CONTENTS.

Notes:—Page
Jack, by John Jackson[325]
Mythe versus Myth, by Thomas Keightley[326]
Witchcraft in 1638[326]
St. Augustin and Baxter, by E. Smirke[327]
Folk Lore:—Subterranean Bells—Welsh Legend of the Redbreast[328]
Johnsoniana[328]
Minor Notes: —White Roses—Fifeshire Pronunciation —Original Letter—Erroneous Forms of Speech[329]
Queries:—
Eustache de Saint Pierre, by Henry H. Breen[329]
Passage in Coleridge[330]
Minor Queries: —Cann Family—Landholders in Lonsdale South of the Sands—Rotation of the Earth — Nelson and Wellington—Are White Cats deaf?— Arms in Dugdale's "Warwickshire," &c.—Tombstone in Churchyard—Argot and Slang—Priests' Surplices—John, Brother German to David II.— Scott, Nelson's Secretary—The Axe which beheaded Anne Boleyn—Roger Outlawe—"Berte au Grand Pied"—Lying by the Walls—Constables of France— St. John's Church, Shoreditch[330]
Minor Queries with Answers:—Sir John Thompson —Ring, the Marriage—Amusive—Belfry Towers separate from the Body of the Church—An Easter-day Sun[332]
Replies:—
Hamilton Queries, by Lord Braybrooke, &c.[333]
The Wood of the Cross[334]
Edmund Chaloner, by T. Hughes[334]
"Anywhen" and "Seldom-when:" unobserved Instances of Shakespeare's Use of the latter, S. W. Singer[335]
Chichester: Lavant, by W. L. Nichols[335]
Scarfs worn by Clergymen, by Rev. John Jebb, &c.[337]
Inscriptions in Books, by Russell Gole, George S. Master, &c.[337]
Photographic Notes and Queries:—Head-rests— Sir W. Newton's Explanations of his Process—Talc for Collodion Pictures[338]
Replies to Minor Queries:—Portrait of the Duke of Gloucester—Key to Dibdin's "Bibliomania"—High Spirits a Presage of Evil—Hogarth's Works—Town Plough—Shoreditch Cross and the painted Window in Shoreditch Church—Race for Canterbury—Lady High Sheriff—Burial of an unclaimed Corpse—Surname of Allan—The Patronymic Mac—Cibber's "Lives of the Poets"—Parallel Passages, No. 2.: Stars and Flowers—Schomberg's Epitaph—Pilgrimages to the Holy Land—Album—Gesmas and Desmas—"Quod fuit esse"—Straw Bail—Pearl—Sermons by Parliamentary Chaplains, &c.[338]
Miscellaneous:—
Notes on Books, &c.[345]
Books and Odd Volumes wanted[346]
Notices to Correspondents[346]
Advertisements[346]

Notes.

JACK.

I wish to note, and to suggest to students in ethnology, the Query, how it comes to pass that John Bull has a peculiar propensity to call things by his own name, his familiar appellative of Jack?

Of all the long list of abbreviations and familiar names with which times past and present have supplied us, that which honest Falstaff found most pleasing to his ears, "Jack with my familiars!" is the household word with which ours are most conversant. Were not Jack the Giant-killer, Jack and the Bean-stalk, and Little Jack, the intimates of our earliest days? when we were lulled to sleep by ditties that told of Jack Sprat and his accommodating wife (an instance of the harmony in which those of opposite tastes may live in the bonds of wedlock); of Jack, the bachelor who lived harmoniously with his fiddle, and had a soul above the advice of his utilitarian friend; of Jack who, like Caliban, was to have a new master; of Jack[[1]] the brother of Gill; and of the Jack who was only remarkable for having a brother, whose name, as a younger son, is not thought worthy of mention. And were not our waking hours solaced by songs, celebrating the good Jack[[2]], little Jack Horner, and holding up to obloquy the bad Jack, naughty Jacky Green, and his treachery to the innocent cat? Who does not remember the time when he played at jack-straws, fished for jack-sharps, and delighted in a skip-jack, or jack-a-jumper, when jack-in-a-box came back from the fair (where we had listened not unmoved to the temptations of that eloquent vagabond cheap-Jack) and popped up his nose before we could say Jack Robinson; and when Jack-in-the-green ushered in May-day? While a halo of charmed recollections encircles the memory of Jack-pudding, dear to the Englishman as Jack Pottage and Jack Sausage (Jean Potage and Hans Wurst) are to Frenchman and German.

Our childhood past, Jack still haunts us at every turn and phase of our existence. The smoke-jack and bottle-jack, those revolutionary instruments that threw the turnspit out of employment (and have well-nigh banished him from the face of the earth), cook the Jack hare, which we bring in in the pocket of our shooting-jacket. We wear jack-boots, and draw them off with boot-jacks; prop up our houses with jack-screws; wipe our hands on jack-towels; drink out of black-jacks, and wear them on our backs too, at least our ancestors did; while flap-jacks[[3]] gave a relish to their Lenten diet, jack-of-the-clock[[4]] told them the hour; Jack priests held rule over them; and gentle exercise at the jack, at bowls, helped them to digest their dinners. We ride upon jack-asses; jacks flourish in our fish-ponds; jack-a-lanterns and jack-snipes flit over our bogs, the one scarcely less difficult to capture than the other; jack-daws multiply in our steeples, and jack-herons still linger about our baronial halls.

The four jack knaves, jack-a-lents, jack-a-dandies, jack-a-nasties, and jacks-in-office (jack-an-apeses every man jack of them), with that name fraught with mysterious terror, Jack Ketch, are the scape-graces of this numerous family; and, at every Jack who would be the gentleman, at a saucy Jack who attempts to play the jack with us, our indignation rises, like that of Juliet's nurse. But, on the whole, Jack is an honest fellow, who does his work in this life, though he has been reproached with Tom's helping him to do nothing; but let the house that Jack built vindicate him from this calumny. Jack, we repeat, is an honest fellow, and is so more especially, when as Jack-tar (Heaven protect him from Jack-sharks both on sea and shore!) he has old Ocean beneath, and the union-jack above him. Of black and yellow jack, who are foreigners, we make no mention; neither of Jack-Spaniards, nor of Jacko the monkey, whom we detest; but, go where we will, Jack meets us, and is master of all trades, for that we hold to be the right, though, we are aware, not the usual version of the saying. In short, with Merry Andrews, Jerry Sneaks, Tom Noddies, and Silly Simons, we may all have a casual acquaintance; but Jack, sweet Jack, kind Jack, honest Jack, Jack still is our familiar.