66 SIR JOHN LADE: MR. B-CK AND "BLACK D—" (11 S. x. 269, 316, 357, 394, 472). In confirmation of what MR. BLEACKLEY writes at the last reference I may mention that in The Jockey Club,' part i., tenth edition, 1792, in the article on Black D-'"D" becomes " D-s," pp. 79, 82; and that in 'The Female Jockey Club,' fourth edition, 1794, he appears as B-lly D-v-s," p. 44. The latter reference is in the article on 'L-dy L-de." 66 ROBERT PIERPOINT. BARRING-OUT (11 S. viii. 370, 417, 473, 515; ix. 55; x. 258).-To the references already given should be added Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets,' the Life of Addison, second and third paragraphs. According to a story told to Johnson when he was a boy, Addison planned and conducted a barring-out at the school, in which he was a pupil, at Lichfield. ROBERT PIERPOINT. there just after the Papal Palace had got rid of its troops, there billeted, and, after the troops, of the flower show-like the palmerworm after the caterpillar. Next to Avignon, for wanton damage done by the French to things French, I found the Abbey of Fontévrault, where lie our Angevin sovereigns in dust and dirt and the discomfortable surroundings of a prisoners' mass perfunctorily performed. H. H. JOHNSON. 68, Abbey Road, Torquay. DREAMS AND LITERATURE (11 S. x. 447, 512).-A remarkable dream, in which a tune was composed and the last line of the words sung to the tune, is recorded in the 'Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (Rev. C. L. Dodgson),’ by S. D. Collingwood, p. 221 :— "I found myself seated, with many others, in darkness, in a large amphitheatre. Deep stillness prevailed. A kind of hushed expectanoy was upon us. We sat awaiting I know not what. Before us hung a vast and dark curtain, and between it and us was a kind of stage. Suddenly "WIDDICOTE"=SKY (1 S. ii. 512; x. 173). of some of the heroes of past days. I cannot say an intense wish seized me to look upon the forms -At the first reference R. J. K. quotes the whom in particular I longed to behold, but even as Devonshire expression, Widdecombe folks I wished, a faint light flickered over the stage, and [volks] are picking their geese,' and is I was aware of a silent procession of figures moving corrected by H. T. RILEY (at the second from right to left across the platform in front of me. As each figure approached the left-hand reference), remarking that here Widdecorner it turned and gazed at me, and I knew (by combe is no place-name, but should read what means I cannot say) its name. One only "Widdicote" (variants being "Waddicote "I recall Saint George; the light shone with a and over cote "), as in the nursery riddle, to which the orthodox answer is " sky.' That H. T. RILEY is right is shown in John Trevena's 'Furze the Cruel' (popular edition, 1913), p. 80: "The sky, or widdicote,' as Mary might have called it, was red and lowering." 66 66 66 After fixing the orthography, one may grope after the etymology. I suggest wybren, Welsh for "firmament," the last syllable (bren) being punningly written cote (coed), as each of these monosyllables means wood, timber," and as coat is the modern Breton form, and was doubtless the Cornish and Devonian form. The whole word, wybren, had originally the -dd- preserved in the children's and peasants' widdicote," but pronounced as -th- (soft). (There is a further pun in "overcote.") Possibly some of your readers who were interested in the fifties may still feel drawn to illustrate this word. 66 H. H. JOHNSON. peculiar blueish lustre on his shield and helmet as he turned and slowly faced me. The figures were shadowy, and floated like mist before me; as each one disappeared an invisible choir behind the curtain sang the Dream Music.' I awoke with the melody ringing in my ears, and the words of the last line complete, I see the shadows falling, and slowly pass away.' The rest I could not recall.' The musical score of the tune dreamed, and some verses incorporating the last line in the dream, are produced in the book. HUGH SADLER. ROUPELL AND THACKERAY (11 S. x. 427). -I think the reference required is in 'The Roundabout Papers,' in the one entitled On a Pear-Tree.' Thackeray there mentions "Rupilius," who was M.P. for Lambeth, and who was convicted of some crime. DIEGO. "EPHESIANS": A SHAKESPEARIAN TERM (11 S. x. 450, 497).— Ephesians......of the old church. FRESCOES AT AVIGNON (11 S. x. 250).—I think some other authority besides Dr. Mr. Richard Le Gallienne did not find frescoes in the ville sonnante because they are still covered with whitewash. So, at least, I was assured in the great church when Brewer is necessary before connecting feeze (N.E.D.') with the Shakespearian word Ephesians. Nares makes this comment : 'Why they were called Ephesians is not 66 clear; and it would be in vain to conjecture Spruce is quite a literary word, being used the origin of so idle and familiar an expres- by Shakespeare. It probably meant at first sion." dressed in Prussian leather," which was famous long before the Russian product. OLD SARUM. 66 99 66 I suspect that as Corinthians," meaning "boon companions, roysterers," is used in 1 Henry IV.,' II. iv., Shakespeare, remembering the closely connected names of the people of the New Testament, employed Ephesians in the same sense by way of variation. Hence the description "of the old church." The Page really means "roy-Chicago, Illinois, 1910, p. 131). sterers of the old sort." TOM JONES. ELKANAH SETTLE (11 S. x. 348, 395).— "Now, my spruce companions, is all ready, and all things neat?"-Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew,' IV. i. 116. Against thou goest, curle not thy head and haire, Beaumont, Remedie of Love.' A spruce young spark of a learned clerk. Barham, 'Ingoldsby Legends,' i. 227. “Salmacis would not be seen of Hermaphroditus, till she had spruced up, herself first."-Burton, 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' 335. Beware of men who are too sprucely dressed: Thou wilt not leave me in the middle street "He is so spruce that he can never be genteel." -'Tatler.' ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.R.S.L. Shakespeare has various examples of this term. In 'Love's Labour's Lost,' V. i. 14, Holofernes says of Sir Nathaniel's companion of the King's," "He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it." In the same play, V. ii. 408, Berowne, in his elaborate protestation, pronounces inter alia against the use of " spruce affectation." Grumio, in 'The Taming of the Shrew,' IV. i. 116, addresses his associates as my spruce companions." In ' Comus,' l. 985, Milton has the spruce and jocund Spring.' Once or twice in his songs Burns uses the word in the form "sprush. In one occurs "Cock up your beaver, and cock it fu' sprush while in another, entitled 'The Tither Morn,' a damsel says of her lover :: 66 66 His bonnet he, a thought ajee, ; "No sufficient evidence has been found to determine Settle's authorship or connexion with Threnodia Hymenea" (F. C. Brown, Elkanah Settle: his Life and Works,' University of Chicago Press, A foot-note reads: "No reference to it except in the 'Sales CataSettle, and add, bought by Maggs for 78., June 28, logues' (Sotheby), which attribute the work to 1906. Messrs. Maggs Brothers' records give no additional information." DANIEL HIPWELL. 66 CLOCKS AND CLOCKMAKERS (11 S. x. 130, 310, 354, 458, 499). In response to ST. SWITHIN, the following information as to Act of Parliament clocks is gathered from the works mentioned at the penultimate reference. The name given to these longwaisted, circular, or octagonal-dialed clocks (37 Geo. III., c. 108, royal assent 19 July) arose from the tax imposed by Pitt in 1797 of 5s. per annum upon clocks and watches. The Act provided : · or "For and upon every Clock or Timekeeper, by whatever name the same shall be called, which shall be used for the purpose of a clock and placed in or upon any dwelling house, or any office or building thereunto belonging, any other Building whatever, whether private or publick, belonging to any person or persons, or Company of Persons, or any Body Corporate, or Politick, or Collegiate, or which shall be kept and used, by any Person or Persons in Great Britain, there shall be charged an Annual Duty of Five Shillings. For and upon every Gold Watch......there shall be charged an Annual Duty of Ten Shillings. And for and upon every Silver or Metal Watch, or Silver or Metal Timekeeper used for the purpose of a Watch....there shall be charged an Annual Duty of Two Shillings and Sixpence." The imposition of this tax created so much disturbance in the trade that it was found expedient to repeal the obnoxious Act, and within a year this was done (38 Geo. III., c. 40, royal assent 10 May, 1798). Meanwhile it had become the custom for keepers of inns and taverns to provide large clocks in their public rooms for the benefit of customers who had disposed of their watches to escape the duty, and these became known by the title given above, continuing to be so called long after the repeal of the Act. Cescinsky and Webster state that these clocks are very similar in form to each other, having "circular or octagonal dials, without FARTHING VICTORIAN STAMPS (11 S. x. 489). I would suggest that MR. CECIL OWEN's memory is at fault in this matter, and that the stamps which he used to buy "in the eighties were the first issue of the halfpenny variety. I remember these very well as being half the size of the ordinary penny stamp, and as being primarily intended for the postage of newspapers, the rate on which had recently been reduced to one halfpenny. The issue of these small and inconveniently sized stamps soon came to an end. WM. H. PEET. [L. L. K. thanked for reply.] SCHAW OF SAUCHIE (11 S. x. 488).—If MR. W. D. KER will turn up Nisbet's Heraldry,' vol. i. p. 422 (edition 1816), he will see the pedigree of this family set forth till it merged into that of Sir John Shaw of Greenock. This line also merged by marriage into that of Stewart of Blackhall, whereof the present representative is Sir Hugh Shaw Stewart of Greenock and Blackhall, eighth baronet. HERBERT MAXWELL. MOURNING LETTER-PAPER AND BLACKBORDERED TITLE-PAGES (4 S. iv. 390; 11 S. x. 371, 412, 454, 496).-I can cite a much earlier example of the use of printed black borders in memorial pamphlets than any of those already quoted. This is a funeral elegy upon the death of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales and son of James I. The title as given below is in white characters on a black ground, and the verso of each of the sixteen leaves bears a cut of the Royal arms (in the case of the last leaf a cut of the arms of the Prince of Wales) on similar black ground. The text is printed on the recto of the leaves, and at the head and foot of each page of text are broad black bands measuring about 1 in. and in. respectively, with cuts of skeletons at each side as supporters:— а Lachrimarvm | or [Royal arms] Lachrimæ The Distillation of Teares | Shede | For the vntymely Death of | The incomparable Prince Panaretvs [i.e., Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales]. by Ioshua Syluester. | (The | Princes Epitaph. | Written By His Highn. | seruant, Lownes. | 1612.-4to, ff. [16]. tion is taken, and a copy of a third edition pages which, though not a funeral sermon January; For the Horrid, Barbarous, and Never The following sentence is placed textwise "To Murder Charles the Martyr is a Crime not to be named without Horrour, nor thought on without a Tear." W. B. H. 389, 494).-Apropos of this discussion, and "MAGNA EST VERITAS ET (?)" (11 S. x. to the effective ditrochæus of "prævalebit," more especially of PROF. BENSLY'S note as Mansel, Dean of St. Paul's, many years ago recall a story which I heard told by Dr. in Oxford, when he was Fellow of St. John's. It was at one of the early meetings of the Canning Club, and some reference had been made to the adage in question. Mansel recalled how, at a meeting of town councillors (I think) in some provincial town, one of them had wound up and enforced his remarks with "Magna est veritas et prævalebit." The next speaker was not to be outdone, and expressed his hope that Veritas would not only "prevail a bit," but prevail always and altogether. S. R. C. Precincts, Canterbury. THE PRINCESS AND THE CRUMPLED ROSELEAF (11 S. x. 489).—EMERITUS is confusing the gibe against the Sybarites, who were so luxurious that a crumpled rose-leaf in heir couches disturbed their rest, with the story of a maiden in the pleasant land of fairy-tale who proved herself to be a proper princess by being painfully conscious of a parched pea which had been put in her bed under down coverings, to test her royal sensitive. twenty mattresses and twenty-four eiderness. The tale is told by Hans Christian Andersen. ST. SWITHIN. 66 "BORSTAL" (11 S. x. 488; xi. 13).—The 'E.D.D.,' s.v. 'Borstal,' says the O.E. name was Borh steall, and refers to Earle's 'Charters' (Glossary). The meaning is a pathway up a steep hill." Borstal, near Rochester, owes its name evidently to its situation at the foot of the 'borstal' leading up to the downs.' The 'N.E.D.,' 8.v. Borstall,' states "? from O.E. beorh, a hill + O.E. stigel. But the explanation 'seat on the side or pitch of a hill,' given by Bishop Kennett (see Halliwell), suggests beorh-steall." The quotations give the word the same meaning as in the 'E.D.D.' I have not succeeded in finding Bishop Kennett's explanation in his Parochial Antiquities of Ambrosden,' &c., but at vol. i. p. 70 he gives the derivation as follows:— "It is to this prince [Edward the Confessor] and to his diversion at this seat [Brill, co. Bucks] that we must ascribe the traditional story of the family of Nigel, and the manor of Borstall on the edge of the said forest [of Bernwood]. Most part of the tradition is confirmed by good authority, and runs to this effect. The forest of Bernwood was much infested by a wild boar, which was at last slain by one Nigel a huntsman, who presented the boar's head to the King, and for a reward the King gave to him one hide of arable land called Derehyde, and a wood called Hulewode, with the custody of the forest of Bernwood to hold to him and his heirs from the King, &c. &c. Upon this ground the said Nigel built a lodge or mansion house called Borestalle, in memory of the slain boar." Unfortunately for this etymology, the O.E. word for boar was erfor, which still survives in the place-names of Eversley, Evercreech, Evershot, &c., and the local name "everfern," given to Polypodium vulgare and to Osmunda regalis. "Dans toutes ces applications, on retrouve toujours le même principe général résumé par Daniel Becker (1662): "La belle et divine harmonie qui se trouve entre les parties, par laquelle un membre est propre à soulager le même membre et les mêmes parties, prouve combien il est évident et certain qu'on peut tirer de très grands remèdes du corps humain, les choses semblables étant conservées par leurs semblables.'" ROCKINGHAM. Boston, Mass. AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED: "OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY" (11 S. x. 468, 515; xi. 17).—If my recollection of school-days sixty years ago is reliable, the last two lines of the verse quoted by C. C. B. at the second reference ran : And th' only tune that I could play Was "Nix my dolly, pals, fake away." The mystic words were regarded with so much suspicion at home that, by parental emendation," Over the hills and far away was substituted. 66 A. T. W. 66 to He "FORWHY" (11 S. x. 509).—The REV. J. B. MCGOVERN's memory must have played him false for a moment; it can scarcely be the fact that this expression is new him, since it occurs twice (with a note of interrogation) in the Prayer Book version of the Psalms (see Psalms xvi. and cv.), and is fairly common in old writers. Kethe's version of the hundredth Psalm. be familiar with it in must, too, surely For why, the Lord our God is good." Frequently it does not require the note of inthe interrogative use seems, according to the terrogation, meaning simply “because "; but 'N.E.D.,' to be earlier, and it is as an interrogative, direct or indirect, that I am most familiar with it in the dialects of the Midland Counties. There are several capital instances of its use in Aldis Wright's Bible Word Book,' including one from Shakespeare. The one that first struck me, in HUMAN FAT AS A MEDICINE (11 S. ix. 70, print, some sixty years ago, occurred, if I 115, 157, 195, 316; x. 176, 234).--This is remember rightly, in a specimen of "bouts in 'Supplément d' Esculape,' Paris, Novem-rimés" in Chambers's Journal:bre, 1911, I. xx: The parish of Boarstall in N. Bucks lies at the foot of a steep hill, and so the derivation given in E.D.D.' applies equally well to it as to Borstal, near Rochester. C. W. FIREBRACE. L'Opothérapie sous le Grand Roi.-On employait aussi la graisse humaine. L'apothicaire Pierre Ponet vante ses produits en ces termes :"Nous vendons de l'axonge humaine que nous faisons venir de divers endroits; mais comme chacun sait qu'à Paris le maître des hautesœuvres en vend à ceux qui en ont besoin, c'est le sujet pour lequel les droguistes et apothicaires n'en vendent que très peu. Néanmoins, celle que nous pourrions vendre ayant été préparée avec des herbes aromatiques, serait, sans comparaison, meilleure que celle qui sort des mains de l'exé outeur.... I sits with my toes in a brook, And 'tis sentiment kills 'em, says I. REV. J. B. MCGOVERN, for it must very often The expression can hardly be new to the have been upon his lips in singing the fourth verse of the Old Hundredth." I would maintain that Freeman is right in using the word, however hybrid or ugly, as equivalent to "because"; and that the usual rendering of the hymn-books, "For why?" is an error. May it not be that the word was a recognized one when Kethe wrote the hymn in the sixteenth century? In at least one hymn collection (the Marlborough School one, I think) I have come across the line given, as I venture to contend, correctly: "Forwhy the Lord," &c. a Precincts, Canterbury. S. R. C. Catálogo de los retratos de personajes españoles que se conservan en la Seccion dee las Estampas y de Bellas Artes de la Biblioteca Nacional' (supplement to the Revista de Archivos), 1901; Catálogo de la Exposición nacional de retratos,' Madrid, 1902 Catálogo ilustrado. Exposición de retratos,' &c., Barcelon a, 1910. A. V. D. P. ow" (11 S. x. and THE PRONUNCIATION OF 66 455, 516).—It may be worthy of record that in Ulster, where old pronunciations linger long, the word "cucumber was always [HARMATOPEGOs thanked for reply.] said like "cuckoo," and that Sarah Gamp's vulgarism was quite incomprehensible to us SHAKESPEARE MYSTERY (11 S. x. 509).—in our childhood, some sixty years since. Is your correspondent ST. SWITHIN thinking In that picturesque province many words of the Chepstow comedy of a year or two are said in the fashion now being reintroago? An enthusiastic Baconian from the duced in England, somewhat to the dismay United States, in the person of Dr. Orville of those Ulster folks who carefully unlearnt Owen, arrived at Chepstow one day, an- their own ways of saying 66 detail nounced his inspiration that the Baconian many other words. Old poetry is a good "secret" would shortly be revealed, hired guide to many of these variants, yet spoken gang of navvies, and commenced to by living lips, so as to make the rimes of dredge the bed of the River Wye, near Pope ring true in co. Antrim, which are Chepstow Castle. After weeks of work and hopelessly incorrect in England. expense they found the buttress of an old bridge, and joyfully demolished it in the hope of discovering the supposed hidden casket and documents. Meeting with no success, the American quietly departed. Some few months later it was announced in the papers that a Chepstow sweep had discovered the missing clues in a cave, and required 1,000l. reward before he would reveal the locality. This public statement is said to have caused Dr. Owen to journey once more across the Atlantic in hot haste, but an ominous silence followed this thrilling news, and we still await the much-promised "revelations." WM. JAGGARD. Rose Bank, Stratford-on-Avon. DE TASSIS, THE SPANISH AMBASSADOR TEMP. JAMES I. (11 S. x. 488; xi. 14).Don Juan de Tassis, first Count of Villamediana, was buried in the monastery of San Agustin of Valladolid, according to Chifflet (Les marques d'honneur de la maison de Tassis,' 1645, p. 204); in the capilla mayor of the same, according to Quadrado ('Valladolid, Palencia y Zamora,' 1885, p. 79). From the latter work it would appear that San Agustin was stripped of its works of art in the War of Independence; and Martí y Monsó's Estudios historico-artisticos,' relating principally to Valladolid, fails either to mention or to illustrate the sepulchre (1898-1901). No portrait of this Tassis is mentioned in any of the following works: A. M. de Barcia, Is it worth adding, in reference to the name of "Cowper," that the writer had the honour of knowing the beautiful Lady Cowper-Temple, who used gently and tactfully to correct those who made her name to rime with brow or how? 66 As regards due," the Somerset folksongs give the word as doo. See the wail of the Farmer of Old Times when his rector arrives for the tithe pig-" as is my doo." Y. T PAVLOVA (11 S. x. 507).-This is a surname, the masculine form being Pavlov, derived from Pavl (Paul). John and Anne, son and daughter of Paul, in Russian usage would be Ivan Pavlovitch and Anna Pav. lovna. Pavlov and Pavlova are adjectival forms, and imply belonging to Paul. original Pavl of Madame Pavlova's family may be somewhat remote. The FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. ROBERT CATESBY, JUN., SON OF THE CONSPIRATOR (11 S. x. 508).-He was the only surviving son, and he died without male issue in the first year of Charles I. He had an only sister, Ann, married to Sir Henry Browne, and their daughter and heir, Margaret, in her minority was married to T. P. (Who is he?) So I learn from counsel's opinion, taken about 1640, with regard to an estate that had belonged to the Catesbies. As to the portrait alluded to, which, with the owner's leave, I have had reproduced |