"Ben Jonson (Works by Gifford, viii. 370.) speaks of a picardill as a new cut of band much in fashion:
'Ready to cast at one whose band stands still,
And then leap mad on a neat picardill.'
"But Middleton, The World tost at Tennis, 1620, speaks of a pickadill in connexion with the shears, the needle, &c. of the tailor; from which it appears to have been an instrument used for plaiting the picked vandyke collar worn in those days.
"Mr. Gifford, in a note on another passage in Ben Jonson, says:
'Picardil is simply a diminutive of picca (Span. and Ital.), a spear-head; and was given to this article of foppery from a fancied resemblance of its stiffened plaits to the bristled points of these weapons. Blount thinks, and apparently with justice, that Picadilly took its name frown the sale of the 'small stiff collars so called,' which was first set on foot in a house near the western [eastern] extremity of the present street by one Higgins, a tailor.'"
The bands worn by the clergy and judges, &c., at the present day, are lineal descendants of the old picadils, reduced to a more sober cut; and the picked ornament alluded to by your correspondent no doubt derived its name from its resemblance in shape to these tokens of ancient fashion.
H. C. K.
—— Rectory, Hereford.
Mr. Justice Newton (Vol. vii., pp. 528. 600.; Vol. viii., p. 15.).—I did not answer Mr. F. Kyffin Lenthall's first Query, because it was
palpable, from the context, that the "Mr. Justice Newton" he inquired after could not possibly be the Chief Justice who flourished in the fifteenth century; and because I am not aware of any judge of the superior courts of that name, during the time of the Commonwealth, or the years which immediately preceded or followed that period. Indeed, his designation as "Mr. Justice Newton, of the Middle Temple," plainly proves that he could not have been a judge upon the Bench at Westminster. He may perhaps have been a Welsh judge; or, remembering that "Mr. Justice" was the common title for a Justice of the Peace, it is still more probable that he was merely a magistrate of the county in which he resided.
Edward Foss.
Manners of the Irish (Vol. viii., p. 5.).—In the very curious extract given by your correspondent H., boyranne is very likely to stand for borbhan, the Irish for "lamentation" or "complaint." An Irish landlord knows full well that, even up to the present day, his tenants "keep the bread, and make borbhan." Molchan, I suspect, comes from miolc, whey. Localran stands for loisgrean, corn turned out of the ear. As to the concluding line of the extract, I must leave it to some better Irish scholar than I can boast myself.
"I am the geyest mayed of all that brought the somer houme,"
plainly has reference to the old practice, still prevalent in some parts of Ireland on May-day, when young girls carry about a figure dressed as a baby, singing the Irish song,