Minor Queries with Answers.

Game of the Whetstone.—In Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent (page 110., ed. 1596), the author, remarking on Ealred's assertion that King Edward the Confessor saw at mass the seven sleepers at Ephesus turn on one side after having slept seventy years together on the other, says:

"Which seeing it was within five years of so many as Epimenides slept, Ealred (in my phansie) is worthie to have the second game at the whetstone."

In the margin the note to this is—

"i Loue Lye or game for the whetstone."

Halliwell, in his Dictionary, says that in old authors frequent allusions occur to the custom of decorating notorious liars with whetstones; but I would thank any of your readers for a fuller account of "y^e game for y^e whetstone." What is known of Lambarde, or Lambert, as Gervase Markham calls him? Was his Topographicall Dictionarie (mentioned, as prepared for the press, in the Perambulation) ever published, and what other works by him exist?

E. G. R.

[The extracts from our early writers given by Brand and Nares furnish some clue to the origin and character of the game of the whetstone; when the social and convivial combatants sharpened their wits to see who could gain the satirical prize of the silver whetstone by telling the greatest lie. In Lupton's Too Good to be True, p. 80., is the following passage, somewhat illustrative of the game:

"Siuqila. Merry and pleasant lyes we take rather for a sport than a sin. Lying with us is so loved and allowed, that there are many tymes gamings and prises therefore purposely, to encourage one to outlye another.

"Omen. And what shall he gaine that gets the victorie in lying?

"Siuqila. He shall have a silver whetstone for his labour."

William Lambarde was born October 18, 1536. He was the eldest son of John Lambarde, alderman of London. In 1570 he resided at West Combe, near Blackheath, a manor he then possessed. He purposed publishing a general account of Great Britain, of which his Perambulation of Kent was but the specimen; and he was only deterred by learning that Camden was engaged on a similar task. His materials were published from the original manuscript in 1730, under the title of Dictionarium Angliæ Topographicum et Historicum, to which is prefixed a portrait of the author, engraved by Vertue. His first work was Archaionomia, sive de priscis Anglorum legibus libri, 1568, 4to. He also wrote Eirenarcha; or, the Office of the Justices of the Peace, and Duties of Constables: Archeion, a Discourse upon the High Courts of Justice. In 1600 he was appointed by Queen Elizabeth Keeper of the Records in the Tower; and in the following year he presented her Majesty with an account of them, under the title Pandecta Rotulorum. He died at his residence at West Combe, August 19, 1601, and was buried in the Church of St. Alphege, Greenwich, where a monument was erected to his memory. In after days this mortuary memorial was removed to the Church of Sevenoaks, in which parish the family now possesses a seat. Lambarde was the first Churchman after the Reformation who founded a hospital. It was called "The College of the Poor of Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich, Kent," and was opened in 1576.]

Meals.—On the N.W. coast of Norfolk are certain sandbanks so called. Brancaster Meals, Blakeney Meals, and Wells Meals are among those most dreaded by the mariner.

In Bailey's Dictionary occurs,

"Meales, Malls. The shelves or banks of sand on the sea-coasts of Norway."

Can Norway be a misprint for Norfolk? It occurs Norway in ten or twelve editions of Bailey which I have examined. I can find no mention of "meals" or "malls" in any map of Norway,

except the whirlpool, the Maelström, be connected with it. In Norfolk ea, ee are frequently changed for oa, oo. Thus "sheaf" and "reek" are in Norfolk "shoaf" and "roke;" and "smeath," a table land, is evidently from "smooth."

Can this change of vowels have taken place in this word, and "meals" signify "moles," from the shelf of sand projecting like a mole? or can any correspondent suggest a better etymology?

E. G. R.

[The quotation given above is omitted in the folio edition of Bailey, 1736; but is correctly given in Phillips's New World of Words:—"Meales, or Males, the shelves or banks of sand on the sea-coasts of Norfolk: whence Ingom-meals, the name of a sandy shore in Lincolnshire." The word Meales, or Malls, is however obviously connected with the Icelandic Möl, which Helmboe, in his recently-published work, Det Norske Sprogs, &c., defines "coarse sand; a sandy or stony place.">[

Haughmond Abbey, Salop.—I should feel obliged for any particulars of the history, or a reference to any work that contains a full account, of these fine ruins. Hulbert does not give by any means a detailed notice in his History of Salop.

Salopian.

[Some account of this abbey, with two engraved views of it, will be found in the Beauties of England and Wales, vol. xiii. part i. pp. 179-82. Consult also Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. vi. p. 107.]

"As flies to wanton boys."—Can you inform me from what writer is the following quotation (in Mary Wolstoncraft's Travels in Sweden)?—

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;

They kill us for their sport."

J. P.

[Shakspeare's King Lear, Act IV. Sc. 1.]

Quotation wanted.—Who is the author of the following lines?—

"Three poets in three distant ages born,

Greece, Italy, and England did adorn:

The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,

The next in majesty; in both the last.

The force of Nature could no further go;

To make a third, she joined the former two."

Of course it is obvious who were the three poets, the greatest the world has produced.

A. S. A.

Wuzzeerabad.

[These lines are by Dryden, and are frequently prefixed to Paradise Lost. They are little more than a translation of a distich by Salvaggi:—

"Græcia Mæonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem:

Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem.">[

Thomas Stanley, Bishop of Man.—I feel much obliged by your prompt answer to the Query about this prelate (Vol. vi., p. 130.); but some additional information appears necessary. If Bishop Stanley was appointed to this see in 1542, who was the possessor of it subsequently to the death of Bishop Huan Hesketh, or Blackleach, in 1510, a period of thirty-two years? Bishop Stanley's consecration does not appear in Cranmer's Register, which throws some doubt on the year 1542 as having been that of his appointment to the episcopate.

A. S. A.

[Huan Hesketh, or Blackleach, was consecrated in 1487, and died in 1510. The see was vacant twenty years. The next bishop was William Stanley, who was consecrated March 4, 1530.]