Minor Queries.
Gillingham.
—Can you, or any of your correspondents, furnish me with any historical or local data that may tend to identify the place where that memorable council was convened, by which the succession to the English crown was transferred from the Danish to the Saxon line? Hutchins, in his History of Dorset (Edw. II., 1813, vol. iii. p. 196.), says:
"Malmsbury[4] mentions a council held at Gillingham, in which Edward the Confessor was chosen king. It was really a grand council of the realm; but the generality of our historians place it with more probability at London, or in the environs thereof."
[4] Book ii. c. 12. p. 45.
I am not aware of anything else that can be advanced in support of the claims of the Dorset shire Gillingham to be the scene of this event except it be the fact that a royal palace or hunting-seat there was the occasional residence of the English kings early in the twelfth century, and subsequently. I do not know whether its existence can be traced prior to the Conquest; and unless that can be done, it is obviously of no importance in the present inquiry. Now it had occurred to me that, after all, Gillingham, near Chatham in Kent, may be the true locality; but, unfortunately, my knowledge of that place is limited to the fact, that our London letters, when directed without the addition of "Dorset," are usually sent to rusticate there for a day or two. Perhaps one of your Kentish correspondents will favour me with some more pertinent information.
QUIDAM.
"We hope, and hope, and hope."
—I wish to discover the author (a disappointed courtier, I believe) of a poem ending thus:
"We hope, and hope, and hope, then sum
The total up—Despair!"
C. P. PH***.
What is Champak?
—In Shelley's "Lines to an Indian Air," I read—"The Champak odours fail." Is it connected with the spice-bearing regions of Champava, or Tsiampa, in Siam?
C. P. PH***.
Encorah and Millicent.
—These are very common baptismal names for females in this parish, and I should be very much obliged to any one who could refer me to the origin and meaning of either or both of them. The former is also spelt Anchōra and Enchōra.
J. EASTWOOD.
Ecclesfield.
Diogenes in his Tub.
—It may be hypercritical, but is there any authority for placing Diogenes in the tub at the time of his interview with Alexander, which took place at Corinth, as Landseer has done in his celebrated dog-picture?
A. A. D.
Topical Memory.
—Where can I find the subject of "topical memory" treated of? Cic. de Orat. i. 34. alludes to it.
A. A. D.
St. Paul's Clock striking Thirteen.
—Will you allow me on this subject to put to men of science, and to watchmakers, the à priori question—Is the alleged fact mechanically possible?
AVENA.
A regular Mull—Origin of the Phrase.
—"You have made a regular mull of it," meaning a complete failure. This expression I have often heard, from my school days even to the present time. Can you give me the origin of it? In reading a very clever and interesting paper communicated by J. M. Kemble, Esq., to the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in the volume of their proceedings for 1845, entitled, "The Names, Surnames, and Nicnames of the Anglo-Saxons," I found the following paragraph:
"Two among the early kings of Wessex are worthy of peculiar attention, viz., the celebrated sons of Cênberht, Cædwealha and his brother Mûl. Of the former it is known, that after a short and brilliant career of victory, he voluntarily relinquished the power he had won, became a convert to Christianity, and having retired to Rome, was there baptised by the name Petrus, and died while yet in the Albs, a few days after the ceremony. His brother Mûl, during their wars in Kent, suffered himself to be surprised by the country-people and was burnt to death, together with twelve comrades, in a house where they had taken refuge."
This "Note," I think, answers my Query. Do you know of any other explanation?
W. E. W.
Register-book of the Parish of Petworth.
—Can any reader of "NOTES AND QUERIES" assist in discovering a document which was formerly quoted by this title? Heylin used it for the reign of Edward VI., but his learned editor (Mr. Robertson) appears to have searched for it in vain.
C. H.
St. Catharine's Hall, Cambridge.
Going to Old Weston.
—When a Huntingdonshire man is asked "If he has ever been to Old Weston," and replies in the negative, he is invariably told, "You must go before you die." Old Weston is an out-of-the-way village in the county, and until within a few years was almost inapproachable by carriages in winter; but in what the point of the remark lies, I do not know.
ARUN.
"As drunk as Chloe."
—Who was Chloe, and what gave rise to the expression?
J. N. C.
Mark for a Dollar.
—What is the origin of the mark for a dollar, $?
T. C.
Stepony. (Vol. ii., p. 267.)
—If not too stale by this time, may I put a Query to any Worcestershire reader on the possible connexion of Stepony ale with a well-known country inn in that county, which must have startled many a traveller with strange hippophagous apprehensions, viz., Stew-poney?
B.
Lincoln.
Longueville MSS.
—Was the collection of MSS. possessed by Henry Viscount Longueville, and catalogued in Cat. Lib. MSS. Angliæ, 1697, dispersed; or, if not, where is it to be found?
E. T. B.
York, May 13.
Carling Sunday.
—Carling Sunday, occurring nowabouts, is observed on the north coast of England by the custom of frying dry peas; and much augury attends the process, as indicated by the different effect of the bounding peas on the hot plate. Is any solution to be given? The writer has heard that the practice originated in the loss of a ship (freighted with peas) on the coast of Northumberland. Carling is the foundation beam of a ship, or the main beam on the keel.
X.
Lion Rampant holding a Crozier.
—I met with this crest some time since on a private seal, and should be glad to ascertain whether the device was borne by chancellors and archbishops who exercised these functions contemporaneously, the last of whom was the Archbishop of York, who was also Lord Keeper from 1621 to Nov. 1625. The motto on the seal is—
"Malentour."
To this I cannot trace any meaning. Perhaps some of your heraldic antiquaries can favour me with a solution of the above device of the motto?
F. E. M.
Monumental Symbolism.
—On a monument dated 1600, or thereabouts, erected to a member of an ancient Roman Catholic family in Leicestershire, there are effigies of his children sculptured. Two of the sons are represented in a kneeling posture, with their hands clasped and upraised; while all the others are standing, some cased in armour, or otherwise. Can you, from knowledge of heraldry, or any other source, decide confidently what is the reason of the difference of posture, or rather what it is intended to denote?
READER.
Ptolemy's Presents to the Seventy-two.
—Josephus (Ant. b. xii. ch. ii. sect. 15.) mentions, as among the presents bestowed by Ptolemy on the Seventy-two elders, "the furniture of the room in which they were entertained." Was this a usual custom of antiquity?
H. J.
Baronette. (Vol. ii., p. 194.)
—In an extract from a statute temp. Hen. IV., it is stated that "dukes, earls, barons, and baronettes might use livery of our lord the king, or his collar," &c. Query the meaning of the term baronette, in the reign of Henry IV.?
B. DE M.
Meaning of "Hernshaw."
—Hernshaw occurs in Hamlet, II. 2. Query, What is the derivation of it? It means, I believe, a young heron. Chaucer ("Squire's Tale," l. 90.) spells it "heronsewe." As sewe signifies a dish (whence the word sewer, he who serves up the dinner), this word applied to heron may mean one fit for eating, young and tender.
J. H. C.
Adelaide, South Australia.
Hogan.—
"For your reputation we keep to ourselves your not hunting nor drinking hogan, either of which here would be sufficient to lay your honor in the dust."
This passage occurs in a letter from Gray to Horace Walpole in 1737. Can any subscriber state what "hogan" was, the not drinking of which was "to lay your honor in the dust?"
HENRY CAMPKIN.
"Trepidation talk'd."
—What mean the following words in Milton, Paradise Lost, book iii. line 481?
"They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed,
And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation TALK'D, and that first moved."
By the last three words we may easily understand the primum mobile of the Ptolemaic astronomy; and trepidation is thus explained in the Imperial Dictionary:
"In the old astr. a libration of the eighth sphere, or a motion which the Ptolemaic system ascribes to the firmament, to account for the changes and motion of the axis of the world."
Newton, in his edition of Milton, is silent. Bentley says in a note:
"Foolish ostentation, in a thing that a child may be taught in a map of these imaginary spheres. Talk'd, not good English, for called, styled, named."
Paterson, in his Commentary on Paradise Lost, 1744, for the sight of which I am indebted to the courtesy of the librarian of the Chetham Library, says:
"Trepidation, Lat., an astronomical T., a trembling, a passing. Here, two imagined motions of those spheres. Therefore Milton justly ridicules those wild notions."
Granting that trepidation and whose balance weighs are understood, can any of your readers explain the phrase trepidation talk'd?
W. B. H.
Manchester.
Lines on the Temple.
—Can any of your readers inform me if these lines, said to be the impromptu production of some passer-by struck with the horse and lamb over the Temple gates, have ever been in print, and where?
"As by the Templars holds you go,
The Horse and Lamb display'd
In emblematic figures show,
The merits of their trade.
"That travellers may infer from hence
How just is their profession;
The lamb sets forth their innocence,
The horse their expedition.
"Oh! happy Britons! happy isle,
May wondering nations say,
There you get justice without guile,
And law without delay."
J. S.
Death.
—I am making a collection, for a literary purpose, of the forms or similitudes under which the idea of Death has been embodied in different ages, and among different nations, and shall be highly obliged by any additions which your numerous learned and intelligent correspondents may be able to make to my stock of materials. References to manuscripts, books, coins, paintings, and sculptures, will be highly acceptable. I must confess that it has not yet been in my power to trace satisfactorily the origin, or the earliest pictorial example, of the current representation of Death as a skeleton, with hour-glass and scythe.
S. T. D.
Was Stella Swift's Sister?
—Being last week on a visit to Dublin, I went to see St. Patrick's Cathedral there, when, contemplating the monuments of the Dean and Stella, the verger's boy informed me, that after the death of the latter, the Dean discovered that she was his own sister, which occasioned him to go mad. Is there any foundation for this?
J. H. S.