Minor Notes.
Remains of Sir Hugh Montgomery (Vol. iv., p. 206.).
—Allusion has been made to the following stanza from "Chevy Chase:"—
"Against Sir Hugh Montgomery,
So right his shaft he set,
The grey goose wing that was thereon
In his heart's blood was wet."
Having lately visited the sea-bathing town of Largs, my attention was attracted to a building in the churchyard forming the present burying ground. In this building, bearing date of erection 1636 by Sir Robert Montgomery (ancestor of the present Earl of Eglinton), there is an elaborately carved tomb of mason work, beneath which is a strongly arched stone vault, where, besides the founder and others, tradition has placed the remains of the brave Sir Hugh Montgomery. It is difficult to reconcile this with the long prior date of the battle of Chevy Chase, unless the vault, which has certainly a very ancient look, can be substantiated to have existed before the above building. Taking matters as they go, the remains of the warrior now appear in the most humiliating condition—reduced to a hard, dry bony skeleton deprived of legs and thighs, with the singular appearance of the skull having been cloven (most likely) by a battle-axe, the skull being held together by some plate or substance and rude stitching. The body is said to have been originally embalmed, and enclosed in a lead coffin, which was barbarously torn off some forty years ago, as sinks for fishing nets. The building, tomb, and vault, taken altogether, present perhaps one of the finest specimens of this species of architecture in Scotland, and are additionally curious from the cone roof of the building being highly ornamented with descriptive paintings in a tolerable state of preservation. It is understood that some historical notices of the whole have been privately printed by a Scotch antiquarian, of which some of your learned readers may be aware, and may furnish more ample details than the foregoing.
G.
Glasgow, Sept. 23, 1851.
Westminster Hall.
—The following extract from the Issue Roll of Michaelmas Term, 9 Hen. VII. 1493, may be interesting to some of your readers, and will perhaps lead to a speculation on the nature of "the disguisyings" alluded to:—
"To Richard Daland, for providing certain spectacles, or theatres, commonly called scaffolds, in the great hall at Westminster, for performance of 'the disguisyings,' exhibited to the people on the night of the Epiphany, as appears by a book of particulars; paid to his own hands, £28, 3s. 5-3/4d."—Devon's Issue Roll, 516.
Possibly the next entry, which is in Michaelmas in the following year, of a payment of five marks yearly "to John Englissh, Edward Maye, Richard Gibson, and John Hamond, 'lusoribus Regis' otherwise called in English the players of the king's interludes, for their fees,"—has some connexion with "the disguisyings."
DESSAWDORF.
Meaning of "Log-ship."
—If you have a spare corner, can you grant it to me for the origin of a word which describes an article used in every sailing and steam vessel in the world, and yet perhaps not one sailor in a thousand knows whence it is derived. I allude to the word "log-ship," the name of the little wooden float (quadrant-shaped) by which, with a line attached, the vessel's speed is ascertained. Before the invention of the line with "knots" on it, a "chip," or floating-scrap, was thrown overboard forward, and the "master," or whoever it might be, walked aft at the rate which the vessel passed the "chip," judging of his pace from experience. Hence the term "log-ship," or "chip," which is its true name.
A. L.
West Indies, Aug. 11. 1851.
The Locusts of the New Testament.
—While in Greece last year, I was talking one day with a highly intelligent person on the English translation of the New Testament. In the course of our conversation he said, that in the third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel we had got an entirely wrong meaning for the verse in which we are told the food of St. John the Baptist, viz. "locusts and wild honey." I have not at this moment a Testament in ancient Greek by me but in the Romaic the paragraph alluded to runs thus:
Verse 4. ... "Καὶ ἡ τροφὴ του ἦτον ἀκρίδες, καὶ μέλι ἄγριον."
He said that the word ἀκρίδες, which we have translated "locusts," means rather the "young and tender parts of plants." Since that time I have looked into various Lexicons and Dictionaries both of the ancient and modern Greek, but have been unable to find anything to assist me in fixing this meaning. In that of Hedericus, it is thus given: "Ἀκρὶς, ίδος, ἡ, Locusta." There is also, however, "Ἄκρις, ιος, ἡ, Summitas, cacumen montis. Ab ἄκρος, summus." Whether there may be any confusion between these two words I know not; and here, possibly, I may be assisted by some obliging reader. I have consulted, along with a clergyman who is well skilled in Greek literature, and who is perfectly acquainted with Romaic, many commentaries; but in every one we found this passage either entirely passed over, or very unsatisfactorily noticed.
Βορέας.