Replies to Minor Queries.
Eulenspiegel or Ulenspiegel (Vol. vii., pp. 357. 416. 507.).—Mr. Thoms's suggestion, and his quotation in proof thereof from the Chronicler, are farther verified by the following inscription and verses which I transcribe from an engraved portrait of the famous jester:
"Ulenspiegel.
"Ligt Begraben zu Dom in Flandern in der grosen Kirch, auf dem Grabister also Likend abgebildet. Starb Ao. 1301."
These lines are above the portrait, and beneath it are the verses next following:
"Tchau Ulenspiegeln hier. Das Bildniss macht dich lachen:
Was wurdst du thun siehst du jhn selber Possen machen?
Zwar Thÿle ist ein Bild und Spiegel dieser Welt,
Viel Bruder er verliess; Wir treiben Narretheÿen,
In dem uns dunckt, dass wir die grosten Weysen seÿen,
Drum lache deiner selbst; diss Blat dich dir vorstellt."
The portrait, evidently that of a man of large intellect, is very life-like, and full of animation. He seems to be some fifty years of age or so; he has a cap, ornamented by large feather, on his head. He is seated in a chair, has a book in his hand, and is attired in a kind of magisterial robe bordered with fur. There is a good-humoured roguish twinkle in his eyes; and I should be inclined to call him, judging from the portrait before me, an epigrammatist rather than mere vulgar jester. The engraving is beautifully executed: it has neither date nor place of publication, but its age may perhaps be determined by the names of the painter (Paulus Furst) and engraver (P. Troschel). The orthography is by no means of recent date. I cannot translate the verses to my own satisfaction; and should feel much obliged if you, Mr. Editor, or Mr. Thoms, would favour the readers of "N. & Q." with an English version thereof.
Henry Campkin.
Reform Club.
Lawyers' Bags (Vol. vii., pp. 85. 144.).—Colonel Landman is doubtless correct in his statement as to the colour of barristers' bags; but from the evidence of A Templar and Causidicus, we must place the change from green to red at some period anterior to the trial of Queen Caroline. In Queen Anne's time they were green.
"I am told, Cousin Diego, you are one of those that have undertaken to manage me, and that you have said you will carry a green bag yourself, rather than we shall make an end of our lawsuit: I'll teach them and you too to manage."—The History of John Bull, by Dr. Arbuthnot, Part I. ch. xv.
T. H. Kersley, B. A.
Audlem, Cheshire.
"Nine Tailors make a Man" (Vol. vi., pp. 390. 563.; Vol. vii., p. 165.).—The origin of this saying is to be sought for elsewhere than in England only. Le Conte de la Villemarqué, in his
interesting collection of Breton ballads, Barzas-Breiz, vol. i. p. 35., has the following passage:
"Les tailleurs, cette classe vouée au ridicule, en Bretagne, comme dans le pays de Galles, en Irlande, en Ecosse, en Allemagne et ailleurs, et qui l'était jadis chez toutes les nations guerrières, dont la vie agitée et errante s'accordait mal avec une existence casanière et paisible. Le peuple dit encore de nos jours en Bretagne, qu'il faut neuf tailleurs pour faire un homme, et jamais il ne prononce leur nom, sans ôter son chapeau, et sans dire: 'Sauf votre respect.'"
The saying is current also in Normandy, at least in those parts which border on Britany. Perhaps some of the readers of "N. & Q." may be able to say whether it is to be found in other parts of Europe.
Honoré de Mareville.
Guernsey.
"Time and I" (Vol. vii., pp. 182. 247.).—Arbuthnot calls it a Spanish proverb. In the History of John Bull, we read among the titles of other imaginary chapters in the "Postscript," that of—
"Ch. XVI. Commentary upon the Spanish Proverb, Time and I against any Two; or Advice to Dogmatical Politicians, exemplified in some New Affairs between John Bull and Lewis Baboon."
T. H. Kersley, B. A.
Audlem, Cheshire.
Carr Pedigree (Vol. vii., pp. 408. 512.).—W. St. says that William Carr married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Sing, Bishop of Cork. The name is Synge, not Sing. The family name was originally Millington, and was changed to Synge by Henry VIII. or Queen Elizabeth, on account of the sweetness of the voice of one of the family, who was a clergyman, and the ancestor of George Synge, Bishop of Cloyne; Edward Synge, Bishop of Ross; Edward Synge, Archbishop of Tuam; Edward Synge, Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns; Nicholas Synge, Bishop of Killaloe; the late Sir Samuel Synge Hutchinson, Archdeacon of Killala; and of the present Sir Edward Synge.
I cannot find that any of these church dignitaries had a daughter married to Wm. Carr. Nicholas Synge, Bishop of Killaloe, left a daughter, Elizabeth, who died unmarried in 1834, aged ninety-nine; but I cannot discover that either of the other bishops of that family had a daughter Elizabeth.
Gulielmus.
Campvere, Privileges of (Vol. vii., pp. 262. 440.).—What were these privileges, and whence was the term derived?
"Veria, quæ et Canfera, vel Campoveria potius dicitur, alterum est inter oppida hujus insulæ, muro et mœnibus clausa, situ quidem ad aquilonem obversa, et in ipso oceani littore: fossam habet, quæ Middelburgum usque extenditur, à quâ urbe leucæ tantum unius, etc.
"Estque oppidulum satis concinnum, et mercimoniis florens, maxime propter commercia navium Scoticarum, quæ in isto potissimum portu stare adsueverunt.
"Scotorum denique, superioribus annis, frequentatione celebris et Scoticarum mercium, præcipue vellerum ovillorum, stapula, ut vocant, et emporium esse cœpit."—L. Guicciardini, Belgium (1646), vol. ii. pp. 67, 68.
Will J. D. S. be so good as to say where he found the "Campvere privileges" referred to?
E.
Haulf-naked (Vol. vii., p. 432.).—The conjecture that Half-naked was a manor in co. Sussex is verified by entries in Cal. Rot. Pat., 11 Edw. I., m. 15.; and 13 Edw. I., m. 18. Also in Abbreviatio Rot. Orig., 21 Edw. III., Rot. 21.; in which latter it is spelt Halnaked.
J. W. S. R.
St. Ives, Hunts.
Old Picture of the Spanish Armada (Vol. vii., p. 454.).—Although perhaps this may not be reckoned an answer to J. S. A.'s Query on this head, I have to inform you that in the steeple part of Gaywood Church near this town, is a fine old painting of Queen Elizabeth reviewing the forces at Tilbury Fort, and the Spanish fleet in the distance. It is framed, and sadly wants cleaning.
J. N. C.
King's Lynn.
Parochial Libraries (Vol. vi., p. 432., &c.).—We have in St. Margaret's parish a parochial library, which is kept in a room fitted up near the vestry of the church in this town.
J. N. C.
King's Lynn.
To the list of places where there are parochial libraries may be added Bewdley, in Worcestershire. There is a small library in the Grammar School of that place, consisting, if I recollect aright, mainly of old divinity, under the care of the master: though it is true, for some years, there has been no master.
S. S. S.
In the preface to the Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, by Roger North, it appears that Dudleys youngest daughter of Charles, and granddaughter of Dudley Lord North, dying,—
"Her library, consisting of a choice collection of Oriental books, by the present Lord North and Grey, her only surviving brother, was given to the parochial library of Rougham in Norfolk, where it now remains."
This library then existed in 1742, the date of the first edition of the work.
Furvus.
St. James's.
How to stain Deal (Vol. vii., p. 356.).—Your correspondent C. will find that a solution of
asphaltum in boiling turpentine is a very good stain to dye deal to imitate oak. This must be applied when cold with a brush to the timbers: allowed to get dry, then size and varnish it.
The dye, however, which I always use, is a compound of raw umber and a small portion of blue-black diluted to the shade required with strong size in solution: this must be used hot. It is evident that this will not require the preparatory sizing before the application of the varnish. Common coal, ground in water, and used the same as any other colour, I have found to be an excellent stain for roof timbers.
W. H. Cullingford.
Cromhall, Gloucestershire.
Roger Outlawe (Vol. vii., p. 332.).—Of this person, who was Lord Deputy of Ireland for many years of the reign of Edward III., some particulars will be found in the notes to the Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, edited for the Camden Society by Mr. Wright, p. 49. There is evidently more than one misreading in the date of the extract communicated by the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe: "die pasche in viiij mense anno B. Etii post ultimum conquestum hibernia quarto." I cannot interpret "in viiij mense;" but the rest should evidently be "anno Regis Edwardi tertii post ultimum conquestum Hiberniæ quarto."
May I ask whether this "last conquest of Ireland" has been noticed by palæographers in other instances?
Anon.
Tennyson (Vol. vii., p. 84.).—Will not the following account by Lord Bacon, in his History of Henry VII., of the marriage by proxy between Maximilian, King of the Romans, and the Princess Anne of Britany, illustrate for your correspondent H. J. J. his last quotation from Tennyson?
"She to me
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf,
At eight years old."
"Maximilian so far forth prevailed, both with the young lady and with the principal persons about her, as the marriage was consummated by proxy, with a ceremony at that time in these parts new. For she was not only publicly contracted, but stated, as a bride, and solemnly bedded; and after she was laid, there came in Maximilian's ambassador with letters of procuration, and in the presence of sundry noble personages, men and women, put his leg, stripped naked to the knee, between the espousal sheets," &c.
Tyro.
Dublin.
Old Fogie (Vol. vii., p. 354.).—Mr. Keightley supposes the term of old fogie, as applied to "mature old warriors," to be "of pure Irish origin," or "rather of Dublin birth." In this he is certainly mistaken, for the word fogie, as applied to old soldiers, is as well known, and was once as familiarly used in Scotland, as it ever was or could have been in Ireland. The race was extinct before my day, but I understand that formerly the permanent garrisons of Edinburgh, and I believe also of Stirling, Castles, consisted of veteran companies; and I remember, when I first came to Edinburgh, of people who had seen them, still talking of "the Castle fogies."
Dr. Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, defines the word "foggie or fogie," to be first, "an invalid, or garrison soldier," secondly, "a person advanced in life" and derives it from "Su. G. fogde, formerly one who had the charge of a garrison."
This seems to me a more satisfactory derivation than Mr. Keightley's, who considers it a corruption or diminutive of old folks.
J. L.
City Chambers, Edinburgh.
Errata corrigenda.—Vol. ii., p. 356. col. 2., near the bottom, for Sir William Jardine, read Sir Henry Jardine. Sir William and Sir Henry were very different persons, though the former was probably the more generally known. Sir H. was the author of the report referred to.
Vol. vii., p. 441. col. 1. line 15, for Lenier read Ferrier.
J. L.
City Chambers, Edinburgh.
Anecdote of Dutens (Vol. vii., pp. 26. 390.).—
"Lord Lansdowne at breakfast mentioned of Dutens, who wrote Mémoires d'un Voyageur qui se repose, and was a great antiquarian, that, on his describing once his good luck in having found (what he fancied to be) a tooth of Scipio's in Italy, some one asked him what he had done with it, upon which he answered briskly: 'What have I done with it? Le voici,' pointing to his mouth; where he had made it supplemental to a lost one of his own."—Moore's Journal, vol. iv. p. 271.
E. H. A.
Gloves at Fairs (Vol. vii., p. 455.).—In Hone's Every-day Book (vol. ii. p. 1059.) is the following paragraph:—
"Exeter Lammas Fair.—The charter for this fair is perpetuated by a glove of immense size, stuffed and carried through the city on a very long pole, decorated with ribbons, flowers, &c., and attended with music, parish beadles, and the mobility. It is afterwards placed on the top of the Guildhall, and then the fair commences: on the taking down of the glove, the fair terminates.—P."
As to Crolditch, alias Lammas Fair, at Exeter, see Izacke's Remarkable Antiquities of the City of Exeter, pp. 19, 20.
C. H. Cooper.
Cambridge.
At Macclesfield, in Cheshire, a large glove was, perhaps is, always suspended from the outside of the window of the town-hall during the holding of a fair; and as long as the glove was so suspended, every one was free from arrest within the
township, and, I have heard, while going and returning to and from the fair.
Edward Hawkins.
At Free Mart, at Portsmouth, a glove used to be hung out of the town-hall window, and no one could be arrested during the fortnight that the fair lasted.
F. O. Martin.
Arms—Battle-axe (Vol. vii., p. 407.).—The families which bore three Dane-axes or battle-axes in their coats armorial were very numerous in ancient times. It may chance to be of service to your Querist A.C. to be informed, that those of Devonshire which displayed these bearings were the following: Dennys, Batten, Gibbes, Ledenry, Wike, Wykes, and Urey.
J. D. S.
Enough (Vol. vii., p. 455.).—In Staffordshire, and I believe in the other midland counties, this word is usually pronounced enoo, and written enow. In Richardson's Dictionary it will be found "enough or enow;" and the etymology is evidently from the German genug, from the verb genugen, to suffice, to be enough, to content, to satisfy. The Anglo-Saxon is genog. I remember the burden of an old song which I frequently heard in my boyish days:
"I know not, I care not,
I cannot tell how to woo,
But I'll away to the merry green woods,
And there get nuts enow."
This evidently shows what the pronunciation was when it was written.
J. A. H.
Enough is from the same root as the German genug, where the first g has been lost, and the latter softened and almost lost in its old English pronunciation, enow. The modern pronunciation is founded, as that of many other words is, upon an affected style of speech, ridiculed by Holofernes.[[4]] The word bread, for example, is almost universally called bred; but in Chaucer's poetry and indeed now in Yorkshire, it is pronounced bré-äd, a dissyllable.
T. J. Buckton.
Birmingham.
Footnote 4:[(return)]
The Euphuists are probably chargeable with this corruption.
In Vol. vii., p. 455. there is an inquiry respecting the change in the pronunciation of the word enough, and quotations are given from Waller, where the word is used, rhyming with bow and plough. But though spelt enough, is not the word, in both places, really enow? and is there not, in fact, a distinction between the two words? Does not enough always refer to quantity, and enow to number: the former, to what may be measured; the latter, to that which may be counted? In both quotations the word enough refers to numbers?
S. S. S.
Feelings of Age (Vol. vii., p. 429.).—A.C. asks if it "is not the general feeling, that man in advancing years would not like to begin life again?" I fear not. It is a wisdom above the average of what men possess that made the good Sir Thomas Browne say:
"Though I think no man can live well once, but he that could live twice, yet for my own part I would not live over my hours past, or begin again the thread of my dayes: not upon Cicero's ground—because I have lived them well—but for fear I should live them worse. I find my growing judgment daily instruct me how to be better, but my untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity make me daily do worse. I find in my confirmed age the same sins I discovered in my youth; I committed many then, because I was a child, and, because I commit them still, I am yet an infant. Therefore I perceive a man may be twice a child before the days of dotage, and stand in need of Æson's bath before threescore."
The annotator refers to Cic., lib. xxiv. ep. 4.:
"Quod reliquum est, sustenta te, mea Terentia, ut potes, honestissimè. Viximus: floruimus: non vitium nostrum, sed virtus nostra, nos afflixit. Peccatum est nullum, nisi quod non unâ animam cum ornamentis amisimus."—Edit. Orell., vol. iii. part i. p. 335.
However, it seems probable that Sir Thomas meant that this sentiment is rather to be gathered from Cicero's writings,—not enunciated in a single sentence.
H. C. K.
—— Rectory, Hereford.
Optical Query (Vol. vii., p. 430.).—In reply to the optical Query by H. H., I venture to suggest that a stronger gust of wind than usual might easily occasion the illusion in question, as I myself have frequently found in looking at the fans on the tops of chimneys. Or possibly the eyes may have been confused by gazing on the revolving blades, just as the tongue is frequently influenced in its accentuation by pronouncing a word of two syllables in rapid articulations.
F. F. S.
Oxford.
Cross and Pile (Vol. vii., p.487.).—Here is another explanation at least as satisfactory as some of the previous ones:
"The word coin itself is money struck on the coin or head of the flattened metal, by which word coin or head is to be understood the obverse, the only side which in the infancy of coining bore the stamp. Thence the Latin cuneus, from cune or kyn, the head.
"This side was also called pile, in corruption from poll, a head, not only from the side itself being the coin or head, but from its being impressed most commonly with some head in contradistinction to the reverse, which, in latter times, was oftenest a cross. Thence the vulgarism, cross or pile, poll, head."—Cleland's Specimen of an Etymological Vocabulary, p. 157.
A. Holt White.
Capital Punishments (Vol. vii., pp. 52. 321.).—The authorities to which W. L. N. refers not being generally accessible, he would confer a very great obligation by giving the names and dates of execution of any of the individuals alluded to by him, who have undergone capital punishment in this country for exercising the Roman Catholic religion. Herein, it is almost needless to remark, I exclude such cases as those of Babington, Ballard, Parsons, Garnett, Campion, Oldcorne, and others, their fellows, who suffered, as every reader of history knows, for treasonable practices against the civil and christian policy and government of the realm.
Cowgill.
Thomas Bonnell (Vol. vii., p. 305.).—In what year was this person, about whose published Life J. S. B. inquires, Mayor of Norwich? His name, as such, does not occur in the lists of Nobbs, Blomefield, or Ewing.
Cowgill.
Passage in the First Part of Faust (Vol. vii., p. 501.).—Mr. W. Fraser will find good illustrations of the question he has raised in his second suggestion for the elucidation of this passage in The Abbot, chap. 15. ad fin. and note.
A few weeks after giving this reference, in answer to a question by Emdee (see "N. & Q.," Vol. i., p. 262.; Vol. ii., p. 47.), I sent in English, for I am not a German scholar, as an additional reply to Emdee, the very same passage that Mr. Fraser has just forwarded, but it was not inserted, probably because its fitness as an illustration was not very evident.
My intention in sending that second reply was to show that, as in Christabel and The Abbot, the voluntary and sustained effort required to introduce the evil spirit was of a physical, so in Faust it was of a mental character; and I confess that I am much pleased now to find my opinion supported by the accidental testimony of another correspondent.
It must, however, be allowed that the peculiar wording of the passage under consideration may make it difficult, if not impossible, to separate earnest from the magical form in which Faust's command to enter his room is given. Göthe's intention, probably, was to combine and illustrate both.
As proofs of the belief in the influence of the number three in incantation, I may refer to Virg. Ecl. viii. 73—78.; to a passage in Apuleius, which describes the resuscitation of a corpse by Zachlas, the Egyptian sorcerer;
"Propheta, sic propitiatus, herbulam quampiam ter ob os corporis, et aliam pectori ejus imponit."—Apul. Metamorph., lib. ii. sect. 39. (Regent's Classics);
and to the rhyming spell that raised the White Lady of Avenel at the Corrie nan Shian. (See The Monastery, chaps. xi. and xvii.)
C. Forbes.
Sir Josias Bodley (Vol. vii., p. 357.).—Your correspondent Y. L. will find some account of the family of Bodley in Prince's Worthies of Devon, edit. 1810, pp. 92-105., and in Moore's History of Devon, vol. ii. pp. 220-227. See also "N. & Q.," Vol. iv., pp. 59. 117. 240.
J. D. S.
Claret (Vol. vii., p. 237.).—The word claret is evidently derived directly from the French word clairet; which is used, even at the present day, as a generic name for the "vins ordinaires," of a light and thin quality, grown in the south of France. The name is never applied but to red wines; and it is very doubtful whether it takes its appellation from any place, being always used adjectively—"vin clairet," not vin de clairet. I am perhaps not quite correct in stating, that the word is always used as an adjective; for we sometimes find clairet used alone as a substantive; but I conceive that in this case the word vin is to be understood, as we say "du Bordeaux," "du Champagne," meaning "du vin de Bordeaux," "du vin de Champagne." Eau clairette is the name given to a sort of cherry-brandy; and lapidaries apply the name clairette to a precious stone, the colour of which is not so deep as it ought to be. This latter fact may lead one to suppose that the wine derived its name from being clearer and lighter in colour than the more full-bodied vines of the south. The word is constantly occurring in old drinking-songs. A song of Olivier Basselin, the minstrel of Vire, begins with these words:
"Beau nez, dont les rubis out coûté mainte pipe
De vin blanc et clairet."
By the way, this song is the original of one in the musical drama of Jack Sheppard, which many of the readers of "N. & Q." may remember, as it became rather popular at the time. It began thus:
"Jolly nose, the bright gems that illumine thy tip,
Were dug from the mines of Canary."
I am not aware that the plagiarism has been noticed before.
Honoré de Mareville.
Guernsey.