Alliterative Pasquinade.—The following alliterative pasquinade on Convocation, which I have cut from one of the newspapers, is, I think, sufficiently clever to deserve preservation in the pages of "N. & Q.:"
"The Earl of Shaftesbury has given notice that he will call the attention of the House to the subject of Convocation after the recess. The exact terms of his lordship's motion have not as yet been announced; but it is understood that it will be in the form of an abstract resolution, somewhat to the following effect:—
"'That this House, considering the consanguinity and concordant consociation of Gog and Magog to be concludent to, and confirmatory of, a consimilar connatural conjunction and concatenation between Convocation and Confession with its concomitant contaminations, and conceiving the congregating, confabulating, and consulting of Convocation to be conducive to controversy and contention, and consequent conflicts, confusion and convulsion, concurs in the conviction that to convene, and to continue Convocation, is a contumacious contravention of the Constitution, and a contrivance for constraint of conscience, and that the contemptible conspiracy, concocted for concerting the constituting and conserving of the continuous concorporal consession and conciliar conference of Convocation, is to be contumeliously conculcated by the consentient and condign condemnation of this House.'"
Agrippa.
The Names "Bonaparte" and "Napoleon."—Among the many fabulous tales that have been published respecting the origin of the name of Bonaparte, there in one which, from its ingeniousness and romantic character, seems deserving of notice.
It is said that the "Man in the Iron Mask" was no other than the twin (and elder) brother of Louis XIV.; that his keeper's name was Bonpart; that that keeper had a daughter, with whom the Man in the Mask fell in love, and to whom he was privately married; that their children received their mother's name, and were secretly conveyed to Corsica, where the name was converted into Bonaparte or Buonaparte; and that one of those children was the ancestor of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was thus entitled to be recognised not only as of French origin, but as the direct descendant of the rightful heir to the throne of France.
The Bonapartes are said to have adopted the name of Napoleon from Napoleon des Ursins, a distinguished character in Italian story, with one of whose descendants they became connected by marriage; and the first of the family to whom it was given was a brother of Joseph Bonaparte, the grandfather of Napoleon I. Many are the jeux de mots that have been made on this name; but the following, which I have just met with in Littérature Française Contemporaine, vol. ii. p. 266., is perhaps the most remarkable.
The word Napoleon, being written in Greek characters, will form seven different words, by dropping the first letter of each in succession, namely, Ναπολεων, Απολεων, Πολεων, Ολεων, Λεων, Εων, Ων. These words make a complete sentence, and are thus translated into French: "Napoléon, étant le lion des peuples, allait détruisant les cités."
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.
A Parish Kettle.—In the accounts of the churchwardens of Chudleigh in Devonshire, during a period extending from 1565 to 1651, occasional mention is made of "the church chyttel," "parish chettle," "parish chetell or furnace," "parish crock;" and charges are made for malt and hops for brewing ale; and the money received for ale sold is accounted for. There may also have been provided, for the use of the parish, a vessel of smaller dimensions than the crock, for in the year 1581 there is an entry of 1s. 2d. received "for the lone of the parish panne." As cyder must have been at that time, as it is now, the common drink of the working-classes, the parish "crock" must have been provided for the use of the occupiers of the land. I suppose that the term crock, for a pot made of brass or copper, had its origin in times when our cooking-vessels were made of crockeryware.