Minor Queries.
Boiling to Death.—Some of your correspondents have communicated instances where burning to death was inflicted as a punishment; and Mr. Gatty suggests that it would prove an interesting subject for inquiry, at what period such barbarous inflictions ceased. In Howe's Chronicle I find the two following notices:
"The 5th of Aprill (1532) one Richard Rose, a cooke, was boiled in Smithfielde, for poisoning of divers persons, to the number of sixteen or more, at ye Bishop of Rochester's place, amongst the which Benet Curwine, gentleman, was one, and hee intended to have poisoned the bishop himselfe, but hee eate no potage that day, whereby hee escaped. Marie the poore people that eate of them, many of them died."—Howe's Chronicle, p. 559.
"The 17th March (1542) Margaret Dany, a maid, was boiled in Smithfield for poisoning of three households that shee had dwelled in."—Howe's Chronicle, p. 583.
Query, was this punishment peculiar to cooks guilty of poisoning? And when did the latest instance occur?
L.H.K.
Meaning of "Mocker."—To-day I went into the cottage of an old man, in the village of which I am curate, and finding him about to cut up some wood, and he being very infirm, I undertook the task for him, and chopped up a fagot for his fire.
During the progress of my work, the old fellow made the following observation:—
"Old Nannie Hawkins have got a big stick o' wood, and she says as I shall have him for eight pence. If I could get him, I'd soon mocker him."
Upon my asking him the meaning of the word mocker, he informed me it meant to divide or cleave in pieces; but, not being "a scholar" as he termed it, he could not tell me how to spell it, so I know not whether the orthography I have adopted is correct or not.
Can any of your readers give me a clue to the derivation of this word? I certainly never heard it before.
I ought perhaps to state, that this is a country parish in Herefordshire.
W.M.
Pembridge, Dec. 16.
"Away, let nought to love displeasing".—Is it known who was the author of the song to be found in Percy's Reliques, and many other collections, beginning—
"Away, let nought to love displeasing."
The first collection, so far as I know, in which it appears is entitled Miscellaneous Poems by several Hands, published by D. Lewis, London, 1726; and in this work it is called a translation from the ancient British. Does this mean a translation of an ancient poem, or a translation of a poem written in some extant dialect of the language anciently spoken in Britain? Either would appear to me incredible.
As I feel much interested in the poetry of English songs, can you or any of your correspondents inform me if there exists any good collection; that is, a collection, of such only as are excellent of their respective kinds? That the English language possesses materials for forming such a collection, and an extensive one too, I have no doubt, though I have never met with one. And, if there be none that answers the description I give, I should be glad of information respecting the best that exist.
It is scarcely necessary to add, that my standard of excellence would admit only those which bore the character of "immortal verse," rejecting such as had been saved merely by the music to which they had been "married."
Samuel Hickson.
Dec. 14. 1850.
Baron Münchausen.—Who was the author of this renowned hero's adventures? The Conversations-Lexicon (art. Münchausen) states that the stories are to be found under the title of "Mendacia Ridicula," in vol. iii. of Deliciæ Academicæ, by J.P. Lange (Heilbronn, 1665); and that "at a later period they appeared in England, where a reviewer supposed them to be a satire on the ministry." I remember to have read when a boy (I think in The Percy Anecdotes), that the book was written by an Englishman who was styled "M——," and was described as having been long a prisoner in the Bastille.
Since writing thus far I have seen the note by J.S. (Vol. ii., pp. 262-3.) on Münchausen's story of the horn. The idea of sounds frozen in the air, and thawed by returning warmth, was no invention of "Castilian, in his Aulicus" (i.e. Castiglione, author of Il Cortegiano); for, besides that, it is found in his contemporary Rabelais (liv. iv. cc. 55-6), I believe it may be traced to one of the later Greek writers, from whom Bishop Taylor, in one of his sermons, borrows it as an illustration.
J.C.R.
"Sing Tantararara Rogues all," &c.—The above is the chorus of many satirical songs written to expose the malpractices of peculators, &c. Can any of your readers point out who was the author of the original song, and where it is to be found?
A Subscriber.
Meaning of "Cauking."—An old dame told me the other day, in Cheshire, that her servant was a good one, and among other good qualities "she never went cauking into the neighbours' houses." Unde derivatur "cauking?"
Chas. Paslam.