Part 5

_Francis Browne_ (Vol. viii., p. 639)--It is not stated in the general pedigrees when or where he died, whether single or married. His sister Elizabeth died unmarried, Nov. 27, 1662; and his elder brother, Sir Henry Browne of Kiddington, in 1689. A reference to their wills, if proved, might afford some information if he, Francis, survived either of these dates. The will of Sir Henry Knollys, of Grove Place, Hants, the grandfather, might be referred to with the same view, and the respective registers of Kiddington and Grove Place.

G.

_Catholic Bible Society_ (Vol. viii., p. 494.).--MR. COTTON will find some account of this Society (the only one I know of) in Bishop Milner's _Supplementary Memoirs of the English Catholics_, published in the year 1820, p. 239. It published a stereotype edition of the New Testament without the usual distinction of verses, and very few notes. The whole scheme was severely reprobated by Dr. Milner, on grounds stated by him in the Appendix to the _Memoirs_, p. 302. The Society soon expired, and no tracts or reports were, I believe, ever published by it. The correspondence between Mr. Charles Butler and Mr. Blair will be found in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the year 1814.

S.

Fitzroy Street.

_Legal Customs_ (Vol. ix., p. 20.).--The custom, related by your correspondent CAUSIDICUS, of a Chancery barrister receiving his first bag from one of the king's counsel, reminds me that there are many other legal practices, both obsolete and extant, which it would be curious and {42} entertaining to collect in your pages, as illustrative of the habits of our forefathers, and the changes that time has produced. I recognise many among your coadjutors who are well able to contribute, either from tradition or personal experience, something that is worth recording, and thus by their mutual communications to form a collection that would be both interesting and useful. Let me commence the heap by depositing the first stones.

1. My father has informed me that in his early years it was the universal practice for lawyers to attend the theatre on the last day of term. This was at a period when those who went into the boxes always wore swords.

2. It was formerly (within fifty years) the custom for every barrister in the Court of Chancery to receive from the usher, or some other officer of the court, as many buns as he made motions on the last day of Term, and to give a shilling for each bun.

EDWARD FOSS.

_Silo_ (Vol. viii., p. 639.).--The word _silo_ is derived from the Celtic _siol_, grain, and _omh_, a cave; _siolomh_, pronounced _sheeloo_, a "grain cave." Underground excavations have been discovered in various parts of Europe, and it is probable that they were really used for storing grain, and not for habitations, as many have supposed.

FRAS. CROSSLEY.

I have no doubt but that MR. STRONG'S Query respecting _silos_ will meet with many satisfactory answers; but in the mean time I remark that the Arab subterranean granaries, often used by the French as temporary prisons for refractory soldiers, are termed by then _silos_ or _silhos_.

G. H. K.

_Laurie on Finance_ (Vol. viii., p. 491).--

"A Treatise on Finance, under which the General Interests of the British Empire are illustrated, comprising a Project for their Improvement, together with a new scheme for liquidating the National Debt," by David Laurie, 8vo., London, 1815.

ANON.

_David's Mother_ (Vol. viii., p. 539.).--The following comment on this point is taken from vol. i. p. 203. of the Rev. Gilbert Burrington's _Arrangement of the Genealogies of the Old Testament and Apocrypha_, Lond. 1836, a learned and elaborate work:

"In 2 Sam. xvii. 25., Abigail is said to be the daughter of Nahash, and sister to Zeruiah, Joab's mother; but in 1 Chron. ii. 16., both Zeruiah and Abigail are said to be the daughters of Jesse; we must conclude, therefore, with Cappell, either that the name [Hebrew: NCHSH], Nahash, in 2 Sam. xvii. 25., is a corruption of [Hebrew: YSHY], Jesse, which is the reading of the Aldine and Complutensian Editions, and of a considerable number of MSS. of the LXX in this place or that Jesse had two names, as Jonathan in his Targum on Ruth iv. 22. informs us; or that Nahash is not the name of the father, but of the mother of Abigail, as Tremellius and Junius imagine; or, lastly, with Grotius, we must be compelled to suppose that Abigail, mentioned as the sister of Zeruiah in 2 Sam., was a different person from Abigail the sister of Zeruiah, mentioned in 1 Chron., which appears most improbable."

[Greek: Halieus].

Dublin.

_Anagram_ (Vol. vii., p. 546.).--Some years since I purchased, at a book-stall in Cologne, a duodecimo (I think it was a copy of Milton's _Defensio_), on a fly-leaf of which was the date 1653, and in the neat Italian hand of the period the following anagram. The book had probably belonged to one of the English exiles who accompanied Charles II. in his banishment. I have never met with it in any collection of anagrams hitherto published. Perhaps some of your numerous readers may have been more fortunate, and can give some account of it.

"Carolus Stuartus, Angliæ, Scotiæ, et Hiberniæ Rex, Aulâ, statû, regno exueris, ac hostili arte necaberis."

JOHN O' THE FORD.

Malta.

_Passage in Sophocles_ (Vol. viii., pp. 73. 478. 631.).--Your correspondent M. is quite right in translating [Greek: prassein] _fares_, and referring it not to [Greek: Theos], but to the person whom the Deity has infatuated; and he is equally right in explaining [Greek: oligoston chronon] _for a very short time_. [Greek: Prassei], the old reading restored by Herman, is probably right; but it must still be referred to the same person: _Ille vero versatur_, &c. MR. BUCKTON explains [Greek: hôi], which is the relative to [Greek: noun], to signify _when_, and translates [Greek: bonleuetai] as if it were equivalent with [Greek: bouletai]. [Greek: Ton noun hôi bouleuetai] is _the mental power with which he_ ([Greek: ho blaphtheis], not [Greek: Theos]) _deliberates_. [Greek: Atê] is, as M. properly explains it, not _destruction_, but _infatuation, mental delusion; that judicial blindness which leads a man to his ruin_, not the ruin itself. It is a leading idea in the Homeric theology (_Il._ xix. 88., xxiv. 480., &c.).

Though the idea in the Antigone closely resembles that which is cited in the Scholia, it seems more than probable that the original source of both passages is derived from some much earlier author than a cotemporary of Sophocles. As to the line given in Boswell, it is not an Iambic verse, nor even Greek. It was probably made out of the Latin by some one who would try his hand, with little knowledge either of the metre or the language. MR. BUCKTON says, that to translate late [Greek: oligoston] _very short_, is not to translate agreeably to the admonition of the old scholiast. Now, the words of the scholiast are [Greek: oude oligon], _not even a little_, that is, _a very little_: so [Greek: oude tutthon], [Greek: oud' êbaion], {43} [Greek: oude minuntha], and many forms of the same kind.

E. C. H.

_B. L. M._ (Vol. viii., p. 585.).--The letters B. L. M., in the subscription of Italian correspondence, stand for _bacio le mani_ (I kiss your hands), a form nearly equivalent to "your most obedient servant." In the present instance the inflection _baciando_ (kissing) is intended.

W. S. B.

"_The Forlorn Hope_" (Vol. viii., pp. 411. 569.).--For centuries the "forlorn hope" was called, and is still called by the Germans, _Verlorne Posten_; by the French, _Enfans perdus_; by the Poles and other Slavonians, _Stracona poczta_: meaning, in each of those three languages, a detachment of troops, to which the commander of an army assigns such a perilous post, that he entertains no hope of ever rescuing it, or rather gives up all hope of its salvation. In detaching these men, he is conscious of the fate that awaits them; but he sacrifices them to save the rest of his army, _i. e._ he sacrifices a part for the safety of the whole. In short, he has no other intention, no other thought in so doing, than that which the adjective _forlorn_ conveys. Thus, for instance, in Spain, a detachment of 600 students volunteered to become a _forlorn hope_, in order to defend the passage of a bridge at Burgos, to give time to an Anglo-Spanish corps (which was thrown into disorder, and closely pursued by a French corps of 18,000 men) to rally. The students all, to the last man, perished; but the object was attained.

It much grieves me thus to sap the foundation of the idle speculation upon a word the late Dr. Graves indulged in, and which Mr. W. R. Wilde inserted in the _Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science_ for February, 1849; but, on the other hand, I rejoice to have had the opportunity of endeavouring to destroy the very erroneous supposition, that Lord Byron had fallen into an error in his beautiful line:

"The full of hope, misnamed _forlorn_."

What the late Dr. Graves meant by _haupt_ or _hope_, for head, I am at a loss to conceive. _Haupt_, in German, it is true, means _head_; but in speaking of a small body of men, marching at the head of an army, no German would ever say _Haupt_, but _Spitze_. As to _hope_ (another word for _head_) I know not from what language he took it; certainly not from the Saxon, for in that tongue _head_ was called _heafod_, _hefed_, or _heafd_; whilst _hope_ was called _hopa_, not _hope_.

C. S. (An Old Soldier.)

Oak Cottage, Coniston, Lancashire.

_Two Brothers of the same Christian Name_ (Vol. viii., p.338.).--I have recently met with another instance of this peculiarity. John Upton, of Trelaske, Cornwall, an ancestor of the Uptons of Ingsmire Hall, Westmoreland, had two sons, living in 1450, to both of whom he gave the Christian name of John. The elder of these alike-named brothers is stated by Burke, in his _History of the Landed Gentry_, to have been the father of the learned Dr. Nicholas Upton, canon of Salisbury and Wells, and afterwards of St. Paul's, one of the earliest known of our authors on heraldic subjects. The desire of the elder Upton to perpetuate his own Christian name may in some way account for this curious eccentricity.

T. HUGHES.

Chester.

_Passage in Watson_ (Vol. viii., p. 587.).--Your correspondent G. asks, whence Bishop Watson took the passage:

"Scire ubi aliquid invenire posses, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est."

In the account of conference between Spalato and Bishop Overall, preserved in Gutch's _Collectanea Curiosa_, and printed in the Anglo-Catholic Library, Cosin's _Works_, vol. iv. p. 470., the same sentiment is thus expressed:

"By keeping Bishop Overall's library, he (Cosin) began to learn, 'Quanta pars eruditionis erat bonos nosse auctores;' which was the saying of Joseph Scaliger."

Can any of your correspondents trace the words in the writings of Scaliger?

J. SANSOM.

_Derivation of "Mammet"_ (Vol. viii., p. 515.).--It may help to throw light on this question to note that Wiclif's translation of 2 Cor. vi. 16. reads thus: "What consent to the temple of God with _mawmetis_?" Calfhill, in his _Answer to Martiall_ (ed. Parker Soc., p. 31.), has the following sentence:

"Gregory, therefore, if he had lived but awhile longer; and had seen the least part of all the miseries which all the world hath felt since, only for maintenance of those _mawmots_; he would, and well might, have cursed himself, for leaving behind him so lewd a precedent."

And at p. 175. this,--

"That Jesabel Irene, which was so bewitched with superstition, that all order, all honesty, all law of nature broken, she cared not what she did, so she might have her _mawmots_."

See also the editor's note on the use of the word in this last passage. In Dorsetshire, among the common people, the word _mammet_ is in frequent use to designate a puppet, a doll, an odd figure, a scarecrow.

J. D. S.

_Ampers and, [&] or [&]_ (Vol. viii., p. 173.).--_Ampers [&]_, or _Empessy [&]_, as it is sometimes called in this country, means _et per se [&]_; that is to say, [&] is a character by itself, or _sui generis_, representing not a letter but a word. It was formerly {44} annexed to the alphabet in primers and spelling-books.

The figure [&] appears to be the two Greek letters [epsilon] and [tau] connected, and spelling the Latin word _et_, meaning _and_.

UNEDA.

Philadelphia.

_Misapplication of Terms_ (Vol. viii., p. 537.).--The apparent _lapsus_ noticed by your correspondent J. W. THOMAS, while it reminds one that--

"Learned men, Now and then," &c.,

is not so indefensible as many instances that are to be met with.

I have been accustomed to teach my boys that _legend_ (à _lego_, to read) is not strictly to be confined to the ordinary translation of its derivative, since the Latin admits of several readings, and among them, by the usage of Plautus, _to hearken_; whence our English substantive takes equal license to admit of _a relation_ = _a narrative_, viz. "a thing to be heard;" and in this sense by custom has referred to many a gossip's tale.

Having thus ventured to defend the use of _legend_ by your correspondent (Vol. v., p. 196.), I submit to the illuminating power of your pages the following novel use of a word I have met with in the course of reading this morning, and shall be gratified if some of your correspondents (better Grecians than myself) can turn their critical bull's-eye on it with equal advantage to its employer.

In the poems of Bishop Corbet, edited by Octavius Gilchrist, F.S.A., 4th edition, 1807, an editorial note at p. 195. informs us that John Bust, living in 1611, "seems to have been a worthy _prototype_ of the Nattus of Antiquity." (_Persius_, iii. 31.)

Our humorous friend in the farce, who was "'prentice and predecessor" to his coadjutor the 'pothecary whom he succeeded, is the only solecism at all parallel, that immediately occurs to

SQUEERS.

Dotheboys.

P.S.--It would not be any ill-service to our language to pull up the stockings of the tight-laced occasionally, though I have here rushed in to the rescue.

_Belle Sauvage_ (Vol. viii., pp. 388. 523.).--Mr. Burn, in his _Catalogue of the Beaufoy Cabinet of Tokens_ presented to the Corporation of London, just published, after giving the various derivations proposed, says that a deed, enrolled on the Claus Roll of 1453, puts the matter beyond doubt:

"By that deed, dated at London, February 5, 31 Hen. VI., John Frensh, eldest son of John Frensh, late citizen and goldsmith of London, confirmed to Joan Frensh, widow, his mother--'Totum ten' sive hospicium cum suis pertin' vocat' Savagesynne, alias vocat' le Belle on the Hope;' all that tenement or inn with its appurtenances, called Savage's Inn, otherwise called the Bell on the Hoop, in the parish of St. Bridget in Fleet Street, London, to have and to hold the same for term of her life, without impeachment of waste. The lease to Isabella Savage must therefore have been anterior in date; and the sign in the olden day was the Bell. 'On the Hoop' implied the ivy-bush, fashioned, as was the custom, as a garland."--P. 137.

ZEUS.

_Arms of Geneva_ (Vol. viii., p. 563.).--Berry's _Encyclopædia_ and Robson's _British Herald_ give the following:

"Per pale or and gules, on the dexter side a demi-imperial eagle crowned, or, divided palewise and fixed to the impaled line; on the sinister side a key in pale argent; the wards in chief, and turned to the sinister; the shield surmounted with a marquis's coronet."

Boyer, in his _Theatre of Honour_, gives--

"Party per pale argent and gules, in the first a demi-eagle displayed sable, cut by the line of partition and crowned, beaked, and membered of the second.

"In the second a key in pale argent, the wards sinister."

BROCTUNA.

Bury, Lancashire.

"_Arabian Nights' Entertainments_" (Vol. viii., p. 147.).--There is a much stranger omission in these tales than any MR. ROBSON has mentioned. From one end of the work to the other (in Galland's version at least) the name of opium is never to be found; and although narcotics are frequently spoken of, it is always in the form of powder they are administered, which shows that that substance cannot be intended; yet opium is, unlike tobacco or coffee, a genuine Eastern product, and has been known from the earliest period in those regions.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Richard I._ (Vol. viii., p. 72.).--I presume that the Richard I. of the "Tablet" is the "Richard, King of England," who figures in the Roman Calendar on the 7th February, but who, if he ever existed, was not even monarch of any of the petty kingdoms of the Heptarchy, much less of all England. However, not to go farther with a subject which might lead to polemical controversy, surely MR. LUCAS is aware that a new series of kings began to be reckoned from the Conquest, and that three Edwards, who had much more right to be styled kings of England than Richard could have possibly had, are not counted in the number of kings of that name; the reason was, I believe, that these princes, although the paramount rulers of the country, styled themselves much more frequently Kings of the West Saxons than Kings of England.

J. S. WARDEN.

{45}

_Lord Clarendon and the Tubwoman_ (Vol. vii., p. 211.).--I regret having omitted "when found, to make a note of," the number of Chambers' _Edinburgh Journal_ in which I met with the anecdote referred to about Sir Thomas Aylesbury, which is given at considerable length; and having lent my set of "Chambers" to a friend at a distance, I cannot at present furnish the reference required; but L. will find it in one of the volumes between 1838 and 1842 inclusive. I do not recollect that the periodical writer gave his authority for the tale, but while it may very possibly be true as regards the wife of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, it is evident that his daughter, a wealthy heiress, could never have been in such a position; and it is not recorded that Lord Clarendon had any other wife.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Oaths_ (Vol. viii., p. 605.).--Archbishop Whitgift, in a sermon before Queen Elizabeth, thus addresses her:

"As all your predecessors were at this coronation, so you also were sworn before all the nobility and bishops then present, and in the presence of God, and in His stead to him that anointed you, 'to maintain the church lands and the rights belonging to it;' and this _testified openly at the Holy Altar, by laying your hands on the Bible then lying upon it_. (See Walton's _Lives_, Zouch's ed., p. 243.)"

I quote from the editor's introduction to Spelman's _History of Sacrilege_, p. 75., no doubt correctly cited.

H. P.

_Double Christian Names_ (Vol. vii. _passim_).--The earliest instances of these among British subjects that I have met with, are in the families of James, seventh Earl, and Charles, eighth Earl, of Derby, both of whom married foreigners; the second son of the former by Charlotte de la Tremouille, born 24th February, 1635, and named Henry Frederick after his grand-uncle, the stadt-holder, is perhaps the earliest instance to be found.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Chip in Porridge_ (Vol. i., p. 382. Vol. viii., p. 208.).--The subjoined extract from a newspaper report (Nov. 1806) of a speech of Mr. Byng's, at the Middlesex election, clearly indicates the meaning of the phrase:

"It has been said, that I have played the game of Mr. Mellish. I have, however, done nothing towards his success. I have rendered him neither service nor disservice" ["No, nor to anybody else," said a person on the hustings; "you are a mere _chip in porridge_."]

W. R. D. S.

_Clarence Dukedom_ (Vol. viii., p. 565.).--W. T. M. will find a very interesting paper on this subject, by Dr. Donaldson, in the _Journal of the Bury Archæological Society_.

G.

_Prospectuses_ (Vol. viii., p. 562.).--I have seen a very curious volume of prospectuses of works contemplated and proposed, but which have never appeared, and wherein may be found much interesting matter on all departments of literature. A collection of this description would not only be useful, but should be preserved. A list of contemplated publications during the last half century, collected from such sources, would not be misplaced in "N. & Q.," if an occasional column could be devoted to the subject.

G.

"_I put a spoke in his wheel_" (Vol. viii., pp. 464. 522. 576.).--This phrase must have had its origin in the days in which the vehicles used in this country had wheels of solid wood without spokes. Wheels so constructed I have seen in the west of England, in Ireland, and in France. A recent traveller in Moldo-Wallachia relates that the people of the country go from place to place mounted on horses, buffaloes, or oxen; but among the Boyards it is "fashionable" to make use of a vehicle which holds a position in the scale of conveyances a little above a wheelbarrow and little below a dung-cart. It is poised on four wheels of solid wood of two feet diameter, which are more or less rounded by means of an axe. A vehicle used in the cultivation of the land on the slopes of the skirts of Dartmoor in Devonshire, has three wheels of solid wood; it resembles a huge wheelbarrow, with two wheels behind, and one in front of it, and has two long handles like the handles of a plough, projecting behind for the purpose of guiding it. It is known as "the old three-wheeled But." As the horse is attached to the vehicle by chains only, and he has no power to hold it back when going down hill, the driver is provided with a piece of wood, "a spoke," which is of the shape of the wooden pin used for rolling paste, for the purpose of "dragging" the front wheel of the vehicle. This he effects by thrusting the spoke into one of the three round holes made in the solid wheel for that purpose. The operation of "putting a spoke in a wheel by way of impediment" may be seen in daily use on the three-wheeled carts used by railway navvies, and on the tram waggons with four wheels used in collieries to convey coals from the pit's mouth.

N. W. S.

* * * * *

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.

Every lover of Goldsmith--and who ever read one page of his delightful writings without admiring the author, and loving the man--

"... for shortness call Noll, Who wrote like an angel, but talk'd like poor Poll?"--

must be grateful to Mr. Murray for commencing his New Series of the _British Classics_ with the _Works of_ {46} _Oliver Goldsmith_, edited by Peter Cunningham, F.S.A. The Series is intended to be distinguished by skilful editorship, beautiful and legible type, fine paper, compactness of bulk, and economy of price. Accordingly, these handsome library volumes will be published at 7s. 6d. each. If Mr. Murray has shown good tact in choosing Goldsmith for his first author, he has shown equal judgment in selecting Mr. Cunningham for his editor. Our valued correspondent, it is well known, and will be proved to the world when he gives us his new edition of Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_ (which by the bye is to be included in this Series of Murray's _British Classics_), has long devoted himself to the history of the lives and writings of the poets of the past century. But in the present instance Mr. Cunningham has had peculiar advantages. Besides his own collections for an edition of Goldsmith, he has had the free and unrestricted use of the collections formed for the same purpose by Mr. Forster and Mr. Corney: a liberality on the part of those gentlemen which deserves the recognition of all true lovers of literature. With such aid as this, and his own industry and ability to boot, it is little wonder that Mr. Cunningham has been able to produce under Mr. Murray's auspices the best, handsomest, and cheapest edition of Goldsmith which has ever issued from the press.