Minor Queries with Answers.
"Gossip."—This word, in its obsolete sense, according no doubt to its Saxon origin, means a sponsor, one who answers for a child in baptism, a godfather. Its modern acceptation all know to be widely different. Can any of your correspondents quote a passage or two from old English authors, wherein its obsolete sense is preserved?
N. L. J.
[The word occurs in Chaucer, The Wyf of Bathes Prologue, v. 5825.:
"And if I have a gossib, or a friend,
(Withouten gilt) thou chidest as a frend,
If that I walke or play into his hous."
And in Spenser, Faerie Queene, b. i. c. 12.:
"One mother, when as her foole-hardy child
Did come too neare, and with his talons play,
Halfe dead through feare, her little babe reuil'd,
And to her gossips gan in counsell say."
Master Richard Verstegan is more to the point:
"Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and such as undertooke for the child at baptisme, called each other by the name of Godsib, which is as much as to say, that they were sib together, that is, of kin together through God. And the child, in like manner, called such his God-fathers, or God-mothers."—Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, ch. vii.
A quotation or two from that delightful old gossip, Mr. Pepys, will show its use in the middle of the seventeenth century:
"Lord's Day. With my wife to church. At noon dined nobly, ourselves alone. After dinner, my wife and Mercer by coach to Greenwich, to be gossip to Mrs. Daniel's child. My wife much pleased with the reception she had, and she was godmother, and did hold the child at the font, and it is called John."—Diary, May 20, 1666.
"Lord's Day. My wife and I to Mr. Martin's, where I find the company almost all come to the christening of Mrs. Martin's child, a girl. After sitting long, till the church was done, the parson comes, and then we to christen the child. I was godfather, and Mrs. Holder (her husband, a good man, I know well) and a pretty lady that waits, it seems, on my Lady Bath at Whitehall, her name Mrs. Noble, were godmothers. After the christening comes in the wine and sweetmeats, and then to prate and tattle, and then very good company they were, and I among them. Here was Mrs. Burroughs and Mrs. Bales (the young widow whom I led home); and having staid till the moon was up, I took my pretty gossip to Whitehall with us, and I saw her in her lodging."—Ibid., Dec. 2, 1666.]
Humphry Repton.—To snatch from utter oblivion the once highly reputed Humphry, the king of landscape gardeners, to whom many of our baronial parks owe much of their picturesque beauty, and who, by the side of Sir Joseph Paxton, would now most duly have taken knightful station in these go-ahead days, I ask, in what publication was it, that in 1780, or thereabouts, being an indefatigable attendant at all exhibitions and sales of art, he, the said Humphry, was accustomed (as well able he was) to enlighten the public upon what was passing in matters of art now nearly three quarters of a century ago? Was it the Bee? Again, did he not, at his death, leave two large volumes for publication, entitled Recollections of my Past Life? Where are these?
Inquest.
[The MS. collection of the late Humphry Repton, containing interesting details of his public and private life, has been used by Mr. Loudon in his biographical notice of Repton prefixed to the last edition of The Landscape Gardening, 8vo., 1840. Mr. Loudon states that 'these papers were left as a valued memorial for his children: it may be imagined, therefore, that they contain details of a private nature, which would be found devoid of interest to the world. Mr. Repton, indeed, possessed a mind as keenly alive to the ludicrous, as it was open to all that was excellent, in the variety of characters with whom his extensive professional connexions brought him acquainted; and he did not fail to observe and note down many curious circumstances and traits of character, in themselves highly amusing, but, for obvious reasons, unfit subjects for publication. Not one taint of satire or ill-nature, however, ever sullied the wit which flowed spontaneously from a mind sportive sometimes even to exuberance." His artistic critiques will be found in the following works: The Bee: or, a Critique on the Exhibition of Paintings at Somerset House, 1788, 8vo. Variety: a Collection of Essays, 1788, 12mo. The Bee: a Critique on the Shakspeare Gallery, 1789, 8vo. Odd Whims: being a republication of some papers in Variety, with a Comedy and other Poems, 2 vols. 12mo., 1804.]
"Oriel."—I should be glad if any of your correspondents could inform me of the origin of the term oriel, as applied to a window? It is not, I believe, necessarily to the East.
T. L. N.
Jamaica.
[Oriol, or Oriel, is a portico or court; also a small room near the hall in monasteries, where particular persons dined. (Blount's Glossog.) Du Cange says, "Oriolum, porticus, atrium;" and quotes Matthew Paris for it. Supposed by some to be a diminutive from area or areola. "In modern writings," says Nares, "we meet with mention of Oriel windows. I doubt the propriety of the expression; but, if right, they must mean those windows that project like a porch, or small room. At St. Albans was an oriel, or apartment for persons not so sick as to retire to the infirmary. (Fosbroke's Brit. Monachism, vol. ii. p. 160.) I may be wrong in my notion of oriel window, but I have not met with ancient authority for that expression. Cowel conjectured that Oriel College, in Oxford, took its name from some such room or portico. There is a remarkable portico, in the farther side of the first quadrangle, but not old enough to have given the name. It might, however, be only the successor of one more ancient, and more exactly an oriel." For articles on the disputed derivation of this term, which seems involved in obscurity, see Parker's Glossary of Architecture; a curious paper by Mr. Hamper, in Archæologia, vol. xxiii.; and Gentleman's Magazine for Nov. 1823, p. 424., and March, 1824, p. 229.]
"Orchard."—Professor Martyn, in his Notes on Virgil's Georgics, seems to be of opinion that the English word "orchard" is derived from the Greek ορχατος, which Homer uses to express the garden of Alcinous; and he observes that Milton writes it orchat, thereby corroborating this impression. Is the word spelt according to Milton's form by any other writers?
N. L. J.
[It is spelt orchat by J. Philips, Cider, book i.:
——"Else false hopes
He cherishes, nor will his fruit expect
Th' autumnal season, but in summer's pride,
When other orchats smile, abortive fail.">[
"Peckwater."—Why is the quadrangle at Christ Church, in Oxford, called "Peckwater?"
N. L. J.
[The Peckwater Quadrangle derives its name from an ancient hostle, or inn, which stood on the south-west corner of the present court; and was the property of Ralph, the son of Richard Peckwater, who gave it to St. Frideswide's Priory, 30th Henry III.; and about the middle of the reign of Henry VIII., another inn, called Vine Hall, was added to it; which, with other buildings, were reduced into a quadrangle in the time of Dean Duppa and Dr. Samuel Fell. The two inns were afterwards known by the name of Vine Hall, or Peckwater's Inn; and by this name were given to Christ Church, in 1547, by Henry VIII.]
Richard III.—What became of the body after the battle of Bosworth Field? Was it buried at Leicester?
A. Briton.
Athenæum.
[After the battle of Bosworth Field, the body of Richard III. was stript, laid across a horse behind a pursuivant-at-arms, and conducted to Leicester, where, after it had been exposed for two days, it was buried with little ceremony in the church of the Grey Friars. In Burton's MS. of the History of Leicester, we read that, "within the town was a house of Franciscan or Grey Friars, built by Simon Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, whither (after Bosworth Field) the dead body of Richard III., naked, trussed behind a pursuivant-at-arms, all dashed with mire and blood, was there brought and homely buried; where afterward King Henry VII. (out of royal disposition) erected for him a fair alabaster monument, with his picture cut out, and made thereon."—Quoted in Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. i. p. 357.: see also pp. 298. 381.]
Binding of old Books.—I shall feel obliged to any of your readers who will tell me how to polish up the covers of old books when the leather has got dry and cracked. Bookbinders use some composition made of glair, or white of egg, which produces a very glossy appearance. How is it made and used? and how do they polish the leather afterwards? Is there any little work on book-binding?
Cpl.
[Take white of an egg, break it with a fork, and, having first cleaned the leather with dry flannel, apply the egg with a soft sponge. Where the leather is rubbed or decayed, rub a little paste with the finger into the parts affected, to fill up the broken grain, otherwise the glair would sink in and turn it black. To produce a polished surface, a hot iron must be rubbed over the leather. The following is, however, an easier, if not a better, method. Purchase some "bookbinders' varnish," which may be had at any colour shop; clean the leather well, as before; if necessary, use a little water in doing so, but rub quite dry with a flannel before varnishing; apply your varnish with wool, lint, or a very soft sponge, and place to dry.]
Vessel of Paper.—When I was at school in the north of Ireland, not very many years ago, a piece of paper, about the octavo size, used for writing "exercises," was commonly known amongst us as a vessel of paper. Can any of your correspondents tell me the origin of the phrase; and whether it is in use in other localities?
Abhba.
[Lemon, in his English Etymology, has the following remarks on this phrase:—"Vessel of Paper: The etymology of this word does not at first sight appear very evident; but a derivation has been lately suggested to me, which seems to carry some probability with it; viz. that a vessel of paper may have derived its appellation from fasciculus, or fasciola; quasi vassiola; a vessel, or small slip of paper; a little winding band, or swathing cloth; a garter; a fascia, a small narrow binding. The root is undoubtedly fascis, a bundle, or anything tied up; also, the fillet with which it is bound.">[