James Howell concludes his Parly of Beasts as follows:
"Gloria lausque Deo sæCLorVM in sæcVla sunto.
A chronogrammaticall verse which includes not onely this year, 1660, but hath numericall letters enow [an illustration, by the way, of enow as expressive of number] to reach above a thousand years farther, untill the year 2867."
Query, How is this made out? And are there any other letters employed as numerical than the M, D, C, L, V, and I? If not, I can only make Howell's chronogram equivalent to 1927.
The author, in his German Diet, after narrating the death of Charles, son of Philip II. of Spain, says:
"If you desire to know the yeer, this chronogram will tell you:
fILIVs ante DIeM patrIos InqVIrIt In annos,"
which would represent the date of 1568.
The same work contains an anagram on "Frere Jacques Clement," the murderer of Henry III. of France: "C'est l'enfer qui m'a créé."
J. F. M.
Abigail (Vol. iv., p. 424.; Vol. v., pp. 38. 94. 450.).—Can it be shown that this word was in general use, as meaning a "lady's maid," before the time of Queen Anne. It probably was so used;
but I have always thought it likely that it became much more extensively employed, after Abigail Hill, Lady Masham, became the favourite of that queen. She was, I believe, a poor cousin of Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, and early in life was employed by her in the humble capacity of lady's maid. After she had supplanted the haughty duchess, it is not unlikely that the Whigs would take a malicious pleasure in keeping alive the recollection of the early fortunes of the Tory favourite, and that they would be unwilling to lose the opportunity of speaking of a lady's maid as anything else but an "Abigail." Swift, however, in his use of the word, could have no such design, as he was on the best of terms with the Mashams, of whose party he was the very life and soul.
H. T. Riley.