Minor Queries Answered.
Ellrake or Hellrake.
—Can you kindly give me any information respecting the word ell-rake or hell-rake (for I know not which it is), an agricultural implement in frequent use? It is not alluded to in Todd's Johnson's Dictionary, 1818.
VASHTI.
[In Shropshire an ell-rake means a large rake: an ellock-rake, a small rake used for breaking up ant-hills.]
Francis Clerke.
—I have now before me a MS. in small folio on paper, pp. 225., besides index, entitled—
"Pro Curatorium ac Modus postulandi in Curijs et Causis ecclesiasticis Auct'at'e reverendissimi in Christi patris ac D̅mi D̅mi Johannis providentia Divina Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, totius Anglie Primats et Metropolitani Londoni celebrā que communiter Curie de Arcubus appellantur. Per Franciscum Clerke, Alme Curie de Arcubus procuren' collecta et edita."
Who was Francis Clerke; and was this collection ever published, and when?
S. P. H. T.
[Francis Clerke for about forty years practised the civil law in the Court of Arches, Admiralty, Audience, Prerogative, and Consistorial of the Bishop of London. In 1594, the Oxford University conferred upon him the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law. His principal work, entitled Praxis curiæ Admiralitatis Angliæ, passed through several editions. A short notice of the author will be found in Wood's Athenæ, i. 657. (Bliss), and a list of his other works in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica.]
Nine Days' Wonder.
—Did any particular circumstance give rise to the saying, "A nine days' wonder?"
W. R. M.
[Most probably Kemp's Nine Daies Wonder, performed in a Morrice Daunce from London to Norwich, wherein euery dayes iourney is pleasantly set downe, to satisfie his friends the truth against all lying ballad-makers; what he did, how he was welcome, and by whome entertained.—This very curious tract has been reprinted by the Camden Society.]
Streso.
—In a book by Cradock on the Lives of the Apostles, published in 1641, I find many extracts and quotations in Latin from Streso in Pref. de Vit. Apostolorum. As I cannot find out or hear of such an author or book of Streso, could you inform one who he was?
LINCOLNIENSIS.
[The work is in the Bodleian Library: "Streso (Casp.), Anhaltinus, Commentarius practicus in Actorum Apostolicorum per Lucam Evangelistam descriptorum capita priora sedecim. 4to. Amst. 1650." The same library contains five other works by this author.]
The Willow Garland.
—In the Third Part of King Henry VI. (Act III. Sc. 3.), the Lady Bona sends this message to King Edward, uttered, as the messenger afterwards reports to him, "with mild disdain:"
"Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,
I'll wear the willow garland for his sake."
As I find no note upon the willow garland in any edition of Shakspeare to which I have access, I should be obliged by having its meaning explained in your columns.
ARUN.
[The willow is considered as the emblem of despairing love, and is often associated with the yew and the cypress in the churchyard: hence, a garland made of the boughs of the willow was said to be worn by forlorn lovers. In Much Ado about Nothing, Act II. Sc. 1., Benedick says,—"I offered him my company to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.">[
Name of Nun.
—Can any of your readers inform me on what principle it is that the name of Nun (כוּן), the father of Joshua, is expressed in the Septuagint by ναυῆ? I cannot help regarding the substitution of αυῆ for וּן as a very singular circumstance, more especially as it seems impossible to account for it by the conjecture that כ had been mistaken by the LXX for any letter that would be likely to be represented in Greek by ῆ. There are but few proper names in the Hebrew Scriptures that terminate in וּן; and the way in which these are expressed in the Septuagint affords, I believe, no analogy to the above case.
QUIDAM.
Gillingham.
[The explanation usually given, after Gesenius, is that early copyists mistook ΝΑΥΝ for ΝΑΥΗ; and as some MSS. have Ναβί and Ναβή, it is supposed that later copyists thought that it was the Hebrew כביא.]
"M. Lominus, Theologus."
—Is there any printed account of this divine, or of a work on the Pelagian and Manichæan heresies which he published at Ghent in 1675?
S. W. RIX.
Beccles.
[The Bodleian Library contains a work by M. Lominus, entitled, Blakloanæ Hæresis Historia et Confutatio. 4to. Gandavi, 1675.]