Chapter 2

_John Dutton, of Dutton_.--In the Vagrant Act, 17 George II., c. 5., the heir and assigns of John Dutton, of Dutton, co. Chester, deceased, Esq., are exempt from the pains and penalties of vagrancy. Query--Who was the said John Dutton, and why was such a boon conferred on his heirs for ever?

B.

_Rome, Ancient and Modern_.--I observed, in a shop in Rome, in 1847, a large plan of that city, in which, on the same surface, both ancient and modern Rome were represented; the shading of the streets and buildings being such as to distinguish the one from the other. Thus, in looking at the modern Forum, you saw, as it were _underneath_ it, the ancient Forum; and so in the other parts of the city. Can any of your readers inform me as to the name of the designer, and where, if at all, in England, a copy of this plan may be obtained?

If I remember rightly, the border to the plan was composed of the Pianta Capitolina, or fragments of the ancient plan preserved in the Capitol. In the event of the map above referred to not being accessible, can I obtain a copy of this latter plan by itself, and how?

A.B.M.

_Prolocutor of Convocation_.--W.D.M. inquires who was Prolocutor of the Lower House of Convocation during its session in 1717-18?

_Language of Queen Mary's Days_.--In the first vol. of Evelyn's _Diary_ (the last edition) I find the following notice:--

"18th, Went to Beverley, a large town with two churches, St. John's and St. Mary's, not much inferior to the best of our cathedrals. Here a very old woman showed us the monuments, and being above 100 years of age, spake _the language of Queen Mary's days_, in whose time she was born; she was widow of a sexton, who had belonged to the church a hundred years."

Will any of your readers inform me what was the language spoken in _Queen Mary's_ days, and what peculiarity distinguished it from the language used in _Evelyn's_ days?

A learned author has suggested, that the difference arose from the slow progress in social improvement in the North of England, caused by the difficulty of communication with the court and its refinements. I am still anxious to ascertain what the difference was.

FRA. MEWBURN.

Darlington.

_Vault Interments_.--I shall be very glad of any information as to the origin and date of the practice of depositing coffins in vaults, and whether this custom obtains in any other country than our own.

WALTER LEWIS.

Edward Street, Portman Square.

_Archbishop Williams' Persecutor, R.K._--Any information will be thankfully received of the ancestors, collaterals, or descendants, of the notorious R.K.--the unprincipled persecutor of Archbp. Williams, mentioned in Fuller's _Church Hist._, B. xi. cent. 17.; and in Hacket's Life of the Archbishop (abridgment), p. 190.

F.K.

_The Sun feminine in English_.--It has been often remarked, that the northern nations made the sun to be feminine.[3] Do any of your readers know any instances of the _English_ using this gender of the sun? I have found the following:--

"So it will be at that time with the sun; for though _she_ be the brightest and clearest creature, above all others, yet, for all that Christ with His glory and majesty will obscure _her."--Latimer's Works_, Parker Soc. edit. vol. ii. p. 54.

"Not that the sun itself, of _her_ substance, shall be darkened; no, not so; for _she_ shall give _her_ light, but it shall not be seen for this great light and clearness wherein our Saviour shall appear."--(Ib. p. 98.)

THOS. COX.

[Footnote 3: See Latham's _English Language_, 2nd edition, p. 211]

_Construe and translate_.--In my school-days, verbal rendering from Latin or Greek into English was _construing_; the same on paper was _translating_. Whence this difference of phrase?

M.

_Men but Children of a larger growth_.--Can you give one the author of the following line?

"Men are but children of a larger growth."

R.G.

_Clerical Costume_.--In the Diary of the Rev. Giles Moore, rector of Hosted Keynes, in Sussex, published in the first volume of the Sussex Archæological Collections, there is the following account of his dress:--

"I went to Lewis and bought 4 yards of broad black cloth at 16s. the yard, and two yards and 1/2 of scarlet serge for a waistcoat, 11s. 1d., and 1/4 of an ounce of scarlet silke, 1s."

and this appears to have been his regular dress. Will any of your correspondents inform me whether this scarlet serge waistcoat was commonly worn by the clergy in those times, namely, in 1671?

R.W.B.

_Ergh, Er, or Argh_.--In Dr. Whitaker's _History of Whalley_, p. 37., ed. 1818, are the following observations on the above word:--

"This is a singular word, which occurs, however both to the north and south of the Ribble, though much more frequently to the north. To the south, I know not that it occurs, but in Angles-ark and Brettargh. To the north are Battarghes, Ergh-holme, Stras-ergh, Sir-ergh, Feiz-er, Goosen-ergh. In all the Teutonic dialects I meet with nothing resembling this word, _excepting the Swedish_ Arf, _terra_ (_vide_ Ihre _in voce_), which, if the last letter be pronounced gutturally, is precisely the same with _argh_."

Can any of your readers give a more satisfactory explanation of this local term?

T.W.

Burnley, May 4. 1850.

_Burial Service_.--During a conversation on the various sanitary measures now projecting in the metropolis, and particularly on the idea lately started of re-introducing the ancient practice of burning the bodies of the deceased, one of our company remarked that the words "ashes to ashes," used in our present form of burial, would in such a case be literally applicable; and a question arose why the word "ashes" should have been introduced at all, and whether its introduction might not have been owing to the actual cremation of the funeral pyre at the burial of Gentile Christians? We were none of us profound enough to quote or produce any facts from the monuments and records of the early converts to account for the expression; but I conceive it probable that a solution could be readily given by some of your learned correspondents. The burning of the dead does not appear to be in itself an anti-christian ceremony, nor necessarily connected with Pagan idolatries, and therefore might have been tolerated in the case of Gentile believers like any other indifferent usage.

CINIS.

_Gaol Chaplains_.--When were they first appointed? Did the following advice of Latimer, in a sermon before King Edward, in 1549, take any effect?

"Oh, I would ye would resort to prisons! A commendable thing in a Christian realm: I would wish there were curates of prisons, that we might say, the 'curate of Newgate, the curate of the Fleet,' and I would have them waged for their labour. It is a holiday work to visit the prisoners, for they be kept from sermons."--Vol. i. p. 180.

THOS. COX.

_Hanging out the Broom_ (Vol. i., p. 385.).--This custom exists in the West of England, but is oftener talked of than practised. It is jocularly understood to indicate that the deserted inmate is in want of a companion, and is really to receive the visits of his friends. Can it be in any way analogous to the custom of hoisting broom at the mast-head of a vessel which is to be disposed of?

S.S.S.

_George Lord Goring_, well known in history as Colonel Goring and General Goring, until the elevation of his father to the earldom of Norwich, in Nov. 1644, is said by Lodge to have left England in November, 1645, and after passing some time in France, to have gone into the Netherlands, where he obtained a commission as Lieutenant-General in the Spanish army. Lodge adds, upon the authority of Dugdale, that he closed his singular life in that country, in the character of a Dominican friar, and his father surviving him, he never became Earl of Norwich. A recent publication, speaking of Lord Goring, says he carried his genius, his courage, and his villainy to market on the Continent, served under Spain, and finally assumed the garb of a Dominican friar, and died in a convent cell.

Can any of your readers inform me _when_ and _where_ he died, and whether any particulars are known respecting him after his retirement abroad, and when his marriage took place with his wife Lady Lettice Boyle, daughter of the Earl of Cork, who died in 1643? The confusion that is made between the father and son is very great.

G.

_Bands_.--What is the origin of the clerical and academical custom of wearing _bands_? Were they not originally used for the purpose of preserving the cassock from being soiled by the beard? This is the only solution that presents itself to my mind.

OXONIENSIS NONDUM-GRADUATUS.

* * * * *

REPLIES.

DERIVATION OF "NEWS" AND "NOISE."

I hasten to repudiate a title to which I have no claim; a compliment towards the close of the letter of your correspondent "CH." (Vol. i., p. 487.) being evidently intended for a gentleman whose _christian_ name, only, _differs_ from mine. The compliment in his case is well-deserved; and it will not lower him in your correspondent's opinion, to know that he is not answerable for the sins laid to my charge. And now for a word in my own behalf.

Indeed, CH. is rather hard upon me, I must confess. In using the simple form of assertion as more convenient,--although I intended thereby merely to express that such was my opinion, and not dreaming of myself as an authority,--I have undoubtedly erred. In the single instance in which I used it, instead of saying "it is," I should have said "I think it is." Throughout the rest of my argument I think the terms made use of are perfectly allowable as expressions of opinion. Your correspondent has been good enough to give "the whole" of my "argument" in recapitulating my "assertions." Singular dogmatism that in laying down the law should condescend to give reasons for it! On the other hand, when I turn to the letter of my friendly censor, I find assertion without argument, which, to my simple apprehension, is of much nearer kin to dogmatism than is the sin with which I am charged.

I cannot help thinking that your correspondent, from his dislike "to be puzzled on so plain a subject," has a misapprehension as to the uses of etymology. I, too, am no etymologist; I am a simple inquirer, anxious for information; frequently, without doubt, "most ignorant" of what I am "most assured;" yet I feel that to treat the subject scientifically it is not enough to guess at the origin of a word, not enough even to know it; that it is important to know not only whence it came, but how it came, what were its relations, by what road it travelled; and treated thus, etymology is of importance, as a branch of a larger science, to the history of the progress of the human race.

Descending now to particulars, let your correspondent show me how "news" was made out of "new." I have shown him how _I think_ it was made; but I am open to conviction.

I repeat my opinion that "news is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language;" and if it were a "noun of plural form and plural meaning," I still think that the singular form must have preceded it. The two instances CH. gives, "goods" and "riches," are more in point than he appears to suppose, although in support of my argument, and not his. The first is from the Gothic, and is substantially a word implying "possessions," older than the oldest European living languages. "Riches" is most unquestionably in its original acceptation in our language a noun singular, being identically the French "richesse," in which manner it is spelt in our early writers. From the form coinciding with that of our plural, it has acquired also a plural signification. But both words "have been adopted bodily into the language," and thus strengthen my argument that the process of manufacture is with us unknown.

Your correspondent is not quite correct in describing me as putting forward as instances of the early communication between the English and the German languages the derivation of "news" from "Neues," and the similarity between two poems. The first I adduced as an instance of the importance of the inquiry: with regard to the second, I admitted all that your correspondent now says; but with the remark, that the mode of treatment and the measure approaching so near to each other in England and Germany within one half century (and, I may add, at no other period in either of the two nations is the same mode or measure to be found), there was reasonable ground for suspicion of direct or indirect communication. On this subject I asked for information.

In conclusion, I think I observe something of a sarcastic tone in reference to my "novelty." I shall advocate nothing that I do not believe to be true, "whether it be old or new;" but I have found that our authorities are sometimes careless, sometimes unfaithful, and are so given to run in a groove, that when I am in quest of truth I generally discard them altogether, and explore, however laboriously, by myself.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

St. John's Wood, May 27. 1850.

I do not know the reason for the rule your correspondent Mr. S. HICKSON lays down, that such a noun as "news" could not be formed according to English analogy. Why not as well as "goods, the shallows, blacks, for mourning, greens?" There is no singular to any of these as nouns.

_Noise_ is a French word, upon which Menage has an article. There can be no doubt that he and others whom he quotes are right, that it is derived from _noxa_ or _noxia_ in Latin, meaning "strife." They quote:--

"Sæpe in conjugiis fit noxia, cum nimia est dos."

_Ausonius_.

"In mediam noxiam perfertur."

_Petronius_.

"Diligerent alia, et noxas bellumque moverent."

_Manilius_.

It is a great pity that we have no book of reference for English analogy of language.

C.B.

Why should Mr. Hickson (Vol. i., p. 428.) attempt to derive "news" indirectly from a German adjective, when it is so directly attributable to an English one; and that too without departing from a practice almost indigenous in the language?

Have we not in English many similar adjective substantives? Are we not continually slipping into our _shorts_, or sporting our _tights_, or parading our _heavies_, or counter-marching our _lights_, or commiserating _blacks_, or leaving _whites_ to starve; or calculating the _odds_, or making _expositions_ for _goods_?

Oh! but, says Mr. Hickson, "in that case the '_s_' would be the sign of the plural." Not necessarily so, no more than an "_s_" to "mean" furnishes a "means" of proving the same thing. But granting that it were so, what then? The word "news" _is_ undoubtedly plural, and has been so used from the earliest times; as (in the example I sent for publication last week, of so early a date as the commencement of Henry VIII.'s reign) may be seen in "_thies_ new_es_."

But a flight still more eccentric would be the identification of "noise" with "news!" "There is no process," Mr. Hickson says, "by which noise could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it!"

Is not Mr. Hickson aware that _la noise_ is a French noun-singular signifying a contention or dispute? and that the same word exists in the Latin _nisus_, a struggle?

If mere plausibility be sufficient ground to justify a derivation, where is there a more plausible one than that "news," _intelligence, ought_ to be derived from [Greek: nous], _understanding_ or _common sense_?

A.E.B.

Leeds, May 5th.

Further evidence (see Vol. i., p. 369.) of the existence and common use of the word "newes" in its present signification but ancient orthography anterior to the introduction of newspapers.

In a letter from the Cardinal of York (Bainbridge) to Henry VIII. (Rymer's _Foedera_, vol. vi. p. 50.),

"After that thies Newes afforesaide ware dyvulgate in the Citie here."

Dated from Rome, September, 1513.

The _Newes_ was of the victory just gained by Henry over the French, commonly known as "The Battle of the Spurs."

A.E.B.

* * * * *

THE DODO QUERIES.

I beg to thank Mr. S.W. Singer for the further notices he has given (Vol. i., p. 485.) in connection with this subject. I was well acquainted with the passage which he quotes from Osorio, a passage which some writers have very inconsiderately connected with the Dodo history. In reply to Mr. Singer's Queries, I need only make the following extract from the _Dodo and its Kindred_, p. 8.:--

"The statement that Vasco de Gama, in 1497, discovered, sixty leagues beyond the Cape of Good Hope, a bay called after San Blaz, near an island full of birds with wings like bats, which the sailors called _solitaries_ (De Blainville, _Nouv. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat._, and _Penny Cyclopædia_, DODO, p. 47.), is wholly irrelevant. The birds are evidently penguins, and their wings were compared to those of bats, from being without developed feathers. De Gama never went near Mauritius, but hugged the African coast as far as Melinda, and then crossed to India, returning by the same route. This small island inhabited by penguins, near the Cape of Good Hope, has been gratuitously confounded with Mauritius. Dr. Hamel, in a memoir in the _Bulletin de la Classe Physico-Mathématique de l'Académie de St. Petersbourg_, vol. iv. p. 53., has devoted an unnecessary amount of erudition to the refutation of this obvious mistake. He shows that the name _solitaires_, as applied to penguins by De Gama's companions, [I should have said, 'by later compilers,'] is corrupted from _sotilicairos_, which appears to be a Hottentot word."

I may add, that Dr. Hamel shows Osorio's statement to be taken from Castanheda, who is the earliest authority for the account of De Gama's voyage.

H.E. STRICKLAND.

* * * * *

BOHN'S EDITION OF MILTON.

Mr. Editor,--I have just seen an article in your "NOTES AND QUERIES" referring to my edition of Milton's prose works. It is stated that, in my latest catalogue, the book is announced as _complete_ in 3 vols., although the contrary appears to be the case, judging by the way in which the third volume ends, the absence of an index, &c.

In reply, I beg to say that the insertion of the word "complete," in some of my catalogues, has taken place without my privity, and is now expunged. The fourth volume has long been in preparation, but the time of its appearance depends on the health and leisure of a prelate, whose name I have no right to announce. Those gentlemen who have taken the trouble to make direct inquiries on the subject, have always, I believe, received an explicit answer.

HENRY GEORGE BOHN.

May 30. 1850.

* * * * *

UMBRELLAS.

Although Dr. Rimbault's Query (Vol. i., p. 415.) as to the first introduction of umbrellas into England, is to a certain extent answered in the following number (p. 436.) by a quotation from Mr. Cunningham's _Handbook_, a few additional remarks may, perhaps, be deemed admissible. Hanway is there stated to have been "the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with one over his head," and that after continuing its use nearly thirty years, he saw them come into general use. As Hanway died in 1786, we may thus infer that the introduction of umbrellas may be placed at about 1750. But it is, I think, probable that their use must have been at least partially known in London long before that period, judging from the following extract from Gay's _Trivia, or Art of Walking the Streets of London_, published 1712:--

"Good housewives all the winter's rage despise, Defended by the ridinghood's disguise; Or, underneath th' _umbrella's_ oily shade, Safe through the wet on clinking pattens tread. Let Persian dames the _umbrella's_ ribs display, To guard their beauties from the sunny ray; Or sweating slaves support the shady load, When Eastern monarchs show their state abroad; Britain in winter only knows its aid, To guard from chilly showers the walking maid."

Book i. lines 209-218.

That it was, perhaps, an article of curiosity rather than use in the middle of the seventeenth century, is evident in the fact of its being mentioned in the "_Musæum Tradescantianum, or Collection of Rarities_, preserved at South Lambeth near London, by John Tradescant." 12mo. 1656. It occurs under the head of "Utensils," and is simply mentioned as "_An Umbrella_."

E.B. PRICE.

[Mr. St. Croix has also referred Dr. Rimbault to Gay's _Trivia_.]

Jonas Hanway the philanthropist is reputed first to have used an "umbrella" in England. I am the more inclined to think it may be so, as my own father, who was born in 1744, and lived to ninety-two years of age, has told me the same thing, and he lived in the same parish as Mr. Hanway, who resided in Red Lion Square.

Mr. Hanway was born in 1712.

J.W.

The introduction of this article of general convenience is attributed, and I believe accurately so, to Jonas Hanway, the Eastern traveller, who on his return to his native land rendered himself justly celebrated by his practical benevolence. In a little book with a long title, published in 1787, written by "_John Pugh_," I find many curious anecdotes related of Hanway, and apropos of umbrellas, in describing his dress Mr. Pugh says,--"When it rained, a small parapluie defended his face and wig; thus he was always prepared to enter into any company without impropriety, or the appearance of neglect. And he (Hanway) was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head: after carrying one near thirty years, he saw them come into general use." Hanway died 1786.

J.F.

As far as I remember, there is a portrait of Hanway with an umbrella as a frontispiece to the book of Travels published by him about 1753, in four vols. 4to.; and I have no doubt that he had used one in his travels through Greece, Turkey, &c.

T.G.L.

In the hall of my father's house, at Stamford in Lincolnshire, there was, when I was a child, the wreck of a very large green silk umbrella, apparently of Chinese manufacture, brought by my father from Holland, somewhere between 1770 and 1780, and as I have often heard, the first umbrella seen at Stamford. I well remember also an amusing description given by the late Mr. Warry, so many years consul at Smyrna, of the astonishment and envy of his mother's neighbours at Sawbridgeworth, in Herts, where his father had a country-house, when he ran home and came back with an umbrella, which he had just brought from Leghorn, to shelter them from a pelting shower which detained them in the church-porch, after the service, on one summer Sunday. From Mr. Warry's age at the time he mentioned this, and other circumstances in his history, I conjecture that it occurred not later than 1775 or 1776. As Sawbridgeworth is so near London, it is evident that even there umbrellas were at that time almost unknown.

If I have "spun too long a yarn," the dates, at least, will not be unacceptable to others like myself.

G.C. RENOUARD.

Swanscombe Rectory, May 1.

Dr. Jamieson was the first who introduced umbrellas to Glasgow in the year 1782; he bought his in Paris. I remember very well when this took place. At this time the umbrella was made of heavy wax cloth, with cane ribs, and was a ponderous article.

R.R.

* * * * *

EMANCIPATION OF THE JEWS.

(VOL. I, PP. 474, 475.)

From a scarce collection of pamphlets concerning the naturalisation of the Jews in England, published in 1753, by Dean Tucker and others, I beg to send the following extracts, which may be of some use in replying to the inquiry (Vol. i., p. 401.) respecting the Jews during the Commonwealth.

Dean Tucker, in his _Second Letter to a Friend concerning Naturalisation_, says (p. 29.):--