Minor Queries.
151. Quotation from Bacon.
—In Lord Campbell's Life of Lord Bacon (Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 314.) he gives an extract from Lord Bacon's speech in the House of Commons, on his proposed bill for "Suppressing Abuses in Weights and Measures." In the following sentence there is a word which seems to require explanation:
"The fault of using false weights and measures is grown so intolerable and common, that if you would build churches you shall not need for battlements and halls, other than false weights of lead and brass."
The use of lead for the battlements of churches seems obvious enough: but what can halls mean, unless it be a misprint for bells, for which brass would be required?
PEREGRINUS.
152. Carmagnoles.
—Can any of your readers tell me the exact meaning of the Carmagnoles of the French Revolution? Is the "Marseillaise" a Carmagnole song? If the word be derived from Carmagnuola in Piedmont, what is the story of its origin?
W. B. H.
153. The Use of Tobacco by the Elizabethan Ladies.
—In An Introduction to English Antiquities, by James Eccleston, B.A., 8vo. 1847, p. 306., the author, speaking of the ladies of the reign of Elizabeth, has the following passage:
"It is with regret we add, that their teeth were at this time generally black and rotten, a defect which foreigners attributed to their inordinate love for sugar, but which may, perhaps, be quite as reasonably ascribed to their frequent habit of taking the Nicotian weed to excess."
Does the author mean to insinuate by the above, that the Elizabethan ladies indulged in the "filthy weed" by "smoaking" or "chewing?" I have always understood that the "Nicotian weed" whitened the teeth rather than blackened them, but should be glad to be enlightened upon the subject by some of your scientific readers.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
154. Covines (Vol. iii., p. 477.).
—Remembering to have seen it stated by one of your correspondents, that witches or sorcerers were formerly divided into classes or companies of twelve, called covines, I should feel obliged by a reference to the authorities from which this statement is derived. They were not alleged at the time.
A. N.
155. Story referred to by Jeremy Taylor.
—Jeremy Taylor (Duct. Dubit., book iii. chap. ii. rule 5. quæst. 2.) states:
"The Greek that denied the depositum of his friend, and offered to swear at the altar that he had restored it already, did not preserve his conscience and his oath by desiring his friend to hold the staff in which he had secretly conveyed the money. It is true, he delivered it into his hand, desiring that he would hold it till he had sworn; but that artifice was a plain cozenage, and it was prettily discovered. For the injured person, in indignation at the perjury, smote the staff upon the ground, and broke it, and espied the money."
Whence is the above incident derived?
A TR.
156. Plant in Texas.
—I shall be glad to learn the scientific name of the plant to which the following extract from the Athenæum (1847, p. 210.) refers:—
"It is a well-known fact that in the vast prairies of Texas a little plant is always to be found which, under all circumstances of climate, changes of weather, rain, frost, or sunshine, invariably turns its leaves and flowers to the north," &c.
.ת.א
157. Discount.
—Can any of your readers inform me how discount originated, and where first made use of?
JAMES C.
158. Sacre Cheveux.
—The motto of the arms of the family of Halifax of Chadacre in Suffolk, and of Lombard Street, is—
"SACRE CHEVEUX."
It does not seem to bear allusion to the crest, a griffin, nor to any of the charges in the coat, which I do not at the moment accurately remember. If you will enlighten me as to the meaning and origin of the motto, I shall be obliged.
S. A.
159. "Mad as a March Hare."
—In Mr. Mayhew's very interesting work, London Labour and the London Poor, Part xxxiii. p. 112., a collector of hareskins, in giving an account of his calling, says:
"Hareskins is in—leastways I c'lects them—from September to the end of March, when hares, they says, goes mad."
Perhaps the allusion to the well-known saying, "as mad as a March hare," on this occasion was made without the collector of hareskins being aware of the existence of such a saying. Is anything known of its origin? I imagine that Mr. Mayhew's work will bring many such sayings to light.
L. L. L.
160. Vermin, Payments for Destruction of, and Ancient Names.
—Can you afford me any information as to the authority (act of parliament, or otherwise,) by which churchwardens in old times paid sums of money for the destruction of vermin in the several parishes in England; and by what process of reasoning, animals now deemed innocuous were then thought to merit so rigorous an extirpation?
In some old volumes of churchwardens' accounts to which I have access, I find names which it is impossible to associate with any description of vermin now known. Perhaps some of your correspondents may be able to identify them: such as glead, ringteal, greas'head, baggar. My own impression as to the latter name was, that it was only another way of spelling badger; but as, in the volume to which I refer, the word bowson occurs, which the historian Dr. Whitaker pronounces to be identical with that species of vermin, my surmise can scarcely be correct.
J. B. (Manchester).
161. Fire unknown.
—Leibnitz (Sur l'Entendement humain, liv. i. § 4.) speaks of certain islanders to whom fire was unknown. Is there any authentic account of savages destitute of this essential knowledge?
C. W. G.
162. Matthew Paris's Historia Minor.
—During the last few years I have made occasional, but unsuccessful, inquiries after the Historia Minor of Matthew Paris. It is quoted at some length by Archbishop Parker (Antiquit. Eccles. Brit., ed. Hanov. 1605, p. 158.). It is also referred to, apparently upon Parker's authority, by several divines of the succeeding age; by one or more of whom (as well as by Watt) the MS. is spoken of as deposited in the Royal Library at St. James's. The words produced by Parker do not occur in Matthew Paris's Major History; though the editor of the second edition of the larger work would appear to have consulted the Hist. Minor, either in the Biblioth. Reg., or the Cottonian Library, or else in the Library of Corpus Coll., Cambridge. Can any one gratify my curiosity by saying whether this MS. is known to exist, and (if so) where?
J. SANSOM.
163. Mother Bunche's Fairy Tales.
—Who wrote Mother Bunche's Fairy Tales?
DALSTONIA.
164. Monumental Symbolism.
—In the south aisle of Tylehurst church, Berks, is a beautiful monument to the memory of Sir Peter Vanlore, Knight, and his lady, in recumbent positions, at whose feet is the statue of their eldest son in armour kneeling. In the front of the tomb are the figures of ten of their children in processional form—first, two daughters singly; the rest two and two, four of which have skulls in their right hands, and a book in their left, probably to denote their being deceased at the time the monument was erected. At the feet of one of the youngest children is represented a very small figure of a child lying in a shroud, the date 1627.
Query, What do the books symbolise?
JULIA R. BOCKETT.
Southcote Lodge.
165. Meaning of "Stickle" and "Dray."
—In Wm. Browne's Pastoral, "The Squirrel Hunt," we read of—
"Patient anglers, standing all the day
Near to some shallow stickle, or deep bay."
The word stickle appears to me to be used here for a pool. Is it ever so used now, or has that meaning become obsolete? I do not find it in Richardson's Dictionary.
In the Lake District, in the Langdales, is Harrison's Stickle or Stickle Tarn, which I think confirms my view of the meaning.
"Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray,
Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray."
Cowper uses the word dray with reference to the same animal:
"Chined like a squirrel to his dray."
"A Fable," Southey's Edit. viii. 312.
What is the correct meaning of this word? Richardson, from Barrett, says, "a dray or sledde, which goeth without wheels." And adds, "also applied to a carriage with low, heavy wheels, dragged heavily along, as a brewer's dray."
He then quotes the passage from Cowper, containing the above line.
F. B. RELTON.
166. Son of the Morning.—
"Son of the morning, rise! approach you here!
Come—but molest not yon defenceless urn:
Look on this spot—a nation's sepulchre!
Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
Even gods must yield—religions take their turn:
'Twas Jove's—'tis Mahomet's—and other creeds
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds."
How many read the above beautiful stanza from Childe Harold, Canto II. Stanza 3., without asking themselves who the "Son of the morning" is. Perhaps some of your literary correspondents and admirers of Byron may be able to tell us. I enclose my own solution for your information.
AN OLD BENGAL CIVILIAN.
167. Gild Book.
—The Gild-Book of the "Holy Trinity Brotherhood" of St. Botolph's without Aldersgate, London, once belonged to Mr. W. Hone, by whom it is quoted in his Ancient Mysteries, p. 79. If any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" would be so kind as to let me know where this MS. is to be found, I should be very thankful.
D. ROCK.
Buckland, Faringdon.