"Deaths.—Mr. Richard Wellborne, in Aldersgate Street, descended in a direct male line from the youngest son of Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who flourished in King Henry III.'s time, and married that king's sister."
There is now a family of the name of Wellborne residing in Doncaster.
W. H. L.
Devonianisms (Vol. vii., p. 544.).—While a resident in Devonshire, I frequently met with localisms similar in character to those quoted by J. M. B.; but what at first struck me as most peculiar in common conversation, was the use, or rather abuse, of the little preposition to. When inquiring the whereabouts of an individual, Devonians ask one another, "Where is he to?" The invariable reply is, "To London," "To Plymouth," &c., as the case may be. The Cheshire clowns, on the other hand, murder the word at, in just the same strange and inappropriate manner.
The indiscriminate use of the term forrell, when describing the cover of a book, is a solecism, I fancy, peculiarly Devonian. Whether a book be bound in cloth, vellum, or morocco, it is all alike forrell in Devonshire parlance. I imagine, however, that the word, in its present corrupt sense, must have originated from forrell, a term still used by the trade to designate an inferior kind of vellum
or parchment, in which books are not unfrequently bound. When we consider that vellum was at one time in much greater request for bookbinding purposes than it is just now, we shall be at no great loss to reconcile this eccentricity in the vocabulary of our west country brethren.
T. Hughes.
Chester.
Humbug (Vol. vii., p. 550.).—A recent number of Miller's Fly Leaves makes the following hazardous assertion as to the origin and derivation of the term Humbug:
"This, now common expression, is a corruption of the word Hamburgh, and originated in the following manner:—During a period when war prevailed on the Continent, so many false reports and lying bulletins were fabricated at Hamburgh, that at length, when any one would signify his disbelief of a statement, he would say, 'You had that from Hamburgh;' and thus, 'That is Hamburgh,' or Humbug, became a common expression of incredulity."