part i. sect. 9. disc. 6., "On Baptism," vol. ii. p. 235.,

Eden's edition.

Can any reader of "N. & Q." state the bishop's authority for this ingenious device?

A. TAYLOR.

_Acharis._--The following is extracted from Dugdale's _Monasticon_:

"Radulphus Wicliff armiger tenet in Wicliff duas partes decimarum de dominicis quondam _Acharis_, quondam ad 5. s. modò nihil quia ut dicit sunt inclusæ in parco suo, ideo ad consilium."

What is the meaning of the term _Acharis_, and of the passage? It is an extract from the _Rentale spiritualium Possessionum atque temporalium Prioratus Sancti Martini juxta Richmund in agro Eboracensi_.

A. W. H.

_Attainment of Majority._--Professor DE MORGAN will, I am sure, permit me to put this question to him:

In a short treatise "On Ancient and Modern Usage in Reckoning," written by him for the _Companion to the Almanac_ of 1850, he explains, at page 9., the usage of attainment of majority in these words:

"Nevertheless in the law, which here preserves _the old reckoning_, he is of full age on the 9th: though he were born on the 10th, he is of age to execute a settlement _a minute after midnight_ on the morning of the 9th."

I want to have this statement reconciled with the opening scene of Ben Jonson's _Staple of News_, where Pennyboy jun. counts, as his watch strikes--"one, two, three, four, five, six!"--

"Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough --The hour is come so long expected," &c.

Then "the fashioner" comes in to fit on the heir's new clothes; he had "waited below 'till the clock struck," and gives, as an excuse, "your worship might have pleaded _nonage_, if you had got 'em on ere I could make just affidavit of the time."

All these particulars are too _verbatim_ to admit of doubt as to the peculiar usage of that time; and from other sources I know that Ben Jonson was right: but it is not alluded to in the treatise first mentioned, nor is it stated when the usage was altered to "a minute after midnight."

A. E. B.

Leeds.

_Hartman's Account of Waterloo._--In the note to the 3rd Canto of _Childe Harold_, Stanza 29, Lord Byron says:

"The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees, which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's side. Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England."

I have a copy on which one has written--

"Hartman's account is full and interesting. He was in conversation with Major Howard when he was killed; and afterwards gave directions for his burial. Though no poet, he could describe graphically what he saw and did."

The position of Hartman, and his apparent familiarity with Major Howard, seem to take him out of the herd of writers on Waterloo; but I cannot learn who he was, or what he wrote. Can any of your readers tell me? The note may have been made in mere wantonness, but it looks genuine.

G. D.

_Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury._--When was Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, born; who, Camden tells us, was the "greatest ornament" of Higham Ferrers? I have seen his birth somewhere stated to have taken place in the year 1360; but no day or month was given. I should also be glad to know to what extent he was a contributor towards the restoration of Croydon Church, the tower and porch of which bear his arms?

R. W. ELLIOT.

_Translation of Athenæus._--I find, in the _Classical Journal_, xxxviii. 11., published in 1828, that an English translation of Athenæus had been completed before his death by R. Fenton, Esq., F.R.S., author of the _History of Pembrokeshire_. The writer farther says: "We have reason to believe that the MS. is now in possession of his son, the Rev. S. Fenton, Vicar of Fishguard in Pembrokeshire." Has this version, or any part of it, ever been published?

P. J. F. GANTILLON, B.A.

_Passages from Euripides._--Rogers translates two fine passages from Euripides:

"There is a streamlet issuing from a rock," &c.

and

"Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees," &c.

Where is the original Greek to be found?

F.

_Anderson's Royal Genealogies._--Is there any memoir or biographical account extant of James Anderson, D.D., the learned compiler of that most excellent and valuable work bearing the above title, and published in London, 1732, fol.?

G.

{199}

Minor Queries with Answers.

_Louis le Hutin._--When or for what reason was the _sobriquet_ "Hutin" attached to Louis X. of France? And what is the meaning of "Hutin?"

F. S. A.

[_Hutin_ is defined by Roquefort, _brusque_, _emporté_, _querelleur_, from the Low Latin _Hutinus_; and in illustrating the word he furnishes the following reply to our correspondent's Query: "Mezerai rapporte que Louis X. fut surnommé _Hutin_, parceque, dès son enfance, il aimait à quereller et à se battre, et que ce surnom fut lui donné par allusion à un petit maillet dont se servent les tonneliers, appelé _hutinet_, parce-qu'il fait beaucoup de bruit."]

* * * * *

Replies.

BEE-PARK--BEE-HALL.

(Vol. v., pp. 322. 498.)

Enjoying as we do the advantages of the extension of scientific knowledge, and its application to our routine of daily wants, we are apt to forget that our forefathers were without many things we deem essentials. Your correspondents C. W. G. and B. B. have touched upon a curious feature of antiquity, which science and commerce have rendered obsolete. Yet, before the introduction of sugar, bees were important ministers to the luxuries of the great, as mentioned at the above-cited pages. I was struck with the following passage in the first forest charter of King Henry III.:

"Every freeman ... shall likewise have the honey which shall be found in his woods."

This, in a charter second only in importance, perhaps, to Magna Charta itself, sounds strange to our ideas; moderns would not think it a very royal boon. But the note with which Mr. R. Thomson (_Historical Essay on the Magna Charta of King John_, p. 352.) illustrates this passage is interesting, and, though rather long, may be worth insertion in your columns:

"The second part of this chapter secures to the woodland proprietor all the honey found in his woods; which was certainly a much more important gift than it would at first appear, since the Hon. Daines Barrington remarks, that perhaps there has been no lawsuit or question concerning it for the last three hundred years. In the middle ages, however, the use of honey was very extensive in England, as sugar was not brought hither until the fifteenth century; and it was not only a general substitute for it in preserving, but many of the more luxurious beverages were principally composed of it, as mead, metheglin, pigment, and morat, and these were famous from the Saxon days, down even to the time of the present charter (1217). In the old Danish and Swedish laws bees form a principal subject; and honey was a considerable article of rent in Poland, in which it was a custom to bind any one who stole it to the tree whence it was taken. The Baron de Mayerberg also relates, that when he travelled in Muscovy in 1661, he saw trees there expressly adapted to receive bees, which even those who felled their own wood were enjoined to take down in such a manner that they who prepared them should have the benefit of the honey. Nor was the wax of less importance to the woodland proprietors of England, since candles of tallow are said to have been first used only in 1290, and those of wax were so great a luxury, that in some places they were unknown: but a statute concerning wax-chandlers, passed in 1433 (the 11th of Henry VI. chap. 12.), states that wax was then used in great quantities for the images of saints. Only referring, however, to the well-known use of large wax tapers by King Alfred in the close of the ninth century, it may be observed that in the laws of Hoel Dha, king of South Wales, which are acknowledged as authentic historical documents, made about A.D. 940, of much older materials, is mentioned the right of the king's chamberlain to as much wax as he could bite from the end of a taper."--_Coke_; _Manwood_; _Barrington_; _Statutes of the Realm_.

Perhaps you will allow a few words more in illustration of B. B.'s Query (Vol. v., p. 498.). A recent correspondent, writing of some modern experiments on the venom of toads, suggests the propriety of contributing to a list of "vulgar errors" which have proved to be "vulgar truths." It would not much surprise me to learn that, after all, the popular belief in the efficacy of the rough music of the key and warming-pan might be added to his list. At all events the reason stated by B. B. to prove its uselessness, viz. that bees have no sense of hearing, must, I think, be abandoned, as a Query of MR. SYDNEY SMIRKE (Vol. vii., p. 499.), and an answer (Vol. vii., p. 633.), will show. That all insects are possessed of hearing, naturalists seem now as well convinced of as that they have eyes; though some naturalists formerly considered they were not, as Linnæus and Bonnet; while Huber (his interesting observations on bees notwithstanding) seems to have been quite undecided on the point. Bees, as well as all other insects, hear through the medium of their antennæ, which in a subordinate degree are used as feelers; observing which, perhaps, Huber and others were indisposed to ascribe to them the sense in question.

In reference to MR. SYDNEY SMIRKE'S Query, so far from other naturalists confirming Huber's observations as to the effect produced by the sound emitted by the _Sphynx atropos_ on the bees, besides Dr. Bevan (quoted Vol. vii., p. 633.), the intelligent entomologist, Mr. Duncan, author of the entomological portion of _The Naturalist's Library_ (vol. xxxiv. pp. 53-55.), completely disproves them. He tells us that he has closely watched bees, and has seen the queen attack the larva cells; but the sentinels, notwithstanding the reiteration of the queenly sound, so far from remaining motionless, {200} held their sovereign in check, and stubbornly persisted in the defence of their charge against the attacks of their queen and mother. Besides this disproval of the incapacitation of bees by the emission of a sound, another from the experiments of Huber himself may be mentioned. He introduced a _Sphynx atropos_ into a hive in the daytime, and it was immediately attacked and killed by the workers. Query, Might not the explanation of the robbery of hives by this moth be, that the darkness of night incapacitates the bees, while it is the time nature has provided for the wanderings of the _Sphynx_?

TEE BEE.

* * * * *

MILTON'S WIDOW.

(Vol. vii., p. 596.; Vol. viii., pp. 12. 134.)

A contribution of mine to the miscellaneous vol. of the Chetham Society's publications having been introduced to your readers by the handsome notice of MR. HUGHES, I feel bound to notice the objection raised by your correspondent GARLICHITHE (Vol. viii., p. 134.), who has confounded Randle the _grandfather_ and Randle the _son_ of the writer of these letters quoted by Mr. Hunter. Richard Minshull, who was the writer of these letters in 1656, and died in the following year, had several sons, of whom the eldest, Randle, correctly described by MR. HUGHES as the great-great-grandson of the Minshull who first settled at Wistaston, had seven children, of whom Elizabeth, the widow of Milton, was one. She was baptized at Wistaston on the 30th Dec. 1638. In 1680 (about six years after her husband's death), by means of a family arrangement with Richard Minshull of Wistaston, frame-work knitter, who, there can be little doubt, was her brother, evidenced by a bond in my possession, she acquired a leasehold interest in a farm at Brindley, near Nantwich. On the 20th July, 1720, by her name and description of Elizabeth Milton, of Nantwich, widow, she administered to the effects of her brother, John Minshull, in the Consistory Court of Chester; and her will, the probate of which is also in my possession, is dated 22nd August, and proved 10th October, 1727. MR. HUGHES having given a reference to the volume where this information will be found in detail, a reference to it might have saved GARLICHITHE the trouble of starting an objection, and shown him that, so far from the facts stated being irreconcilable with Mr. Hunter's tract, that gentleman's reference to Randle Holme's _Correspondence_ was suggested by a communication of my own to _The Athenæum_, and in its turn furnished me with the clue from which I eventually ascertained the particulars of Mrs. Milton's birth and parentage. I am sorry to say that I have wholly failed in finding the register of her marriage: it is not in the register-book of her native place. It might be worth while to search the register of the parishes in which Milton's residence in Jewin Street, and Dr. Paget's in Coleman Street, are situate. There is no uncertainty as to the date, which Aubrey tells us was in "the yeare before the sicknesse."

Though CRANMORE (Vol. v., p. 327.) is said to be a deserter from the ranks of "N. & Q.," I hope he is known to some of your readers, and that they will convey to him a hint that he is under something like a promise to furnish information, which, as regards Dr. Paget's connexion with the poet's widow, will still be welcome.

J. F. MARSH.

Despite his acknowledged infidelity, I must tender my thanks to GARLICHITHE for his obliging reference to Mr. Hunter's tract; albeit there is, I may be permitted to suggest, no position assumed in any note upon Milton's widow which that tract in any way contravenes or sets aside. The fact is, GARLICHITHE, in the outset, entirely misapprehends the nature of my argument; and so leads himself, by a sort of literary "Will-o-the-wisp," unconsciously astray.

It was not Randle the _grandfather_ of Richard Minshull, writer of the two letters transcribed by Mr. Hunter, but Randle the eldest _son_ of this Richard Minshull to whom I referred as the father of Elizabeth Milton. Nor is it _possible_ that this Elizabeth could have "died in infancy," seeing that I possess a copy of a bond (the original is also extant) from her brother Richard, then of Wistaston, where he was baptized April 7, 1641, secured to her as Elizabeth _Milton_, dated June 4, 1680.

As to the marriage itself, it may have taken place in London, where the poet resided; or, which is more probable, at or near the residence of their mutual friend, Dr. Paget. Milton was certainly not over-careful about ritual observances, and it is not therefore unlikely that the rigid Puritan preferred a private, or what is termed a civil marriage, to one religiously and properly conducted in the church of his forefathers.

T. HUGHES.

* * * * *

PECULIAR ORNAMENT IN CROSTHWAITE CHURCH.

(Vol. viii., p. 55.)

It is probable that these circles with eight radiations are the original dedication-crosses of the church. Such crosses are still to be seen painted on the piers of the nave in Roman Catholic churches. Durandus, describing the consecration of a church, says:

"In the meanwhile within the building twelve lamps be burning before twelve crosses, which be depicted on the walls of the church.... Lastly, he [the bishop] anointeth with chrism the twelve crosses {201} depicted on the wall."--Durandus _On Symbolism_, ed. Neale and Webb, p. 115.

In the Pontifical, _De Ecclesiæ Dedicatione_, the rubric directs,--

"Item, depingantur in parietibus Ecclesiæ intrinsecùs per circuitum duodecim cruces, circa decem palmos super terram, videlicet tres pro quolibet, ex quatuor parietibus. Et ad caput cujuslibet crucis figatur unus clavus, cui affigatur una candela unius unciæ."

Dedication-crosses occur at Salisbury Cathedral, and at Uffington Church, Berks, and in both cases on the exterior of the buildings.

The crosses at Salisbury are seven in number, viz. one over each side-door at the west end, two on the buttresses of the north and south transepts, two on the buttresses of the east end, and one in the centre of the east wall. The number at Uffington is twelve, disposed as follows: Three under the east window, three under the west window, one under the south window of the south transept, one under the north window of the north transept, one on the south wall of the nave, one on the north wall of the nave, one on the south wall of the chancel, and one in the east wall of the south transept. In each case the crosses have been of brass inlaid in the wall, with the exception of one, which is of stone, and of more elaborate design. The _rationale_ of dedication-crosses, according to Durandus, is,--

"First, as a terror to evil spirits, that they, having been driven forth thence, may be terrified when they see the sign of the cross, and may not presume to enter therein again. Secondly, as a mark of triumph; for crosses be the banners of CHRIST, and the signs of his triumph.... Thirdly, that such as look on them may call to mind the passion of CHRIST, by which he hath consecrated his Church, and their belief in his passion," &c.--Page 125.

Under these aspects the exterior would seem the more fitting, and may have been the original position of them. Perhaps MR. ELLIOT will inform us what is the number of crosses at Crosthwaite?

CHEVERELLS.

* * * * *

CURIOUS MISTRANSLATIONS.

(Vol. vi., p. 321.)

I have found, in _D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature_, two or three instances in which he mistranslates from the French. The first occurs in the following passage in the article headed "Inquisition:"

"Once all were Turks when they were not Romanists. Raymond, Count of Toulouse, was constrained to submit. _The inhabitants were passed on the edge of the sword_, without distinction of age or sex."

From the words which I have marked for Italics, it is clear that D'Israeli translated the passage from some French author; but not being aware of the idiomatic expression "passer au fil de l'épée," and that it means "to put to the sword," he translated the words in their literal sense, which in English is no sense at all.

The second example will be found in the article headed "Mysteries, Moralities," &c. D'Israeli quotes some extracts from the _Mystery of St. Dennis_, and concludes with the following on the subject of baptism:

"Sire, oyez que fait ce fol prestre: Il prend de l'yaue _en_ une escuelle, Et gete aux gens sur le cervele, Et dit que _partants_ sont sauvés."

which he translates thus:

"Sir, hear what this mad priest does: He takes water _out of_ a ladle, And, throwing it at people's heads, He says that _when they depart_ they are saved!"

The error of "out of" for "into" is unimportant; but not so where he renders "partants" by "when they depart." The word "partant," in the original, is an adverb, and means "thereupon," "forthwith." This D'Israeli has mistaken for "partant," the participle of "partir:" and hence the erroneous construction given to the passage.

A third sample occurs in the same article, where the author quotes from one of the dramas called _Sotties_, a passage in which are these lines:

"Tuer les gens pour leurs plaisirs, _Jouer le leur_, l'autrui saisir."

These he translates as follows:

"Killing people for their pleasures, _Minding their own interests_, and seizing on what belongs to another."

Here we have "jouer le leur," to gamble, rendered by "to mind their own interests;" a rather equivocal method, it must be confessed, of accomplishing that object.

These are among the very few instances in which D'Israeli, by quoting from the original authorities, enables us to form an opinion as to the correctness of his anecdotes; and when we consider that by far the greater proportion of these are drawn from French sources, there is reason to apprehend that they may not have always been given with sufficient fidelity. I am confirmed in this view by another quotation which D'Israeli seems to have misunderstood. He is speaking of the feudal custom of the French barons, according to which they were allowed to cohabit with the new bride during the first three nights after marriage. Upon this he remarks:

"Montesquieu is infinitely French when he could turn this shameful species of tyranny into a bon mot; for he boldly observes on this: 'C'était bien ces trois nuits là qu'il fallait choisir; car pour les autres on {202} n'aurait pas donné beaucoup d'argent.' The legislator, in the wit, forgot the feelings of his heart."

I have never been able to conceive what meaning D'Israeli could have attached to this quotation from Montesquieu, so as to torture it into a _bon mot_. Not only is there nothing of the kind in the words he quotes, but there is not even an attempt at it. The writer merely suggests a reason for the preference given to the first three nights; and in doing so he expresses the sentiments of the barons, and not his own. And yet, it is upon this strange misapprehension of Montesquieu's meaning, that D'Israeli lays at the door of that illustrious man the imputation of being "infinitely French," and of forgetting, for the sake of a _bon mot_, the feelings of his heart!

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia.

* * * * *

"TO SPEAK IN LUTESTRING."

(Vol. iii., p. 188.)

The Query on the meaning of the phrase "to speak in lutestring," used by Philo-Junius, has remained so long without an answer, that to attempt to give one now seems almost to require an apology. I will however do so. In