Minor Queries with Answers.
The Fish "Ruffins."—In Spenser's Faerie Queene we read (book iv. canto 11.), among the river guests that attended the nuptials of Thames and Medway came "Yar, soft washing Norwitch walls;" and farther on, that he brought with him a present of fish for the banquet called ruffins, "whose like none else could show." Was this description of fish peculiar to the Yare? and is there any record of its having been esteemed a delicacy in Elizabeth's reign?
A. S.
[This seems to be the fish noticed by Izaak Walton, called the Ruffe, or Pope, "a fish," says he, "that is not known in some rivers. He is much like the perch for his shape, and taken to be better than the perch, but will grow to be bigger than a gudgeon. He is an excellent fish, no fish that swims is of a pleasanter taste, and he is also excellent to enter a young angler, for he is a greedy biter." In the Faerie Queene, book i. canto iv., Spenser speaks of
"His ruffin raiment all was stain'd with blood
Which he had spilt, and all to rags yrent."
To these lines Mr. Todd has added a note, which gives a clue to the meaning of the word. He says, "Mr. Church here observes, that ruffin is reddish, from the Latin rufus." I suspect, however, that the poet did not intend to specify the colour of the dress, but rather to give a very characteristical expression even to the raiment of Wrath. Ruffin, so spelt, denoted a swashbuckler, or, as we should say, a bully: see Minsheu's Guide into Tongues. Besides, I find in My Ladies' Looking-Glasse, by Barnabe Rich, 4to. 1616, p. 21., a passage which may serve to strengthen my application of ruffin, in this sense, to garment: "The yong woman, that as well in her behaviour, as in the manner of her apparell, is most ruffian like, is accounted the most gallant wench." Now, it appears, that the ruff, or pope, is not only, as Walton says, "a greedy biter," but is extremely voracious in its disposition, and will devour a minnow nearly as big as itself. Its average length is from six to seven inches.]
Origin of the Word Etiquette.—What is the original meaning of the word etiquette? and how did it acquire that secondary meaning which it bears in English?
S. C. G.