Minor Queries with Answers.
Margaret Patten.—I have just seen a curious old picture, executed at least a century ago, and which was lately found amongst some family papers. It is a half-length of an old woman in homely looking garments; a dark blue stuff gown, the sleeves partially rolled up, and white sleeving protruding from under, not unlike the fashion of to-day; a white and blue checked apron; around her neck a white tippet and a handkerchief, on her head a "mutch," or close linen cap, and a lace or embroidered band across her forehead to hide the absence of hair. She holds something undistinguishable in one hand.
The picture is about 10 × 8 inches, and is done on glass, evidently transferred from an engraving on steel. The colours have been laid on with hand, and then, to preserve and make an opaque back, it has received a coating of plaster of Paris; altogether in its treatment resembling a coloured photograph.
By-the-bye, I am sorry I could not get a copy (photographic) of it, or that would have rendered intelligible what I fear my lame descriptions cannot. Beneath the figure is the following inscription:
"Margaret Patten,
Born in the Parish of Lochnugh, near Pairsley in Scotland, now Liveing in the Work House of St. Margts, Westminsster, aged 138."
There is no date appended.
The word "Lochnugh" in the inscription is evidently spelt from the Scotch pronunciation of Lochwinnoch, near Paisley.
I should be very glad if any of your readers or correspondents in London could ascertain if the name, &c. is to be found in the records of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and also give me some facts as to the history of this poor old Scotch woman, left destitute so far from home and kindred.
If it can be authenticated, it will make another item for your list of longevals.
James B. Murdoch.
Glasgow.
[In the Board-room of the workhouse of St. Margaret's, Westminster, is a portrait of Margaret Patten, which corresponds with the picture just described, and bears the following inscription:
"Margaret Patten, aged 136: the Gift of John Dowsell, William Goff, Matthew Burnett, Thomas Parker, Robert Wright, John Parquot, Overseers, anno 1737."
Margaret Patten was buried in the burial-ground of what was then called the Broadway Church, now Christ Church, and there is a stone on the eastern boundary wall inscribed, "Near this place lieth Margaret Patten, who died June 26, 1739, in the Parish Workhouse, aged 136." In Walcott's Memorials of
Westminster, p. 288., we are told "she was a native of Lochborough, near Paisley. She was brought to England to prepare Scotch broth for King James II., but, owing to the abdication of that monarch, fell into poverty and died in St. Margaret's workhouse, where her portrait is still preserved. Her body was followed to the grave by the parochial authorities and many of the principal inhabitants, while the children sang a hymn before it reached its last resting-place.">[
Etymology of "Coin."—What is the etymology of our noun and verb coin and to coin? I do not know if I have been anticipated, but beg to suggest the following:—Coin, a piece of cornered metal; To coin, the act of cornering such block of metal.
In Cornwall, the blocks of tin, when first run into moulds from the smelting furnace, are square; and when the metal is to be fined or assayed, the miner's phrase is, that it is to be coined; for the corners of the moulded block are cut off, and subjected to the assay; and the decree of fineness proved is stamped on the now cornerless block—thereafter called a coin of tin. It is, I conceive, by no means a violent supposition that such coins of tin were current as money very many ages before either silver, gold, copper, bronze, lead, tin, or any other metal moulded, stamped, engraved, or fashioned into such coins as we now know had come into use. We know to what far-back ages the finding of tin carries us, its find being entirely confined to Cornwall; its presence near the surface in an ore readily reduced and easily melted making its reduction into the metallic state possible in the very rudest state of society and of the arts.
C. D. Lamont.
Greenock.
[See Dr. Richardson for the following derivation:—"Fr. coigner, It. cuniare, Sp. cunar, acuñar, to wedge, and also to coin. Menage and Spelman agree from the Latin cuneus. 'Cuneus; sigillum ferreum, quo nummus cuditur; a forma dictum: atque inde coin quasi cune pro monetâ.' An iron seal with which metal is stamped; so called from the shape. And hence money is called coin (q. cune, wedge).—Spelman." The Rev. T. R. Brown, in an unpublished Dictionary of Difficult Etymology[[1]], suggests the following:—"Fr. coign, a coin, stamp, &c.; Gaelic, cuin, a coin. Probably from the Sanscrit kan, to shine, desire, covet; kanaka, gold, &c. The Hebrew ceseph, money, coin, is derived in like manner from the verb casaph, to desire, covet. The other meaning attached to the French word coign, viz. a wedge, appears to be derived from quite a different root.">[
Footnote 1:[(return)]
This useful work makes two volumes 8vo.: but how is it the learned Vicar of Southwick printed only nine copies? Was he thinking of the sacred Nine?
Inscription at Aylesbury.—In the north transept of St. Mary's Church, Aylesbury, occurs the following curious inscription on a tomb of the date of 1584:
"Yf, passing by this place, thou doe desire
To knowe what corpse here shry'd in marble lie,
The somme of that whiche now thou dost require
This slender verse shall sone to thee descrie.
"Entombed here doth rest a worthie Dame,
Extract and born of noble house and bloud,
Her sire, Lord Paget, hight of worthie fame
Whose virtues cannot sink in Lethe floud.
Two brethern had she, barons of this realme,
A knight her freere, Sir Henry Lee, he hight,
To whom she bare three impes, which had to name,
John, Henry, Mary, slayn by fortune spight,
First two being yong, which cavs'd their parents mone,
The third in flower and prime of all her yeares:
All three do rest within this marble stone,
By which the fickleness of worldly joyes appears.
Good Frend sticke not to strew with crimson flowers
This marble stone, wherein her cindres rest,
For sure her ghost lives with the heavenly powers,
And guerdon hathe of virtuous life possest."
Can any of your readers give me any other instances of children being called imps? and also tell me wherefore the name was given them? and how long it continued in use?
T. W. D. Brooks.
Cropredy, Banbury.
[The inscription is given in Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire. Horne Tooke says imp is the past participle of the A.-S. impan, to graft, to plant. Mr. Steevens (Note on 2 Henry IV., Act V. Sc. 5.) tells us, "An imp is a shoot in its primitive sense, but means a son in Shakspeare." In Hollinshed, p. 951., the last words of Lord Cromwell are preserved, who says, "And after him that his sonne Prince Edward, that goodlie impe, may long reign over you." The word imp is perpetually used by Ulpian Fulwell, and other ancient writers, for progeny:
"And were it not thy royal impe
Did mitigate our pain."
Again, in the Battle of Alcazar, 1594:
"Amurath, mighty emperor of the East,
That shall receive the imp of royal race."
See other examples in Todd's Johnson and Dr. Richardson's Dictionaries. Shakspeare uses the word only in jocular and burlesque passages, which, says Nares, is the natural course of a word growing obsolete.]
"Guardian Angels now protect me," &c.—I remember John Wesley, and also his saying the "Devil should not have the best tunes." There was a pretty love-song, a great favourite when I was a boy:
"Guardian angels, now protect me,
Send to me the youth I love."
the music of which Wesley introduced to his congregation as a hymn tune. The music I have, and I shall be glad if any of your correspondents
can oblige me with the first verse of this love-song; I only recollect the above lines.
William Gardiner.
Leicester.
[The following is the song referred to by our correspondent:
The Forsaken Nymph.
"Guardian angels, now protect me,
Send to me the swain I love;
Cupid, with thy bow direct me;
Help me, all ye pow'rs above.
Bear him my sighs, ye gentle breezes,
Tell him I love and I despair,
Tell him for him I grieve, say 'tis for him I live;
O may the shepherd be sincere!
"Through the shady grove I'll wander,
Silent as the bird of night,
Near the brink of yonder fountain,
First Leander bless'd my sight.
Witness ye groves and falls of water,
Echos repeat the vows he swore:
Can he forget me? will he neglect me?
Shall I never see him more?
"Does he love, and yet forsake me,
To admire a nymph more fair?
If 'tis so, I'll wear the willow,
And esteem the happy pair.
Some lonely cave I'll make my dwelling,
Ne'er more the cares of life pursue;
The lark and Philomel only shall hear me tell,
What bids me bid the world adieu.">[
K. C. B.'s.—I observe that in the London Gazette of January 2, 1815, which regulates the existing order of the Bath, it is commanded by the sovereign that "there shall be affixed in the church of St. Peter at Westminster escutcheons and banners of the arms of each K. C. B." Has this command been regularly fulfilled on the creation of each K. C. B.? I believe that on each creation fees are demanded by the Heralds' College, for the professed purpose of exemplifying the knight's arms, and affixing his escutcheon; but I never remember to have seen the escutcheons in Westminster Abbey.
Tewars.
[The order never was fulfilled. If the knights were entitled to armorial bearings, no fees whatever were demanded by or paid to the Heralds' College. The statutes of 1815 were, however, abrogated and annulled by the statutes of 1847, and the banners are not required to be suspended in the Abbey. The erection of the banners and plates, however, rested with the officers of the order, and the Heralds' College had nothing to do with the matter.]
Danish and Swedish Ballads.—What are the best and most recent collections of ancient Danish and Swedish ballad poetry?
J. M. B.
[We believe the best and most recent collection of Danish ballads is the edition of Udvalgte Danske Viser fra Middelalderen, by Abrahamson, Nyerup, Rabbek, &c., in five small 8vo. volumes, Copenhagen, 1812. The best Swedish collection was Svenska Folk-Visor fran Forteden, collected and edited by Geijer and Afzelius, and published at Stockholm, 1814; but the more recent collection published by Arwidson in 1834 is certainly superior. It is in three octavo volumes, and is entitled Svenska Fornsänger. En Samling of Kämp-visor, Folk-visor, Lekar och Dansar, samt Barn- och Vall-Sänger.]
Etymology of "Conger."—What is the etymology of the word Conger, as applied to the larger kind of deep sea eels by our fishermen (who, be it remarked, never add eel. Conger-eel is entirely used by shore-folk)?
I imagine that it may be traced from the Danish Kongr, a king, or kings; for being the greatest of eels, the fishermen, whose nets he tore, and whose take he seriously reduced, might well call him in size, in strength, and voracity—Kongr, the king.
C. D. Lamont.
Greenock.
[Todd and Webster derive it from the Latin conger or congrus; Gr. γόγγρος, formed of γράω, to eat, the fish being very voracious; It. gongro; Fr. congre.]
"Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum tibi."—This is, I think, the ordinary form of a saying cited somewhere by Goldsmith, who calls it "so trite a quotation that it almost demands an apology to repeat it." Whence comes it originally? I am unable to give the exact reference to the passage in Goldsmith, but in his Citizen of the World, letter 53rd, he has a cognate idea:
"As in common conversation the best way to make the audience laugh is by first laughing yourself, so in writing," &c.
W. T. M.
Hong Kong.
[Horace, De Arte Poetica, 102.]