W.C. TREVELYAN.
ON A LADY WHO WAS PAINTED. (From the Latin.)
It sounds like a paradox—and yet 'tis true,
You're like your picture, though it's not like you.
RUFUS.
Bigotry.—The word Bigotry pervades almost all the languages of Europe, but its etymology has not been satisfactory to Noah Webster. The application of it is generally intelligible enough; being directed against those who pertinaciously adhere to their own system of religious faith. But as early as the tenth century it appears, that the use of the word Bigot originated in a circumstance, or incident, unconnected with religious views. An old chronicle, published by Duchesne in the 3rd vol. of his Hist. Francorum Scriptores, states that Rollo, on receiving Normandy from the King of France, or at least of that part of it, was called upon to kiss the foot of the king, a ceremony, it seems, in use not at the Vatican only; but he refused "unless the king would raise his foot to his mouth." When the counts in attendance admonished him to comply with this usual form of accepting so valuable a fief, he still declined, exclaiming in pure Anglo-Saxon, "Not He, By God,"—Ne se bigoth; "quod interpetatur," says the chronicler, "non [ille] per Deum." The king and his peers, deriding him, called him afterwards Bigoth, or Bigot, instead of Rollo. "Unde Normanni," adds the writer, who brings his history down to the year 1137, "adhuc Bigothi dicuntur." This will account for the prepositive article "Le" prefixed to the Norman Bigods, the descendants of those who followed William the Conqueror into England, such as Hugh Le Bigod, &c. Among other innovations in France, the word Bigotisme has been introduced, of which Boiste gives an example as combined with Philosophisme:— "Le Bigotisme n'est, comme le Philosophisme, qu'un Egoïsme systématique. Le Philosophisme et le Bigotisme se traitent comme les chiens et les loups; cependant leurs espèces se rapprochent, et produisent des monstres."
J.I.
Oxford.
Gowghe's Dore of Holy Scripture.—If your correspondent "F.M." (No.9. p.139.) has not received a reply to his third query, I beg to submit that he will find the perusers of Gowghe's work to be the individuals mentioned in different portions of Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. v. edit. 8vo. pp. 414.449. 482.; the less intelligible names, "Doctor Barons, Master Ceton," being intended for Dr. Barnes and Alexander Seton. Anyhow, this reference may, it is hoped, lead to a fuller discovery of the parties intended.
NORRIS.