You are the showy HORSE, and they
Are jockeys that will ride you."
Hone does not give a hint as who was the author of either, nor can I inform J. S.
EDWARD FOSS.
[The REV. MACKENZIE WALCOTT has also kindly informed us that the original lines and the rejoinder are to be found in Brayley's Londiniana, vol. iv. pp. 216-7.]
Sewell, Meaning of (Vol. iii., pp. 391. 482.).
—H. C. K. makes an error in supposing that "formido," as used by Virgil in the passage quoted, and "sewell," are convertible terms. If there is any word in that passage which could be considered coextensive in meaning with the word "sewell," it would undoubtedly be "penna." Nor is "sewell" a modern term, as he supposes; in proof of which I add an extract from a letter written by Dr. Layton, one of the commissioners for the suppression of monasteries, to Thomas Cromwell, dated 1535, in which the word "sewel" occurs:
"We have sett Dunce (Duns Scotus) in Bocardo, and have utterly banisshede hym Oxforde for ever, with all his blinde glosses, and is nowe made a comon servant to evere man, faste nailede up upon postes in all comon houses of easement: id quod oculis meis vidi. And the second tyme we came to New Colege, affter we hade declarede your injunctions, we fownde all the gret quadrant court full of the leiffes of Dunce, the wynde blowing them into evere corner. And there we fownde one Mr. Grenefelde, a gentilman of Buckinghamshire, getheryng up part of the said bowke leiffes (as he saide) therewith to make hym sewelles or blawnsherres to kepe the dere within the woode, thereby to have the better cry with his howndes."
H. C. K. wishes to know the origin of the word "sewell." Can any of your readers explain the derivation of the term "blawnsherres?" Can it be connected with the French blanche, from white parchment, &c. having been used in making them?
E. A. H. L.