dunstan in the West, in the City of London, Publisher, at No. 186. Fleet Street aforesaid.—Saturday, September 20. 1851.