A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM (4th S. i. 362.)Some ten years ago I was surprised when a lady produced a raw potato from her pocket and in formed me that she constantly carried it, and found it to be a good precaution against attacks of this painful complaint. At the time I made some inquiries into the matter, and found the idea very prevalent in Scotland, but curiously only among the educated classes, and entirely unknown among the labouring ones. In no case, however, could I find that a potato so carried was considered as a cure of rheumatism, but simply as a preventive against an attack of that disease. The vegetables, if newly gathered, would of course become des sicated when kept in such a receptacle; but this process would soon come to an end, and their supposed effect could have nothing to do with any action of absorption, as it continued for years, in fact as long as they remained in the pocket.

I mentioned the matter to a medical friend, who suggested the following at least plausible solution of the matter. In our modern dress, both male and female, the position of the pockets lies over the most exposed portion of the sciatic nerve, the action of cold on it being the great cause of rheumatism in the lower limbs. Now a root like the potato is a very bad conductor of heat, and therefore retards its escape from the body at the point where it is applied. Hence its beneficial effect when carried in the pocket, where it guards the weakest point of the system.

GEORGE VERE IRVING. QUOTATIONS (4th S. i. 366.)—“Ars longa, vita brevis." It would appear from Dr. Bland, in his learned little work on Proverbs (ii. 116), that this found in the works of Hippocrates (fl. 430 B.C.). gnome comes to us from the Greek, and is to be The modern physician understands it in the sense that the longest life is only sufficient to enable us to acquire a moderate portion of knowledge in any art or science. I hope the above reference may be of some use to MR. HOLLINGS.

W. H. S.

Yaxley. "FLEUR-DE-LYS " (4th S. i. 377.)-It may be satisfactory to your correspondent to know that there is an inn at Sandwich, in Kent, called the "Fleur-de-lys" (in the vernacular the "Flowerde-luce"). There is also a "public" of the same name at the neighbouring town of Deal. SCHIN.

HOLLAND HOUSE (4th S. i. 390.)-Many years ago a watchman was employed to patrol the grounds about Holland House at night. He was armed with a blunderbuss. One night he was murdered. He had forgotten to load his blunderbuss, and consequently was unable to defend himself. The Lord Holland of that day ordered the poor fellow's successor to fire off and reload his blunderbuss in front of the house every night at eleven o'clock, so that he might be satisfied that

his servant was properly armed, and the bad characters who might be prowling about might know that firearms were kept in readiness for them. Thence arose the custom of firing at that same hour every night "Lord Holland's gun." C. W. BARKLEY.

Kuaranga took the name of Theodoros after his KINGS OF ABYSSINIA (4th S. i. 389.)-Kassa accession in 1855, that being the name of a negus (=king of kings) who reigned in the twelfth century. Theodore II. was born in 1818 at Sherghie, chief town of the mountainous province of Kuara, governed by his father and uncle, the dedjas (= dukes) of Haïlo-Mariam and Konfou noble descent; as respects his mother, a very (conqueror of the Turks). Haïlo-Mariam was of doubtful rumour, credited by the vanity of her son after being elevated to the throne, tended to make her a descendant of the legitimate imperial with Solomon by Menilek, son of the fair Mafamily, such as the indigenous history connects kada, Queen of Sheba. (Lejean, Rev. de Deux Mondes, liv. 206). It appears to be conformable to good policy that this country should fix the legitimate sovereign on the throne of Abyssinia. Thirty years ago the legitimate emperor of Abys

sinia was reduced to manufacture cloaks for subsistence. A boy twelve years of age being asked Salassiet (= Son of the Trinity); I am negus nehis name, said, "My name by baptism is Ouldagast” (= king of kings.) (Lejean, Id. 204.) T. J. BUCKTON.

19

Wiltshire Road, Stockwell, S.W. VALUE OF THE CIPHER (4th S. i. 107, 305.)cock, in his Arithmetic, p. 483, says that "zero, or MR. MACKENZIE COBBAN asserts that "the cipher or circle is a character signifying ten." Dr. Peanothing, is denoted by 0, which is also called a cypher.' Professor De Morgan, in the article that the "word nothing implies the absence of all "Nothing" (English Cyclopædia, v. 985), adds magnitude." Other authors say the same thing, stated that zero, or O, signifies ten? and hence I am led to ask where I can find it T. T. W. THE WIFE'S SURNAME (4th S. i. 343.)-O. P. Q. says he can find no trace in Latin of the wife's assuming her husband's surname. Surely the Roman. custom by which, e. g., Cicero's wife was known as Terentia Ciceronis is not very unlike Ď. J. K.

ours.

TO COLLIDE (4th S. i. 293.)—This is no new word. BAR-POINT of Philadelphia, who thinks that it seems needed, has apparently not consulted the dictionaries of his countrymen, Worcester and Webster. Both give it as derived from the Latin collidere, with the meaning "to strike against each other," and cite its use by Dryden and Brown. It is also to be found in Todd's Johnson and Richardson; the latter further citing it from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. W. B.

DISHINGTON FAMILY (4th S. i. 19, 229.)-Will you kindly permit me to convey to J. M. my best thanks for his references, and especially to Book I. No. 258 of the Register of the Great Seal, which I have since examined. The same Sir William

Disschyngton (mentioned in the charter to the Earl of Ross of his earldom of Ross and lordship of Sky) is in the sederunt of the record of the famous parliament held at Perth by David II. on the 13th day of January, 1364. There is a tradition that the Dishingtons were of fair complexions. Mr. Dishington, Leith, possesses an oak chair of considerable antiquity, having the arms of the family engraved Or, on a bend sable three escallops argent, the same as recorded by Sir David Lyndsay.

SETH WAIT. MICHAELMAS GOOSE (4th S. i. 362.)-Queen Elizabeth might have been eating goose when she heard the Armada was defeated, but as that took place on the 20th of July it could not have been on Michaelmas-day that she heard it. P. P.

HUNTERIAN SOCIETY (4th S. i. 279.)-P. A. L.'s apropos de tripe reminds me of a Tripe Club, which some twenty years ago existed, and perhaps still exists, at the "Magpie and Stump" in Aldgate; whereat these bovine intestines were the sole dish: dressed, of course, in every conceivable cookery, and realising the old French proverb-" Estre lié aux tripes." I confess to a weakness in favour of this aliment, so that it be not served up "à la mode de Caen"; which, experto crede, is detestable enough to make the most determined Philenterist jeter ses tripes. E. L. S.

JOLLY (4th S. i. 98, 255.)-This word is certainly allied to the Dutch expression jolig, merry, jovial. We have also a substantive, jool (pronounced yole), which has two significations-viz. (1) that of a fool, a jester; and (2) that of merriness, gaiety. There is a Dutch verb, joelen (pronounced you-lan), too, signifying to revel, to make merry; evidently the same word as the German jolen, to make a noise, to revel. In Hamburg, Campe says, jölen means jubeln. This is clearly the juste-milieu between the High German jolen and the Low German or Dutch joelen. H. TIEDEMAN.

Amsterdam.

Allow me to add my last intended reference to this word and its use in the peculiar manner I Philip Sidney's Apologie for Poetry, 1595 (English have alluded to, in a very apt quotation from Sir reprint, edition Arber): ·

"Wee know a playing wit, can prayse the discretion of an asse, the comfortablenesse of being in debt, and the jolly commoditie of beeing sick of the plague." J. A. G.

THE ROBBER EARL OF MAR (4th S. i. 189.)— interesting notice advert to the fact, which I Your valued correspondent J. M. does not in his lately chanced to observe, that Mar was also a magnate of Flanders. There is a charter in the first volume of the Great Seal Register, p. 250, No. 14, granted by Robert Duke of Albany, Governor of Scotland, dated at Edinburgh, March 17, 1413, in which he confirms a grant that his "dearest nephew, Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar and Garviach, and Lord of Duffle in Brabancia," had made to his (Mar's) "dearest brother, Sir Andrew Stewart, Knight" (another bastard son of the Wolf of Badenoch doubtless), of certain lands in the earldom. This must be the "Duffel" which appears on the map of Belgium, about halfway between Antwerp and Malines, and very probably had been conferred on Mar by the Duke of Burgundy for his assistance at the battle of Liège on Sept. 14, 1407, where, as Mr. Hill Burton says (The Scot Abroad, i. p. 66), the earl and some took part with the duke and the Prince-Bishop companions at arms, of the best blood in Scotland, of Liège against the powerful corporation of that almost sovereign city. One would like to know if any traditions of its foreign lord yet linger at Duffel.

This is curious, as, until the later era of the wars with Henry V. of England, when the princely territories of Aubigny and Touraine were conferred by the French king on Sir John Stewart of Dernlie and Archibald (Tineman) Earl of Douglas, no native born Scottish noble, so far as I see, had enjoyed a continental title. I except the Baliols of course, although "( Seigneurs de Bailleul " in French Flanders, as they must be ranked with the blood royal. ANGLO-SCOTUS.

A FILLIP ON THE FOREHEAD (4th S. i. 389.)MR. DUNKIN'S curious_note explains Falstaff's exclamation when the Lord Chief Justice leaves him (Second Part of King Henry IV. Act I. Sc. 3)"If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle."

·

A. A.

Poets' Corner.

LES ÉCHELLES (4th S. i. 315, 371.)-SIR EMERSON TENNENT might have carried his views, which are undoubtedly correct, further. In Spanish escala is a port and a ladder. La Escala is a seaport on the Gulf of Rosas in Catalonia, and hacer escala means to enter port. So isskèlé and skelessi in Turkish. Hunkiar Skelessi on the Bosphorus, rendered famous by the treaty, is the Sultan's stairs or landing-place; hunkiar or manslayer being a sort of complimentary appellation of the Sultan. In Celtic cala is a port and ladder, or rather cal is the root of both cala, a port, and schallu, the Mongolian for ladder; and in Gozo all the harbours are called cala. In Malta some are cala and others marsa, and, as a curious mixture of Phoenician, or Celtic and Italian, one port in Malta is Marsa Scala; another in the same island is La Scaletta. In Cephalonia there is a district and harbour called Skala, and in Albania near Butrinto, opposite Corfu, Cape Skala. In Sicily, too, is Scaletta. In Asia Minor, near the ancient Ephesus, is the gulf and port of Scala Nova. There is also a river Skala in Galicia, and a seaport Cala in Bolivia. Broadstairs might be added to Wapping, and possibly Carstairs, which, though inland, is on a river. But there are inland Les Échelles in Dauphiny, and Scala in Naples.

STEPHEN CARE.

Wilton Place.

TAVERN SIGNS: THE FOX (4th S. i. 376.) In answer to W. G. allow me to say that three years before Mr. Keble's death I perfectly remember seeing the sign of The Fox alluded to. It was then in possession of our lamented Christian poet. It is now, I believe, in the possession of his friend and neighbour, the Rev. Frewen Moore of Ampfield, near Romsey. I perfectly remember Mr. Keble showing it to me, and making many quietly humorous remarks upon it.

GEORGE TRAGETT.

South Kensington Museum. "MARTYR PRESIDENT" (4th S. i. 289.)-Allow me as an Englishman to protest against the growing misuse of the word martyr. Every student with a Greek lexicon knows that μáprus, Æol. μάoтup, means a witness; and that in time it received the sense of a witness testifying with his blood to the truth of the Christian faith. Hence Dr. Johnson defines martyr as one who by his death bears witness to the truth," and notices an elementary notion connected with the word under "Martyrdom," which he defines to be "the testi

(6

mony born to truth by voluntary submission to death."

Now, Mr. Lincoln died for no truth or principle, nor, more recently, did Mr. Plow. They had no option in their death-struggle; they were simply the unhappy victims of two devilish assassins. And, although the great world sympathised with the good president, who proclaimed the abolition of slavery in the United States, as well as with the self-sacrificing parish priest, we cannot, in speaking of either of them, correctly adopt the term martyr, which yet is frequently applied to M. Y. L. them in the literature of the day.

MEDALS (4th S. i. 342.)—W. N. L. is informed that his medal of Queen Anne is that of her coronation. It is by Croker, and not at all rare. SENEX.

SIR ANTHONY ASHLEY'S TOMB (4th S. i. 398, et antè.)—With due deference to A DORSET MAN, I suppose I may be allowed to have an opinion, as well as to express it, provided I give my reasons for it. I have done so; and now I beg to inform him that I have known this monument for fifty years, and in my first communication I stated that I had lately revisited it for the purpose of refreshing my memory. The opinion which I ventured to offer was not hastily formed. Might we not, with equal propriety and good taste, expect to find the potato or tobacco-plant sculptured on Sir Walter Raleigh's monument, as the cabbage on Sir A. Ashley's? Has A DORSET MAN never heard of another tradition that is extant in the village of Winborne St. Giles-namely, that the recumbent effigies on this monument are intended to represent Adam and Eve ? So much for popular and traditional symbolism. But I will illustrate it further from the adjoining parish. In the church of Cranborne there is a monument to

the grandson of the great Sir John Eliot (3rd S. i. 445), who died at school there, and in consequence, it is said, of being choked by a bone whilst eating his dinner. The statue of the youth is at some height from the floor, and he holds something in his hand which is obscurely seen from below, but which popular tradition declares to be a repre

sentation of the identical mutton bone that caused his death! On closer inspection it proves to be a nosegay! And thus a symbol is distorted for the purpose of supporting a tradition; or a tradition is invented for the purpose of explaining a symbol. W. W. S. QUOTATIONS FROM ST. AUGUSTIN (4th S. i. 391.) -It is stated that Sir John Fortescue in an unpublished work has the following:

"Deinde in ipso animo, ab iis quæ extrinsecus sensa sunt velut introducta, inventa est altera trinitas, ubi apparerent eadem tria unius esse substantiæ, imaginatio corporis quæ in memoria est, et inde informatio cum ad eam convertitur acies cogitantis, et utrumque conjungens intentio voluntatis."-De Trinitate, lib. xv. cap. 3.

"Igitur ipsa mens et amor et noticia ejus, tria quædam sunt, et hæc tria unum sunt: et cum perfecta sunt, æqualia sunt."-De Trinitate, lib. viii. cap. 3.

99

SIR JOHN FENWICK (3rd S. xi. 236.)—A correspondent inquires-"Is there any good portrait of this celebrated plotter in existence; and if so, where is it to be found? There is a portrait of Lady Mary Fenwick, with a miniature of Sir John Fenwick, at the Earl of Carlisle's, at CastleHoward, where is also preserved the library of Sir John Fenwick, who is said to have read the book called Killing no Murder, by Col. Titus, before making the attempt on the life of the Prince of Orange. It would be a curious subject of inquiry if the identical copy of Titus's work which Sir John Fenwick read still remains among the books in his library. The splendid estate he

See H. B. Wheatley's Chronological Notices of the Dictionaries of the English Language.

J. DIXON.

"JACHIN AND BOAZ" (4th S. i. 295) was probably published in 1762, as in that year appeared Jachin and Boaz, London, 8vo. A Freemason's Answer to the suspected Author of

A new edition appeared in 1797, by a gentleman belonging to the Jerusalem Lodge, &c. (. e. R. S.), and there are editions of 1811, 1812, and New York 1857-a very bad edition by S. Prichard.

It does not appear to be mentioned by Lowndes, and Watt gives no date, so that probably the first edition was without one. If the title-page of the first edition is not too long (that of 1797 would require about a column of "N. & Q.") perhaps some reader will be able to give it, as I do not find it in the British Museum.

I observe ("N. & Q." 3rd S. xii.) that Peter Wilkins is also by "R. S." RALPH THOMAS. STUART FLAG IN 1715 (4th S. i. 372.) — Mention is made from

"Lancashire Memorials of the Rebellion, MDCCXV. By Samuel Ware, M.D., F.R.S.E., &c. Printed for the Chetham Society, MDCCCXLV.

""

of a Cornet Shuttleworth, of an old Lancashire family, who when taken prisoner "in his pocket was found James III.'s standard of green taffety, with a buff-coloured silk fringe round it. The device, a pelican feeding her young, with this motto-Tantum valet Amor Regis et Patriæ ' " [of such force is the love of king and country], pp. 142, 143.

I wish to ask, was this the standard which was carried in chief by the adherents of the Stuarts in Lancashire in 1715, or a flag of division; and if so, what was the design of the principal standard? The buff-colour, I find from Fosbroke's Encyclopædia of Antiquities, was, as well as red, the ancient livery of the House of Stuart. Orange tawney was, I believe, the particular kind of colour. This subject suggests a series of curious questions as to the different kinds of flags used by the Stuarts in their wars. What were the colours used during the Viscount Dundee's war for James II.? What did James II. use as his flag during his war in Ireland ? What colours did the Spaniards use in the landing at Glenshiel? What was the particular sort of flag raised by the Earl of Mar in 1715, called "the Restoration ?" The standard used by Prince Charles Edward Stuart in 1745 was, according to Lord Mahon in his History of England (vol. iii. pp. 352, 353), "of red silk, with a white space in the centre, on which some weeks afterwards the celebrated motto, "Tandem triumphans' [triumphant at length], was inscribed." The colours of the English and Scotch adherents of the House of Stuart in 1715, the white and red cockade of Derwentwater and Foster, and the white and blue of Mackintosh of Borlaw, alluded in the first instance most likely to the red cross of St. George in the old English flag; and the blue in the Scotch to the blue blanket of the associated trades of the city of Edinburgh, under which they fought at Flodden. I will conclude with another subject connected with the House of Stuart. In a sale of autographs of the Stuarts, which has just taken place in London at Messrs. Puttick & Simpson's, an account of which is given in the Manchester Examiner and the Times of April 21, mention is made of Cardinal York; and it is said, "who once coined a little money (now very scarce) as Henry the Ninth of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, D. F." Will some one of your Roman correspondents mention what the design of this money was, when coined, and if it was in all the metals. EBOR.

SALMON AND APPRENTICES (3rd S. viii. 107, 174; 4th S. i. 321.)-I remember the following some years ago in Dublin. Calling on a friend one day in Lent, he asked me to remain and dine, as the dinner was just set on the table. He was in an extensive way of business, and boarded three of his assistants, fine gentlemanly-looking young men. It was a day on which flesh meat was prohibited by the Catholic Church, and the only dish on the table was a fine salmon. The young men, on taking their places at the table, looked at each other, and one of them taking up a decanter of wine filled out a glass for each, which having drunk, they then rose and walked out of the room, observing to the gentleman-"No, thank you, sir; we have had

salmon once this week before for dinner." My friend then told me that these young men had previously objected to salmon more than once a week, but never to cod or any other fish, although salmon at the time was at least four times dearer. The young men were not apprentices. S. REDMOND.

Liverpool.

about the year 1801, &c., I perfectly remember During my residence in the south of Ireland, that the salmon and hake were in great plenty; and a current idea prevailed, although I never heard it positively asserted, that maid-servants, when about to be hired, generally stipulated that they should not be obliged to eat salmon more than twice a week. This may or may not have been the case, but I mention it here to show that the idea was prevalent even at the commencement of the century. A. C. M.

"THE LIVERPOOL PRIVATEERS" (4th S. i. 413.) I well remember a song, which is probably the one inquired after by MR. P. M. TAYLOR, though I never heard it under the above title. I first heard it more than sixty years ago, and I think it had then recently appeared. Like most other songs, it was sung with "variations"; and my version will perhaps not appear satisfactory; but I give it as I learned, and have often joined in singing it, with all its imperfections:

·

"On the twenty-first of January at Liverpool we lay, When to our hearts our orders came down, our anchors for to weigh.

A cruise, a cruise, my jolly lads, to meet the daring foe; A cruise, a cruise, my jolly lads, for orders they run so. "We had not sailed for many a league, before we chanced to spy

A lofty ship all in full sail, come rattling down so nigh. Are you a privateer Sir, or pray what may you be?' 'I am a man-of-war, Sir, and that you soon shall see.' "The first broadside we gave them, we made them for to wonder,

Their topmast mast and shivering sails came rattling down like thunder.

And now our prize is taken, to Liverpool we're bound, And when we're in our harbour, we'll fire our guns all round."

F. C. H. LATTEN (4th S. i. 20, 424.)-Notwithstanding the quotations pseudo-explanatory of this word, and the authority of Nares to boot, I would fain suggest that it neither means brass, nor tin, nor brass tinned, but a mixed metal in which both or either might form component parts. I have seen teaspoons, toddy-tams (alias punch-ladles), and other similar articles of such composition, in many old Scotch families, and which were of considerable antiquity. As substitutes for, and improvements on, horn, bone, and wood, they were no doubt very genteel; and I may add that some of the patterns bespoke the best days for such work,