Replies to Minor Queries.
Sir Andrew Chadwick (Vol. iii., p. 141.).—It was stated in evidence, in a trial at Lancaster assizes, Hilary Term, 1769, between Law and Taylor, plaintiffs, and Duckworth and Wilkinson, defendants, respecting the heirs at law of Sir Andrew Chadwick, and their claim to his estates, that "Ellis Chadwick married in Ireland a lady of fashion, who had some connexion with her late Majesty Queen Anne, and had issue by her the late Sir Andrew Chadwick. Ellis, the father, dying in his son's infancy, about the year 1693, his widow brought her son Andrew over to England, where he was very early introduced at court, and being contemporary with the young Duke of Gloucester, became a great favourite with him, was knighted, and had divers preferments."—From the Attorney-General's MS. Brief. The latter part of this statement does not appear to confirm the supposition recorded by Mr. J.N. Chadwick.
F. R. R.
Manuscript of Bede (Vol. iii., p. 180.).—The volume in question is entered in the Catalogue of Thoresby's MSS., No. 10. in the Ducatus Leodiensis, p. 72. 2d ed. 1816. The greater part of these MSS. came into the hands of Ralph Thoresby, Jun., and, together with the coins, were disposed of by public auction in March, 1764, by Whiston Bristow, sworn broker. The MSS. were sold on the third day, but the volume containing Bede does not appear among them. The opinion formed by J. M. of the age of this MS. is certainly erroneous, and being on paper it is more probably of the fifteenth than the twelfth century. The period of William Dadyngton, Vicar of Barton, might decide this.
μ.
MS. of Bede (Vol. iii., p. 180.).—Your correspondent will find a description of this MS. in the catalogue of Thoresby's Museum, at the end of his Ducatus Leodiensis, edit. 1715, fol., p. 515. He will also, in Thoresby's Correspondence, 1832, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 39., see a letter from Dr. John Smith, the editor of Bede's History, respecting this manuscript, the original of which letter is in my possession.
After many dismemberments, what remained of Thoresby's Museum, including his manuscripts, was sold in London in March, 1764, by auction. Mr. Lilly, the bookseller of Pall Mall, had a priced catalogue of this sale; and your correspondent, if anxious to trace the pedigree of his MS. further, can, I have no doubt, on application, get a reference made to that catalogue.
I take the present opportunity of mentioning that, as Mr. Upcott's sale, when I became the purchaser of the Thoresby papers, including his MS. diaries, his Album, and upwards of 1000 letters to him, a very small number of which were printed in the collection, in two volumes, edited by Mr. Hunter, one of the diaries, from May 14, 1712, to September 26, 1714, which was sold with the lot, was after the sale found to be missing. It subsequently came into the hands of a London dealer, by whom it was sold to a Yorkshire gentleman, as I understand, but whose name I have not yet been able to trace. Should this meet his eye, I will venture to appeal to his sense of justice, entirely ignorant as I am sure he has been of the "pedigree," to use your correspondent's expression, of his MS., whether he will allow it to be longer separated from the series to which it belongs, and which is incomplete without it. I need hardly say, I can only expect to receive it on the terms of repaying the price paid for it, and which I should embrace with many thanks.
Jas. Crossley.
Manchester, March 8. 1851.
[The following advertisement of the missing MS. appeared in the Catalogue (No. 33., 1848) of Mr. C. J. Hamilton, then of Castle Court, Birchin Lane, now residing in the City Road, London:—"Thoresby's (Ralph, antiquary of Leeds), Diary from May 14, 1712, to September 23, 1714, an original unpublished MS., containing much highly interesting literary information, with autograph on fly-leaf, thick 8vo., 436
pages, vellum with tuck, closely written, price 2l. 12s. 6d." The purchaser was Mr. Wallbran, Fallcroft, Ripon, Yorkshire.]
Closing of Rooms on account of Death (Vol. iii., p. 142.).—I am acquainted with a remarkable instance of this custom. A respectable farmer who resided in a parish in Bedfordshire, adjoining that in which I am writing, died in 1844; leaving to his daughter the fine old manor-house in which he had lived for many years, and in which he died, together with about 300 acres of land. The lady, with her husband, was then residing in a neighbouring village, where the latter rented a farm, which he has since given up, retaining the house; but she positively refused to remove to the manor-house, "because her father had died in it;" and as she still persists in her refusal, it is unoccupied to this day. For Mr. —— is not even permitted to let it, except a part, now tenanted by a valued friend of mine, which for many years has been let separately. The rooms and the furniture in them remain exactly as in the lifetime of the late occupant. The lady's husband, who farms the land attached to the house, is put to great inconvenience by living at a distance from it, but nothing will induce her to alter her determination. The facts I have related are notorious in the neighbourhood.
Arun.
Enigmatical Epitaph on Rev. John Mawer (Vol. iii., p. 184.).—On reading to a lady the article on this subject in a late Number, she immediately recollected, that about thirty years ago she had a governess of that name, the daughter of a clergyman in Nottinghamshire, who often mentioned that they were descended from the Royal Family of Wales, and that she had a brother who was named Arthur Lewellyn Tudor Kaye Mawer.
This anecdote will perhaps be of use in directing attention to Cambrian pedigrees, and leading it from Dr. Whitaker's "Old King Cole" to "the noble race of Shenkin."
J. T. A.
Haybands in Seals (Vol. iii., p. 186.).—The practice mentioned by Mr. Lower, of inserting haybands, or rather slips of rush, in the seals of feoffments, was common in all counties; and it certainly was not confined to the humbler classes. Hundreds of feoffments of the fifteenth century, and earlier, have passed through my hands with the seals as described by Mr. Lower, relating to various counties, and executed by parties of all degrees. In these instances, a little blade of rush is generally neatly inserted round the inner rim of the impression, and evidently must have been so done while the wax was soft. In some instances, these blades of rush overlay the whole seal; in others, a slip of it is merely tied round the label. In delivering seisin under a feoffment, the grantor, or his attorney, handed over to the grantee, together with the deed, a piece of turf, or a twig, or something plucked from the soil, in token of his giving full and complete possession. I have generally supposed that these strips of rush were the tokens of possession so handed over, as part and parcel of the soil, by the grantor; and that they were attached to the seal, as it were, "in perpetuam rei memoriam." In default of better information, I venture to suggest this explanation, but will not presume to vouch for its correctness.
L. B. L.
Notes on Newspapers (vol. iii., p. 164.).—John Houghton, the editor of the periodical noticed by your correspondent, A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, was one of those meritorious men who well deserve commemoration, though his name is not to be found in any biography that I am acquainted with. He was an apothecary, and became a dealer in tea, coffee, and chocolate. He was in politics a loyalist, or Tory, and was admitted a member of the Royal Society in 1679-80. He began to publish his Letters on Husbandry and Trade in 1681. No. 1. is dated Thursday, September 8, 1681. The first collection ended June, 1684, and consists of two vols. 4to. In November, 1691, Houghton determined to resume his old plan of publishing papers on Husbandry and Trade. His abilities and industry were warmly recommended by several members of the Royal Society: Sir Peter Pott, John Evelyn, Dr. Hugh Chamberlain, and others. The recommendation is prefixed to the first number of this second collection. The first paper is dated Wednesday, March 30, 1692; and the second Wednesday, April 6, 1692; they were continued every succeeding Wednesday. The concluding paper was published September 24, 1703. There were 583 numbers, in 19 vols., of the folio papers. The last number contains an "Epitome" of the 19 vols. and a "Farewell," which gives his reason for discontinuing the paper, and thanks to his assistants, "wishing that knowledge may cover the earth as the water covers the sea." A selection from these papers was published in 1727, by Richard Bradley, F.R.S., in three vols. 8vo., to which a fourth was afterwards added in 1728, 8vo.
Houghton also published An Account of the Acres and Houses, with the proportional Tax, &c. of each County in England and Wales. Lond. 1693, on a broadside. Also, Book of Funds, 1694, 4to. Alteration of the Coin, with a feasible Method to it 1695. 4to.
James Crossley.
Duncan Campbell (Vol. i., p. 186.).—There seems to be no doubt that Duncan Campbell, whose life was written by Defoe, was a real person. See Tatler, vol. i. p. 156. edit. 1786, 8vo.; Spectator, No. 560.; Wilson's Life of Defoe, vol. iii. p. 476. His house was "in Buckingham Court, over against Old Man's Coffee House, at Charing
Cross," and at another period of his life in Monmouth Court. He is reported to have amassed a large fortune from practising upon the credulity of the public, and was the grand answerer of "Queries" in his day. Defoe's entertaining pieces relating to him are evidently novels founded upon fact.
Jas. Crossley.
Christmas Day (Vol. iii., p. 167.).—Julian I. has the credit of transferring the celebration of Christ's birth from Jan. 6th to Dec. 25th; but Mosheim considers the report very questionable (vol. i. p. 370. Soames's edit.). Bingham, in his Christian Antiq., devotes ch. iv. of book xx. to the consideration of this festival, and that of the Epiphany; but does not notice the claim set up on behalf of Julian I.; neither Neander (vol. iii. pp. 415-22. Eng. Translation). It would appear that the Eastern Church kept Christmas on Jan. 6th, and the Western Church on Dec. 25th: at length, about the time of Chrysostom, the Oriental Christians sided with the Western Church. Bingham also cites Augustine as saying that it was the current tradition that Christ was born on the eighth of the kalends of January, that is, on the 25th of December. Had, therefore, Julian I. dogmatically fixed the 25th of December as the birthday of our Saviour, it is scarcely possible to suppose that Augustine, who flourished about half a century later, would allege current tradition as the reason, without any notice of Julian.
N. E. R. (A Subscriber).
[See Tillemont's Histoire Ecclésiastique, tome i., note 4., for a full discussion of this question. Also Mosheim's De Rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum Commentarii, sæculum primum, sec. 1.; and Butler's Lives of the Saints, article Christmas-Day.]
Christmas-day (Vol. iii, p. 167.).—St. John of Chrysostom, archbishop of Nice (died A.D. 407), in an epistle upon this subject, relates (tom. v. p. 45. edit. Montf. Paris, 1718-34) that, at the instance of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (died A.D. 385), St. Julius (Pope A.D. 337-352) procured a strict inquiry to be made into the day of our Saviour's nativity, which being found to be the 25th Dec., that day was thenceforth set apart for the celebration of this "Festorum omnium metropolis," as he styles it. St. Tilesphorus (Pope A.D. 128-139), however, is supposed by the generality of ancient authorities to be the first who appointed the 25th Dec. for that purpose. The point is involved in much uncertainty, but your correspondent may find all the information he seeks in Baronii Apparatus ad Annales Ecclesiasticos, fol., Lucæ, 1740, pp. 475. et seq.; and in a curious tract, entitled The Feast of Feasts; or, the Celebration of the Sacred Nativity of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; grounded upon the Scriptures, and confirmed by the Practice of the Christian Church in all Ages. 4to. Oxf. 1644. This tract is in the British Museum. J. C. makes a tremendous leap in chronology when he asks "Was it not either Julius I. or II.?" Why the one died exactly 1161 years after the other!
Cowgill.
Christmas Day (Vol. iii., p. 167.).—In a note to one of Bishop Pearson's sermons (Opera Minora, ed. Churton) occurs the following passage from St. Chrysostom:—
"Παρὰ τῶν ἀκριβῶς ταῦτα εἰδότων, καὶ τὴν πόλιν εκείνην (sc. Romam) οἰκούντων, παρειληφάμεν τήν ἡμεραν. Οἱ γὰρ ἐκεῖ διατρίβοντες ἄνωθεν καὶ ἐκ παλαῖας παραδόσεως ταῦτην ἐπιτελοῦντες," &c.—Homil. Di. Nat. ii. 354.
The remainder of the quotation my note does not supply, but it may be easily found by the reference. The day, therefore, seems fixed by "tradition," and received both by the Eastern and Western Church, and not on any dogmatical decision of the popes.
R. W. F.
MS. Sermons by Jeremy Taylor (Vol. i., p. 125.).—Coleridge's assertion, "that there is now extant in MS. a folio of unprinted sermons by Jeremy Taylor," must have proceeded from his wishes rather than his knowledge. No such MS. is known to exist; and such a discovery is, I believe, as little to be expected as a fresh play of Shakspeare's. Was it in the "Lands of Vision," and with "the damsel and the dulcimer," that the transcendental philosopher beheld it?
Jas. Crossley.
Dryden's Absolom and Achitophel (Vol. ii., p. 406.).—The edition noticed by your correspondent, "printed and sold by H. Hills, in Blackfriars, near the Water Side, for the benefit of the Poor," 1708, 8vo., is a mere catch-penny. Hills, the printer, was a great sinner in this way. I have Roscommon's translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, 1709; his Essay on translated Verse, 1709; Mulgrave's Essay on Poetry, 1709; Denham's Cooper's Hill, 1709; and many other poems, all printed by Hills, on bad paper, and very incorrectly, from 1708 to 1710, for sale at a low price.
Jas. Crossley.
The Rev. W. Adams (Vol. iii., p. 140.).—The age of Mr. Adams at his death was thirty-three. His tomb is in the churchyard of Bonchurch—a simple coped coffin; but the cross placed upon it is, in allusion to his own beautiful allegory, slightly raised, so that its shadow falls—
"Along the letters of his name,
And o'er the number of his years."
I have a pretty engraving of this tomb, purchased at Bonchurch in 1849, and your correspondent may perhaps be glad to adopt the idea for an illustration of the book he mentions.
E. J. M.
Duchess of Buckingham (Vol. iii., p. 224.).—I am much surprised at this question; I thought
there were few ladies of the last century better known than Catherine, daughter of James II. (to whom he gave the name of Darnley) by Miss Ledley, created Countess of Dorchester. Lady Catherine Darnley was married first to Lord Anglesey, and secondly to Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, by whom she was mother of the second duke of that name, who died in his minority, and the title became extinct. All this, and many more curious particulars of that extraordinary lady, may be found in the Peerages, in Pope, in Walpole's Reminiscences, and in Park's edition of the Noble Authors.
C.
"Go the whole Hog" (Vol. iii., p. 224.).—We learn from Men and Manners in America, vol. i. pp. 18, 19., that going the whole hog is the American popular phrase for radical reform, or democratical principle, and that it is derived from the phrase used by butchers in Virginia, who ask their customer whether he will go the whole hog, or deal only for joints or portions of it.
C. B.
Lord Bexley's Descent from Cromwell (Vol. iii., p. 185.).—In answer to Pursuivant's Query, How were the families of Morse and Ireton connected? it appears that Jane, only child of Richard Lloyd (of Norfolk?), Esq., by Jane, second daughter of Ireton, married, circa 1700, Nicholas or Henry Morse. But what appears to me most likely to have occasioned the report of Lord Bexley's connexion with the Cromwell family is, that the late Oliver Cromwell, Esq., of Cheshunt, married Miss Mary Morse in 1771, which must have been not far from the period when Lord Bexley's mother, also a Miss Morse, was married to Mr. Vansittart.
Waylen.
Morse and Ireton Families.—I have a small original portrait of General Ireton by old Stone; on the back of it is a card, on which is the following:—
"Bequeathed by Jane Morse to her daughter Ann Roberts, this picture of her grandfather Ireton. Will dated Jan. 15. 1732-33."
"Anne Roberts, wife of Gaylard Roberts, brother of Christr Roberts, father of J. R."
In Noble's Memoirs of the Cromwell Family, vol. ii. p. 302., the name is printed Moore, evidently a mistake for Morse:—
"Jane, third daughter of General Ireton, having married Richard Lloyd, Esq., the issue of this marriage was Jane, an only child, who married Nicholas, or Henry Moore [Morse], Esq., by whom she had four sons and three daughters."
Spes.
The Countess of Desmond (Vol. ii., pp. 153. 186. 219. 317.).—Touching this venerable lady, the following "Note" may not be unacceptable.
In the year 1829, when making a tour in Ireland, I saw an engraving at Lansdowne Lodge, in the county of Kerry, the residence of Mr. Hickson, on which the following record was inscribed:—
"Catherine Fitzgerald, Countess of Desmond (from the original in the possession of the Knight of Kerry on Panell).
"She was born in 1464; married in the reign of Edw. IV.; lived during the reigns of Edw. V., Rich. III., Hen. VII., Hen. VIII., Edw. VI., Mary, and Elizabeth; and died in the latter end of James' or the beginning of Charles I.'s reign, at the great age of 162 years."
On my return home I was much surprised and gratified to find in my own house, framed and glazed, a very clever small-sized portrait in crayon, which at once struck me a a fac-simile (or nearly so) of the engraving I had seen at Lansdowne Lodge.
Your correspondent C. in p. 219. appears very sceptical about this female Methuselah! and speaks of a reputed portrait at Windsor "as a gross imposition, being really that of an old man"—
"Non nostrum tantus componere lites:"
but I would remind your correspondent C. that such longevity is not impossible, and the traditions of the Countess of Desmond are widely diffused. The portrait in my possession is not unlike an old man; but old ladies, like old hen pheasants, are apt to put on the semblance of the male.
A Borderer.
Aristophanes on the Modern Stage (Vol. iii., p. 105.).—In reply to a Query of our correspondent C. J. R., I beg leave to state, that, after having made inquiry on the subject, I cannot find that any of the Comedies of Aristophanes have ever been introduced upon the English stage, although I agree with him in thinking that some of them might be advantageously adapted to the modern theatre; and I am more confirmed in this opinion from having witnessed at the Odéon in Paris, some years since, a dramatic piece, entitled "Les Nuées d'Aristophane," which had a great run there. It was not a literal translation from the Greek author, but a kind of mélange, drawn from the Clouds and Plutus together. The characters of Socrates and his equestrian son were very well performed; but the scenic accessories I considered very meagre, particularly the choral part, which must have been so striking and beautiful in the original of the former drama. Upon my return to England I wrote to the then lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, recommending a similar experiment on our stage from the free version by Wheelwright, published some time before by the late D. A. Talboys, of Oxford. The answer I received was, that the manager had then too much on his hands to admit of his giving time to such an undertaking, which I still think might be a successful one (as is the case with the "Antigone"
of Sophocles, so often represented at Berlin), and such as to ensure the favourable attention of an English audience, particularly as the subject turns so much upon the danger and uselessness of the meteoric or visionary education, then so prevalent at Athens.
Archæus.
Dusseldorf, March 6.
Denarius Philosophorum (Vol. iii., p. 168.).—Bishop Thornborough may have been thus styled from his attachment to alchemy and chemistry. One of his publications is thus entitled:
"Nihil, Aliquid, Omnia, in Gratiam eorum qui Artem Auriferam Physico-chymicè et pie, profitentur." Oxon. 1621.
Another part of his monumental inscription is singular. On the north side are, or were, these words and figures—"In uno, 2o 3a 4r 10—non spirans spero."
"He was," says Wood, "a great encourager of Bushall in his searches after mines and minerals:"
and Richardson speaks of this prelate as—
"Rerum politicarum potius quam Theologicarum et artis Chemicæ peritia Clarus."
J. H. M.
On a Passage in the Tempest (Vol. ii., pp. 259. 299. 337. 429. 499.).—If you will allow me to offer a conjecture on a subject, which you may think has already been sufficiently discussed in your pages, I shall be glad to submit the following to the consideration of your readers.
The passage in the Tempest, Act III. Scene 1., as quoted from the first folio, stands thus:
"I forget:
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours
Most busie lest, when I do it."
This was altered in the second folio to
"Most busie least, when I do it."
Instead of which Theobald proposes,—
"Most busyless, when I do it."
But "busyless" is not English. All our words ending in less (forming adjectives), are derived from Anglo-Saxon nouns; as love, joy, hope, &c., and never from adjectives.
My conjecture is that Shakespeare wrote—
"I forget:
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labour's
Most business, when I do it."
"Most" being used in the sense of "greatest," as in Henry VI., Pt. I., Act IV. Scene 1., (noticed by Steevens):—
"But always resolute in most extremes."
Thus the change of a single syllable is sufficient to make good English, good sense, and good metre of a passage which is otherwise defective in these three particulars. It retains the s in "labours," keeps the comma in its place, and provides that antecedent for "it," which was justly considered necessary by Mr. Singer.
John Taylor.
30. Upper Gower Street.
Meaning of Waste-book (Vol. iii., pp. 118, 195.).—Richard Dafforne, of Northampton, in his very curious
"Merchant's Mirrour, or Directions for the Perfect Ordering and Keeping of his Accounts; framed by way of Debitor and Creditor after the (so tearmed) Italian Manner, containing 250 rare Questions, with their Answers in the form of a Dialogue; as likewise a Waste Book, with a complete Journal and Ledger thereunto appertaining;"
annexed to Malyne's Consuetudo vel Lex Mercatoria, edit. 1636, folio, gives rather a different explanation of the origin of the term "waste-book" to that contained in the answer of your last correspondent. "Waste-book," he observes,
"So called, because, when the Matter is written into the Journall, then is this Book void, and of no esteeme, especially in Holland; where the buying people firme not the Waste-book, as here our nation doe in England."
Jas. Crossley.
Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Craigs (Vol. iii., p. 119.).—L. M. M. R. is informed that there is a tradition of King Arthur having defeated the Saxons in the neighbourhood of this hill, to the top of which he ascended for the purpose of viewing the country.
In the Encyclopædia Britannica we have another explanation also (sub voce), as follows:—
"Arthur's Seat is said to be derived, or rather corrupted, from A'rd Seir, a 'place or field of arrows,' where people shot at a mark: and this not improperly; for, among these cliffs is a dell, or recluse valley, where the wind can scarcely reach, now called the Hunter's Bog, the bottom of it being a morass."
The article concludes thus:
"The adjacent crags are supposed to have taken their name from the Earl of Salisbury; who, in the reign of Edward III., accompanied that prince in an expedition against the Scots."
But query "a height of earth;" "earthes" (an old form of the genitive), or "airthes height," not unnaturally corrupted to "Arthur's Seat."
W. T. M.
Edinburgh.
Salisbury Craigs.—Craiglockhart Hill and Craigmillar Castle, both in the neighbourhood of the Craigs, are all so called from the Henry de Craigmillar, who built the castle (now in ruins) in the twelfth century. There is a charter in the reign of Alexander II., in 1212, by William, son of Henry de Craigmillar, to the monastery of Dunfermline, which is the earliest record of the castle.
Blowen.
Meaning of "Harrisers" (Vol. ii., p. 376.).—I am told that the practice which Clericus Rusticus
speaks of, holds in Yorkshire, but not the name.
In Devon a corn-field, which has been cut and cleared, is called an "arrish." A vacant stubblefield is so called during the whole of the autumn months.
Your correspondent suggests "arista;" can he support this historically? If not, it is surely far-fetched. Let me draw attention to a word in our English Bible, which has been misunderstood before now by readers who were quite at home in the original languages: "earing nor harvest" (Genesis). Without some acquaintance with the earlier forms of our mother tongue, one is liable to take earing to mean the same as "harvest," from the association of ears of corn. But it is the substantive from the Anglo-Saxon verb erian, to plough, to till: so that "earing nor harvest" = "sowing nor reaping." From erian we may pass on to arare, and from that to arista: in the long pedigree of language they are scarcely unconnected: but the Anglo-Saxon is not derived from the Latin; they are, each in its own language, genuine and independent forms. But it is curious to see what an attraction these distant cousins have for one another, let them only come within each other's sphere of gravitation.
In, Yorkshire the verb to earland is still a living expression; and a Yorkshireman, who has more Saxon than Latin in him, will not write "arable land," but "earable land." A Yorkshire clergyman tells me that this orthography has been perpetuated in a local act of parliament of no very ancient date.
Putting all these facts together, I am inclined to think that "arrish" must first mean "land for tillage;" and that the connexion of the word with "gleaning" or "gleaners" is the effect of association, and therefore of later date.
But it must be observed, there is a difference between "arrish" and "harrisers." Can it be shown that Dorset-men are given to aspirating their words? Besides this, there is a great difference between "arrissers" and "arrishers" for counties so near as Dorset and Devon. And again, while I am quite familiar with the word "arrish," I never heard "arrishers," and I believe it is unknown in Devonshire.
J. E.
Oxford.
Harrisers or Arrishers.—Doubtless, by this time, some dozen Devonshire correspondents will have informed you, for the benefit of Clericus Rusticus, that arrishers is the term prevailing in that county for "stubble." The Dorset harrisers are therefore, perhaps, the second set of gleaners, who are admitted to the fields to pick up from the stubble, or arrishes, the little left behind by the reapers' families. A third set of gleaners has been admitted from time immemorial, namely, the Anser stipularis, which feeds itself into plump condition for Michaelmas by picking up, from between the stubble, the corns which fell from the ears during reaping and sheaving. The Devonshire designation for this excellent sort of poultry—known elsewhere as "stubble geese"—is "arrish geese."
The derivation of the word must be left to a better provinial philologist than
W. H. W.
Chaucer's "Fifty Wekes" (Vol. iii., p. 202.).—A. E. B.'s natural and ingeniously-argued conjecture, that Chaucer, by the "fifty wekes" of the Knightes Tale, "meant to imply the interval of a solar year,"—whether we shall rest in accepting the poet's measure of time loosely and poetically, or (which I would gladly feel myself authorised to do) find in it, with your correspondent, an astronomical and historical reason,—is fully secured by the comparison with Chaucer's original.
The Theseus of Boccaccio says, appointing the listed fight:
"E termine vi sia a ciò donato
D'un anno intero."
To which the poet subjoins:
"E così fu ordinato."
See Teseide, v. 98.
A. L. X.
The Almond Tree, &c. (Vol. iii., p. 203.).—The allusions in Hall's poem, stanzas iii. & v., refer to the fine allegorical description of human decrepitude in Ecclesiastes, xii. 5, 6., when
"'The almond tree shall flourish' (white hairs), and 'the silver cord shall be loosed,' and 'the golden bowl broken,' and 'the mourners shall go about the streets.'"
The pertinence of these solemn figures has been sufficiently explained by biblical commentators. It is to be presumed that the reference to a source so well known as the Bible would have occurred at once to the Querist, had not the allusions, in the preceding stanza, to the heathen fable of Medea, diverted his thoughts from that more familiar channel.
V.
Belgravia.
[Similar explanations have been kindly furnished by S. C., Hermes, P. K., R. P., J. F. M., J. D. A., and also by W. (2), who refers to Mead's Medica Sacra for an explanation of the whole passage.]
St. Thomas's Onions (Vol. iii., p. 187.).—In reference to the Query, Why is St. Thomas frequently mentioned in connexion with onions? I fancy the reason to be this. There is a variety of the onion tribe commonly called potato or multiplying onion. It is the rule to plant this onion on St. Thomas's day. From this circumstance it appears to me likely that this sort of onion may be so called, though I never heard of it before. They are fit for use as large hard onions some time before the other sort.
J. Wodderspoon.
Norwich, March 10. 1851.
Roman Catholic Peers (Vol. iii., p. 209.).—The proper comment has been passed on the Duke of Norfolk, but not on the other two Roman Catholic peers mentioned by Miss Martineau. She names Lord Clifford and Lord Dormer as "having obtained entrance at last to the legislative assembly, where their fathers sat and ruled when their faith was the law of the land." The term "fathers" is of course figuratively used, but we may conclude the writer meant to imply their ancestors possessing the same dignity of peerage, and enjoying, in virtue thereof, the right of "sitting and ruling" in the senate of their country. If such was the lady's meaning, what is her historical accuracy? The first Lord Dormer was created in the reign of James I., in the year 1615; and, dying the next year, never sat in parliament: and it has been remarked as a very singular fact that this barony had existed for upwards of two centuries before any of its possessors did so. But the first Lord Dormer, who sat in the House of Lords, was admitted, not by the Roman Catholic Relief Act, but by the fact of his being willing to take the usual oaths: this was John, the tenth lord, who succeeded his half-brother in 1819, and died without issue in 1826. As for Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, that family was not raised to the peerage until the year 1672, in the reign of Charles II.
J. G. N.
Election of a Pope (Vol. iii., p. 142.).—Probably T. refers to the (alleged) custom attendant upon the election of a pope, as part of the ceremony alluded to in the following lines in Hudibras:—
"So, cardinals, they say, do grope
At t'other end the new made Pope"
Part I. canto iii. l. 1249. [24mo. ed. of 1720.]
In the notes to the above edition (and probably to other of the old editions) your correspondent will find a detailed explanation of these two lines: I refer him to the work itself, as the "note" is scarcely fit to transcribe here.
J. B. Colman.
Comets (Vol. iii., p. 223.).—There is a copious list of all the comets that have appeared since the creation, and of all that will appear up to A.D. 2000, in the Art de vérifier les Dates, vol. i. part i.; and vol. i. part ii. of the last edition.
C.
Camden and Curwen Families (Vol. iii., pp. 89. 125.).—H. C. will find, in Harl. MS. 1437. fo. 69., a short pedigree of the family of Nicholas Culwen of Gressiard and Stubbe, in the county of Lancaster, showing his descent from Gilbert Culwen or Curwen (a younger brother of Curwen of Workington), who appears to have settled at Stubbe about the middle of the fifteenth century.
Although this pedigree was recorded by authority of Norroy King of Arms, in 1613, while Camden held the office of Clarenceux, it does not show any connexion with Gyles Curwen, who married a daughter and coheir of Barbara, of Poulton Hall, in the county of Lancaster, and whose daughter Elizabeth was the wife of Sampson Camden of London, and mother of Camden. Nevertheless, it may possibly throw some light on the subject.
If H. C. cannot conveniently refer to the Harl. MSS., I will with much pleasure send him a copy of this pedigree, and of another, in the same MS., fo. 29., showing Camden's descent from Gyles Curwen, if he will communicate his address to the Editor of "Notes and Queries."
Llewellyn.
Auriga (Vol. iii., p. 188.).—That part of the Roman bridle which went about the horse's ears (aures), was termed aurea; which, being by a well-known grammatical figure put for the whole head-gear of the horse, suggests as a meaning of Auriga, "is qui AUREAS AGIT, he who manages, guides, or (as we say) handles, the reins."
Pelethronius.
Ecclesfield Hall.
Straw Necklaces (Vol. i., p. 4., &c.).—May not these be possibly only Spenser's "rings of rushes," mentioned by him among other fragile ornaments for the head and neck?
"Sometimes her head she fondly would aguize
With gaudy girlonds, or fresh flowrets dight
About her necke, or rings of rushes plight."
F. Q. lib. ii. canto vi. st. 7.
Ache.
The Nine of Diamonds, called the Curse of Scotland (Vol. i., pp. 61., 90.).—The following explanation is given in a Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785; an ignoble authority, it must be admitted:—
"Diamonds imply royalty, being ornaments to the imperial crown, and every ninth King of Scotland has been observed for many ages to be a tyrant, and a curse to that country."
J. H. M.
"Cum Grano Salis" (Vol. iii., pp. 88. 153.).—I venture to suggest, that in this phrase the allusion is to a rich and unctuous morsel, which, when assisted by a little salt, will be tolerated by the stomach, otherwise will be rejected. In the same way an extravagant statement, when taken with a slight qualification (cum grano salis) will be tolerated by the mind. I should wish to be informed what writer first uses this phrase in a metaphorical sense—not, I conceive, any classical author.
X. Z.