P.S. Do the words modde, moddeken, quoted by Skinner, exist? and, if so, are they Dutch or Flemish? I have no means of verifying them at hand.
[On referring to Kilian's Dictionarium Teutonico-Latin-Gallicum (ed. 1642), we find, "MODDE, MODDEKEN, Pupa, Poupée.">[
Cheshire Cat (Vol. ii., p. 377.).—A correspondent, T.E.L.P.B.T., asks the explanations of the phrase, "grinning like a Cheshire cat." Some years since Cheshire cheeses were sold in this town moulded into the shape of a cat, bristles being inserted to represent the whiskers. This may possibly have originated the saying.
T.D.
Bath.
"Thompson of Esholt" (Vol. ii., p. 268.).—In an old pedigree of the Calverley family, I find it stated that Henry Thompson of Esholt (whose only daughter Frances William Calverley of Calverley married, and by her acquired that property) was great-grandson to Henry Thompson,
"One of the king's gentlemen-at-arms at the siege of Boulogne (temp. H. 7.), where he notably signalised himself, and for his service was rewarded with the Maison Dieu at Dover, by gift of the king; afterwards, in the reign of Edward VI., exchanged it for the manor and rectory of Bromfield in Cumberland, and the site of the late dissolved nunnery of Esholt."
Further particulars regarding the above grant of Bromefield, and a pedigree of the Thompsons, are published in Archæologia Œliana, vol. ii. (1832), p. 171.
W.C. TREVELYAN.
Wallington.