Minor Queries Answered.
Mutabilitie of France.
—Upon the books at Stationers' Hall, Lib. C., under the year 1597, 20th April, Thomas Creed entered A Treatise of the Mutabilitie of Fraunce from the yeare of our Lorde 1460 untill the yeare of our Lorde 1595. Can any of your readers say in what library a copy of this treatise can be found?
INDAGATOR.
[A copy is in the Bodleian library. The full title is, "The Mutable and Wavering Estate of France, from 1460 to 1595; together with an Account of the Great Battles of the French Nation both at Home and Abroad. 4to. Lond. Tho. Creede, 1597.">[
Caldoriana Societas.
—A copy of the Latin Bible of Junius and Tremellius, now in my possession, has on the title:
"Sancti Gervasii, 1607.
"Sumptibus Caldorianæ Societatis."
Will you kindly inform me who constituted this body, and why they were so called?
QUIDAM.
[Cotton, in his Typographical Gazetteer, has given the following notices of this body:—
"Caldoriana Societas, qu. at Basle or Geneva? An edition of Calepine's Lexicon, fol. 1609, bears for imprint Sumptibus Caldorianæ Societatis." "An edition of the controversies between Pope Paul V. and the Venetians, bears for imprint, 'In Villa Sanvincentiana apud Paulum Marcellum, sumptibus Caldorianæ Societatis, anno 1607,' but is by no means of Spanish workmanship. I rather judge that the whole of the tracts connected with this business, which profess to have been printed at various places, as Augsburg, Saumur, Rome, Venice, &c., have their origin in the Low Countries, and proceeded from the presses of Antwerp, Rotterdam, or the Hague.">[
Millers of Meath.
—The millers of the county of Meath, in Ireland, keep St. Martin's day as a holiday. Why?
Ω.
[Because of the honour paid to St. Martin in the Western Church, whose festival had an octave. Formerly it was denominated Martinalia, and was held with as much festivity as the Vinalia of the Romans. Among old ecclesiastical writers, it usually obtained the title of the Second Bacchanal:
"Altera Martinus dein Bacchanalia præbet;
Quem colit anseribus populus multoque Lyæo."
Thomas Naogeorgus, De Regno Pont.
Thus translated by Barnabie Googe:
"To belly cheare yet once again doth Martin more encline,
Whom all the people worshippeth with rosted geese and wine.">[
Kissing under the Mistletoe.
—What is the origin of kissing under the mistletoe?
AN M.D.
[Why Roger claims the privilege to kiss Margery under the mistletoe at Christmas, appears to have baffled our antiquaries. Brand states, that this druidic plant never entered our sacred edifices but by mistake, and consequently assigns it a place in the kitchen, where, says he, "it was hung up in great state, with its white berries; and whatever female chanced to stand under it, the young man present either had a right, or claimed one, of saluting her, and of plucking off a berry at each kiss." Nares, however, makes it rather ominous for the fair sex not to be saluted under the famed Viscum album. He says, "The custom longest preserved was the handing up of a bush of mistletoe in the kitchen, or servants' hall, with the charm attached to it, that the maid who was not kissed under it at Christmas, would not be married in that year.">[
Trinity Chapel, Knightsbridge.
—Was Trinity Chapel, Knightsbridge, which has been rebuilt several times, ever parochial? Can I be referred to any memoir of the Rev. —— Gamble, Chaplain to H. R. H. the Duke of York, who in the early part of the present century was minister of it?
H. G. D.
[The chapel, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, belonged originally to an ancient hospital, or lazar-house, under the patronage of the abbot and convent of Westminster. It was rebuilt in 1629, at the cost of the inhabitants, by a license from Dr. Laud, then Bishop of London, as a chapel of ease to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, within the precincts of which parish it was situated; but the site was subsequently assigned to the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, and at present forms a part of that of Kensington. The Rev. J. Gamble was minister of this chapel in 1794-5; in 1796 he was appointed chaplain of the forces, and in 1799 rector of Alphamstone, and also of Bradwell-juxta-Mare, in Essex. In 1805 he was married to Miss Lathom of Madras, by whom he had a son. His death took place at Knightsbridge, July 27, 1811.]
"Please the Pigs."
—Whence have we this very free translation of Deo Volente?
PORCUS.
[This colloquial phrase is generally supposed to be a corruption of "Please the Pyx," a vessel in which the Host is kept. By an easy metonymy, the vessel is substituted for the Host itself, in the same manner as when we speak, in parliamentary language, of "the sense of the House,"—we refer not to the bricks and stones, but to the opinion of its honourable members.]
Meaning of Barnacles.
—Can any of your readers throw any light on the term "barnacles," which is constantly used for "spectacles"? I need not say that the word in the singular number is the name of a shell-fish.
PISCATOR.
[Phillips, in his World of Words, tells us that "among farriers, barnacles, horse-twitchers, or brakes, are tools put on the nostrils of horses when they will not stand still to be shoed," &c.; and the figure of the barnacle borne in heraldry (not barnacle goose, which is a distinct bearing), as engraved in Parker's Glossary of Heraldry, sufficiently shows why the term has been transferred to spectacles, which it must be remembered were formerly only kept on by the manner in which they clipped the nose.]
The Game of Curling.
—As an enthusiastic lover of curling, I have been trying for some time past to discover any traces of the origin of the game, and the earliest mention made of it: but, I am sorry to say, without success.
I should therefore feel much obliged to any of your correspondents who could inform me concerning the origin of this game, and also any works which may treat of it.
"JOHN FROST."
Paisley.
[Appended to Dr. Brewster's account of curling, quoted in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, vol. xvii. p. 469., occurs the following historical notice of this winter amusement:—"Curling is a comparatively modern amusement in Scotland, and does not appear to have been introduced till the beginning of the sixteenth century, when it probably was brought over by the emigrant Flemings. It was originally known under the name of kuting, which perhaps is a corruption of the Teutonic kleuyten, kalluyten, rendered by Kilian in his Dictionary, ludere massis sive globulis glaciatis, certare discis in æquore glaciatâ. In Canada it has become a favourite amusement, on account of the great length of the winters.">[