Replies to Minor Queries.
Burke's Marriage (Vol. vii., p. 382.).—Burke married, in 1756, the daughter of Dr. Nugent of Bath. (See Nat. Cycl., s.v. "Burke.")
P. J. F. Gantillon, B.A.
The House of Falahill (Vol. vi., p. 533.).—As I have not observed any notice taken of the very interesting Query of Aberdoniensis, regarding this ancient baronial residence, I may state that there is a Falahill, or Falahall, in the parish of Heriot, in the county of Edinburgh. Whether it be the Falahill referred to by Nisbet as having been so profusely illuminated with armorial bearings, I cannot tell. Possibly either Messrs. Laing, Wilson, or Cosmo Innes might be able to give some information about this topographical and historical mystery.
Stornoway.
Descendants of Judas Iscariot (Vol. viii., p. 56.).—There is a collection of traditions as to this person in extracts I have among my notes, which perhaps you may think fit to give as a reply to Mr. Creed's Query. It runs as follows:
"On dit dans l'Anjou et dans le Maine que Judas Iscariot est né à Sablé; là-dessus on a fait ce vers:
'Perfidus Judæus Sabloliensis erat.'
"Les Bretons disent de même qu'il est né au Normandie entre Caen et Rouen, et à ce propos ils recitent ces vers.
'Judas étoit Normand,
Tout le monde le dit—
Entre Caen et Rouen,
Ce malheureux naquit.
Il vendit son Seigneur pour trente mares contants.
Au diable soient tous les Normands.'
"On dit de même sans raison que Judas avoit demeuré à Corfou, et qu'il y est né. Pietro della Valle rapporte dans ses Voyages qu'étant à Corfou on lui montra par rareté un homme que ceux du pays assuroient être de la race du traître Judas—quoiqu'il le niât. C'est un bruit qui court depuis long tems en cette contrée, sans qu'on en sache la cause ni l'origine. Le peuple de la ville de Ptolemaïs (autrement de l'Acre) disoit de même sans raison que dans une tour de cette ville on avoit fabriqué les trente deniers pour lesquelles Judas avoit vendu nôtre Seigneur, et pour cela ils appelloient cette tour la Tour Maudite."
This is taken from the second volume of Menagiana, p. 232.
J. H. P. Leresche.
Manchester.
Milton's Widow (Vol. viii., p. 12.).—The information once promised by your correspondent Cranmore still seems very desirable, because the statements of your correspondent Mr. Hughes are not reconcilable with two letters given in Mr. Hunter's very interesting historical tract on Milton, pages 37-8., to which tract I beg to refer Mr. Hughes, who may not have seen it. These letters clearly show that Richard Minshull, the writer of them, had only two aunts, neither of whom could have been Mrs. Milton, as she must have been if she was the daughter of the writer's grandfather, Randall Minshull. Probably this Elizabeth died in infancy, which the Wistaston parish register may show, and which register would perhaps also show (supposing Milton took his wife from Wistaston) the wanting marriage; or if Mrs. Milton was of the Stoke-Minshull family, that parish register would most likely
disclose his third marriage, which certainly did not take place sooner than 1662.
Garlichithe.
Whitaker's Ingenious Earl (Vol. viii., p. 9.).—It was a frequent saying of Lord Stanhope's, that he had taught law to the Lord Chancellor, and divinity to the Bishops; and this saying gave rise to a caricature, where his lordship is seated acting the schoolmaster with a rod in his hand.
E. H.
Are White Cats deaf? (Vol. vii., p. 331.).—In looking up your Numbers for April, I observe a Minor Query signed Shirley Hibberd, in which your querist states that in all white cats stupidity seemed to accompany the deafness, and inquires whether any instance can be given of a white cat possessing the function of hearing in anything like perfection.
I am myself possessed of a white cat which, at the advanced age of upwards of seventeen years, still retains its hearing to great perfection, and is remarkably intelligent and devoted, more so than cats are usually given credit for. Its affection for persons is, indeed, more like that of a dog than of a cat. It is a half-bred Persian cat, and its eyes are perfectly blue, with round pupils, not elongated as those of cats usually are. It occasionally suffers from irritation in the ears, but this has not at all resulted in deafness.
H.
Consecrated Roses (Vol. vii., pp. 407. 480.; Vol. viii., p. 38.).—From the communication of P. P. P. it seems that the origin of the consecration of the rose dates so far back as 1049, and was "en reconnaissance" of a singular privilege granted to the abbey of St. Croix. Can your correspondent refer to any account of the origin of the consecration or blessing of the sword, cap, or keys?
G.
The Reformed Faith (Vol. vii., p. 359.).—I must protest against this term being applied to the system which Henry VIII. set up on his rejecting the papal supremacy, which on almost every point but that one was pure Popery, and for refusing to conform to which he burned Protestants and Roman Catholics at the same pile. It suited Cobbett (in his History of the Reformation), and those controversialists who use him as their text-book, to confound this system with the doctrine of the existing Church of England, but it is to be regretted that any inadvertence should have caused the use of similar language in your pages.
J. S. Warden.
House-marks (Vol. vii., p. 594.).—It appears to me that the house-marks he alluded to may be traced in what are called merchants' marks, still employed in marking bales of wool, cotton, &c., and which are found on tombstones in our old churches, incised in the slab during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which till lately puzzled the heralds. They were borne by merchants who had no arms.
E. G. Ballard.
Trash (Vol. vii., p. 566.).—The late Mr. Scatchard, of Morley, near Leeds, speaking in Hone's Table Book of the Yorkshire custom of trashing, or throwing an old shoe for luck over a wedding party, says:
"Although it is true that an old shoe is to this day called 'a trash,' yet it did not, certainly, give the name to the nuisance. To 'trash' originally signified to clog, encumber, or impede the progress of any one (see Todd's Johnson); and, agreeably to this explanation, we find the rope tied by sportsmen round the necks of fleet pointers to tire them well, and check their speed, is hereabouts universally called 'trash cord,' or 'dog trash.' A few miles distant from Morley, west of Leeds, the 'Boggart' or 'Barguest,' the Yorkshire Brownie is called by the people the Gui-trash, or Ghei-trash, the usual description of which is invariably that of a shaggy dog or other animal, encumbered with a chain round its neck, which is heard to rattle in its movements. I have heard the common people in Yorkshire say, that they 'have been trashing about all day;' using it in the sense of having had a tiring walk or day's work.
"East of Leeds the 'Boggart' is called the Padfoot."
G. P.
Adamsoniana (Vol. vii., p. 500.).—Michel Adanson (not Adamson), who has left his name to the gigantic Baobab tree of Senegal (Adansonia digitata), and his memory to all who appreciate the advantages of a natural classification of plants—for which Jussieu was indebted to him—was the son of a gentleman, who after firmly attaching himself to the Stuarts, left Scotland and entered the service of the Archbishop of Aix. The Encyclopædia Britannica, and, I imagine, almost all biographical dictionaries and similar works, contain notices of him. His devoted life has deserved a more lengthened chronicle.
Seleucus.
Your correspondent E. H. A., who inquires respecting the family of Michel Adamson, or Michael Adamson, is informed that in France, the country of his birth, the name is invariably written "Adanson;" while the author of Fanny of Caernarvon, or the War of the Roses, is described as "John Adamson." Both names are pronounced alike in French; but the difference of spelling would seem adverse to the supposition that the family of the botanist was of Scottish extraction.
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.
Portrait of Cromwell (Vol. viii., p. 55.).—The portrait inquired after by Mr. Rix is at the British Museum. Being placed over the cases in the long gallery of natural history, it is extremely difficult to be seen.
John Bruce.
Burke's "Mighty Boar of the Forest" (Vol. iii., p. 493.; Vol. iv., p. 391.).—It is not, I hope, too late to notice that Burke's description of Junius is an allusion neither to the Iliad, xiii. 471., nor to Psalm lxxx. 8-13., but to the Iliad, xvii. 280-284. I cannot resist quoting the lines containing the simile, at once for their applicability and their own innate beauty:
"Ἴθυσεν δὲ διὰ προμάχων, συΐ εἴκελος ἀλκὴν
Καπρίῳ, ὅστ' ἐν ὄρεσσι κύνας θαλερούς τ' ἀϊζηοὺς
Ῥηϊδίως ἐκέδασσεν, ἐλιξάμενος διὰ βήσσας.
Ως υἱὸς Τελαμῶνος."
W. Fraser.
Tor-Mohun.
"Amentium haud Amantium" (Vol. vii., p. 595.).—The following English translation may be considered a tolerably close approximation to the alliteration of the original: "Of dotards not of the doting." It is found in the Dublin edition of Terence, published by J. A. Phillips, 1845.
C. T. R.
Mr. Phillips, in his edition, proposes as a translation of this passage, "Of dotards, not of the doting." Whatever may be its merits in other respects, it is at all events a more perfect alliteration than the other attempts which have been recorded in "N. & Q."
Erica.
Warwick.
When I was at school I used to translate the phrase "Amentium haud amantium" (Ter. Andr., i. 3. 13.) "Lunatics, not lovers." Perhaps that may satisfy Fidus Interpres.
Π. Β.
A friend of mine once rendered this "Lubbers, not lovers."
P. J. F. Gantillon, B.A.
Talleyrand's Maxim (Vol. vi., p. 575.; Vol. vii., p. 487.).—Young's lines, to which Z. E. R. refers, are:
"Where Nature's end of language is declined,
And men talk only to conceal their mind."
With less piquancy, but not without the germ of the same idea, Dean Moss (ob. 1729), in his sermon Of the Nature and Properties of Christian Humility, says:
"Gesture is an artificial thing: men may stoop and cringe, and bow popularly low, and yet have ambitious designs in their heads. And speech is not always the just interpreter of the mind: men may use a condescending style, and yet swell inwardly with big thoughts of themselves."—Sermons, &c., 1737, vol. vii. p. 402.
Cowgill.
English Bishops deprived by Queen Elizabeth (Vol. vii., pp. 260. 344. 509.).—The following particulars concerning one of the Marian Bishops are at A. S. A.'s service. Cuthbert Scot, D.D., sometime student, and, in 1553, Master of Christ's Church College, Cambridge, was made Vice-Chancellor of that University in 1554-5; and had the temporalities of the See of Chester handed to him by Queen Mary in 1556. He was one of Cardinal Pole's delegates to the University of Cambridge, and was concerned in most of the political movements of the day. He, and four other bishops, with as many divines, undertook to defend the principles and practices of the Romish Church against an equal number of Reformed divines. On the 4th of April he was confined, either in the Fleet Prison or the Tower, for abusive language towards Queen Elizabeth; but having by some means or other escaped from durance, he retired to Louvain, where he died, according to Rymer's Fœdera, about 1560.
T. Hughes.
Chester.
Gloves at Fairs (Vol. vii., passim.).—To the list of markets at which a glove was, or is, hung out, may be added Newport, in the Isle of Wight. But a Query naturally springs out of such a note, and I would ask, Why did a glove indicate that parties frequenting the market were exempt from arrest? What was the glove an emblem of?
W. D—n.
As the following extract from Gorr's Liverpool Directory appears to bear upon the point, and as it does not seem to have yet attracted the attention of any of your correspondents, I beg to forward it:—
"Its (i.e. Liverpool's) fair-days are 25th July and 11th Nov. Ten days before and ten days after each fair-day, a hand is exhibited in front of the Town-hall, which denotes protection; during which time no person coming to or going from the town on business connected with the fair can be arrested for debt within its liberty."
I have myself frequently observed the "hand," although I could not discover any appearance of a fair being held.
R.
St. Dominic (Vol. vii., p. 356.).—Your correspondent Bookworm will find in any chronology a very satisfactory reason why Machiavelli could not reply to the summons of Benedict XIV., unless, indeed, the Pope had made use of "the power of the keys," to call him up for a brief space to satisfy his curiosity.
J. S. Warden.
Names of Plants (Vol. viii., p. 37.).—Ale-hoof means useful in, or to, ale; Ground-ivy having been used in brewing before the introduction of hops. "The women of our northern parts" (says John Gerard), "especially about Wales or Cheshire, do tunne the herbe Ale-hoof into their ale ... being tunned up in ale and drunke, it also purgeth the head from rhumaticke humours flowing from the brain." From the aforesaid tunning, it was also called Tun-hoof (World of Words); and in Gerard, Tune-hoof.
Considering what was meant by Lady in the names of plants, we should refrain from supposing that Neottia spiralis was called the Lady-traces "sensu obsc.," even if those who are more skilled in such matters than I am can detect such a sense. I cannot learn what a lady's traces are; but I suspect plaitings of her hair to be meant. "Upon the spiral sort," says Gerard, "are placed certaine small white flowers, trace fashion," while other sorts grow, he says, "spike fashion," or "not trace fashion." Whence I infer, that in his day trace conveyed the idea of spiral.
A. N.
Specimens of Foreign English (Vol. iii. passim.).—I have copied the following from the label on a bottle of liqueur, manufactured at Marseilles by "L. Noilly fils et Cie." The English will be best understood by being placed in juxtaposition with the original French:
"Le Vermouth
est un vin blanc légèrement amer, parfumé avec des plantes aromatiques bienfaisantes.
"Cette boisson est tonique, stimulante, fébrifuge et astringente: prise avec de l'eau elle est apéritive et raffraichissante: elle est aussi un puissant préservatif contre les fièvres et la dyssenterie, maladies si fréquentes dans les pays chauds, pour lesquels elle a été particulièrement composée."
"The Wermouth
is a brightly bitter and perfumed with aromatical and good vegetables white wine.
"This is tonic, stimulant, febrifuge and costive drinking; mixed with water it is aperitive, refreshing, and also a powerful preservative of fivers and bloody-flux; those latters are very usual in warmth countries, and of course that liquor has just been particularly made up for that occasion."
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.
Blanco White (Vol. vii., pp. 404. 486.).—Your correspondent H. C. K. is right in his impression that the sonnet commencing
"Mysterious Night! when our first parents knew," &c.
was written by Blanco White. See his Life (3 vols., Chapman, 1845), vol. iii. p. 48.
J. K. R. W.
Pistols (Vol. viii., p. 7.).—In Strype's Life of Sir Thomas Smith, Works, Oxon. 1821, mention is made of a statute or proclamation by the Queen in the year 1575, which refers to that of 33 Hen. VIII. c. 6., alluded to by your correspondent J. F. M., and in which the words pistol and pistolet are introduced:
"The Queen calling to mind how unseemly a thing it was, in so quiet and peaceable a realm, to have men so armed; ... did charge and command all her subjects, of what estate or degree soever they were, that in no wise, in their journeying, going, or riding, they carried about them privily or openly any dag, or pistol, or any other harquebuse, gun, or such weapon for fire, under the length expressed by the statute made by the Queen's most noble father.... [Excepting however] noblemen and such known gentlemen, which were without spot or doubt of evil behaviour, if they carried dags or pistolets about them in their journeys, openly, at their saddle bows," &c.
Here the dag or pistolet seems to answer to our "revolvers," and the pistol to our larger horse-pistol.
H. C. K.
—— Rectory, Hereford.
Passage of Thucydides on the Greek Factions (Vol. viii., p. 44.).—If L., or any of your readers, will take the trouble to compare the passage quoted, and the one referred to by him, in the following translation of Smith, with Sir A. Alison's supposititious quotation[[7]] (Vol. vii., p. 594.), they will find that my inquiry is still unanswered. The passage quoted by L. in Greek is, according to Smith:
"Prudent consideration, to be specious cowardice; modesty, the disguise of effeminacy; and being wise in everything, to be good for nothing."
The passage not quoted, but referred to by L., is:
"He who succeeded in a roguish scheme was wise; and he who suspected such practices in others was still a more able genius."—Vol. i. book iii. p. 281. 4to.: London, 1753.
In this "counterfeit presentment of two brothers," L. may discern a family likeness; but my inquiry was for the identical passage, "sword and poniard" included.
If L. desires to find Greek authority for the general sentiment only, I would refer him to passages, equally to Sir A. Alison's purpose, in Thucydides, iii. 83., viii. 89.; Herodotus, iii. 81.; Plato's Republic, viii. 11., and Aristotle's Politics, v. 6. 9. I beg to thank L. for his attempt, although unsuccessful.
T. J. Buckton.
Birmingham.
Footnote 7:[(return)]
Europe, vol. ix. p. 397., 12mo.
The earliest Mention of the Word "Party" (Vol. vii., p. 247.).—In a choice volume, printed by "Ihon Day, dwelling over Aldersgate, beneath St. Martines," 1568, I find the word occurring thus:
"The party must in any place see to himselfe, and seeke to wipe theyr noses by a shorte aunswere."—A Discovery and playne Declaration of the Holy Inquisition of Spayne, fol. 10.
Permit me to attach a Query to this. Am I right in considering the above-mentioned book as rare? I do so on the assumption that "Ihon Day" is the Day of black-letter rarity.
R. C. Warde.
Kidderminster.
Creole (Vol. vii., p. 381.).—It is curious to observe how differently this word is applied by different nations. The English apply it to white children born in the West Indies; the French, I believe, exclusively to the mixed races; and the Spanish and Portuguese to the blacks born in their colonies, never to whites. The latter, I think, is the true and original meaning, as its primary signification is a home-bred slave (from "criar," to bring up, to nurse), as distinguished from an imported or purchased one.
J. S. Warden.