Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850

"For NATURE then has time to work her way;And doing nothing often has prevailed,When ten physicians have prescribed, and failed."

The notice in your last Number respecting the cure of hooping-cough, is a capital example of what has just been stated; and I doubt not but many of your correspondents could supply numerous prescriptions equally scientific and equally effective. On a future occasion, I will myself furnish you with some; but as I have already trespassed so far on your space, I will conclude by naming a few diseases in which the charmers may be expected to charm most wisely and well. They will all be found to come within the category of the diseases characterised above:—Epilepsy, St. Vitus's Dance (Chorea), Hysteria, Toothache, Warts, Ague, Mild Skin-diseases, Tic Douloureux, Jaundice, Asthma, Bleeding from the Nose, St. Anthony's Fire or The Rose (Erysipelas), King's Evil (Scrofula), Mumps, Rheutmatic Pains, &c., &c.

EMDEE.

April 25. 1850.

Roasted Mouse.—I have often heard my father say, that when he had the measles, his nurse gave him a roasted mouse to cure him.

SCOTUS.

THE ANGLO-SAXON WORD "UNLAED."

A long etymological disquisition may seem a trifling matter; but what a clear insight into historic truth, into the manners, the customs, and the possessions of people of former ages, is sometimes obtained by the accurate definition of even a single word. A pertinent instance will be found in the true etymon of Brytenwealda, given by Mr. Kemble in his chapter "On the Growth of the kingly Power." (Saxons in Engl. B. II. c. 1.) Upon this consideration I must rest for this somewhat lengthy investigation.

The word UNLAED, as far as we at present know, occurs only five times in Anglo-Saxon; three of which are in the legend of Andreas in the Vercelli MS., which legend was first printed, under the auspices of the Record Commission, by Mr. Thorpe; but the Report to which the poetry of the Vercelli MS. was attached has, for reasons with which I am unacquainted, never been made public. In 1840, James Grimm, "feeling (as Mr. Kemble says) that this was a wrong done to the world of letters at large," published it at Cassell, together with the Legend of Elene, or the Finding of the Cross, with an Introduction and very copious notes. In 1844, it was printed for the Aelfric Society by Mr. Kemble, accompanied by a translation, in which the passages are thus given.—

"Such was the people'speaceless token,the suffering of the wretched."l. 57-9."When they of savage spiritsbelieved in the might,"l. 283-4."Ye are rude,of poor thoughts."

The fifth instance of the occurrence of the word is in a passage cited by Wanley, Catal. p. 134., from a homily occurring in a MS. in Corpus Christi College, s. 14.:—

"Men ða leoçes can hep re3þ se hal3a se[~s] Io[~hs] þaep re Hael. eode ofen þone bupnan the Ledpoc hatte, on in[=e]n aenne p[.y]ptun. Tha piste se unlaesde iudas se þe hune to deaþe beleaped haefde."

In Grimm's Elucidations to Andreas he thus notices it:—

"Unlaed, miser, improbus, infelix. (A. 142. 744. Judith, 134, 43.). A rare adjective never occurring in Beowulf, Coedmon, or the Cod. Exon., and belonging to those which only appear in conjunction with un. Thus, also, the Goth. unleds, pauper, miser; and the O.H.G. unlât (Graff, 2. 166.); we nowhere find a lêds, laed, lât, as an antithesis. It must have signified dives, felix; and its root is wholly obscure."

In all the Anglo-Saxon examples of unlaed, the sense appears to be wretched, miserable; in the Gothic it is uniformly poor1: but poverty and wretchedness are nearly allied. Lêd, or laed, would evidently therefore signify rich, and by inference happy. Now we have abundant examples of the use of the word ledes in old English; not only for people, but for riches, goods, movable property. Lond and lede, or ledes, or lith, frequently occur unequivocally in this latter sense, thus:—

"He was the first of Inglond that gaf God his titheOf isshue of bestes, of londes, or of lithe."P. Plouhm."I bed hem bothe lond and lede,To have his douhter in worthlie wede,And spouse here with my ring." K. of Tars, 124."For to have lond or lede,Or other riches, so God me spede!Yt ys to muche for me." Sir Cleges, 409."Who schall us now geve londes or lythe,Hawkys, or houndes, or stedys stithe,As he was wont to do." Le B. Florence of Rome, 841."No asked he lond or lithe,Bot that maiden bright."Sir Tristrem, xlviii.

In "William and the Werwolf" the cowherd and his wife resolve to leave William

"Al here godisLondes and ludes as ether after her lif dawes."p. 4

In this poem, ludes and ledes are used indiscriminately, but most frequently in the sense of men, people. Sir Frederick Madden has shown, from the equivalent words in the French original of Robert of Brunne, "that he always uses the word in the meaning of possessions, whether consisting of tenements, rents, fees, &c.;" in short, wealth.

If, therefore, the word has this sense in old English, we might expect to find it in Anglo-Saxon, and I think it is quite clear that we have it at least in one instance. In the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, vol. i. p. 184., an oath is given, in which the following passage occurs:

"Do spa to lanebeo þé he þinumI leat me be minumne 3ypne le þinesne laedes ne landesne sac ne socnene þu mines ne þeapstne mint ic þe nan þio3."

Mr. Thorpe has not translated the word, nor is it noticed in his Glossary; but I think there can be no doubt that it should be rendered by goods, chattels, or wealth, i.e., movable property.

This will be even more obvious from an extract given by Bishop Nicholson, in the preface to Wilkin's Leges Saxonicæ p. vii. It is part of the oath of a Scotish baron of much later date, and the sense here is unequivocal:—

"I becom zour man my liege king in land, lith2, life and lim, warldly honour, homage, fealty, and leawty, against all that live and die."

Numerous examples are to be found in the M.H. German, of which I will cite a few:

"Ir habt doch zu iuwere hantBeidin liute unde lant." Tristr. 13934."Und bevelhet ir liute unde lant." Iwein. 2889."Ich teile ir liute unde lant." Id. 7714.

And in the old translation of the Liber Dialogorum of St. Gregory, printed in the cloister of S. Ulrich at Augspurg in 1473:—

"In der Statt waren hoch Türen und schöne Heüser von Silber und Gold, und aller Hand leüt, und die Frawen und Man naÿgten im alle."

Lastly, Jo. Morsheim in his Untreuer Frawen:—

"Das was mein Herr gar gerne hört,Und ob es Leut und Land bethort."

Now, when we recollect the state of the people in those times, the serf-like vassalage, the Hörigkeit or Leibeigenthum, which prevailed, we cannot be surprised that a word which signified possessions should designate also the people. It must still, however, be quite uncertain which is the secondary sense.

The root of the word, as Grimm justly remarks, is very obscure; and yet it seems to me that he himself has indirectly pointed it out:—

"Goth. liudan3 (crescere); O.H.G. liotan (sometimes unorganic, hliotan); O.H.G. liut (populus); A.-S. lëóð; O.N. lióð: Goth. lauths -is (homo), ju33alauths -dis (adolescens); O.H.G. sumar -lota (virgulta palmitis, i.e. qui una æstate creverunt, Gl. Rhb. 926'b, Jun. 242.); M.H.G. corrupted into sumer -late (M.S. i. 124'b. 2. 161'a. virga herba). It is doubtful whether ludja (facies), O.H.G. andlutti, is to be reckoned among them."—Deutsche Gram. ii. 21. For this last see Diefenbach, Vergl. Gram. der Goth. Spr. i. 242.

In his Erlauterungen zu Elene, p. 166., Grimm further remarks:—

"The verb is leoðan, leað, luðon (crescere), O.S. lioðan, lôð, luðun. Leluðon (Cædm. 93. 28.) is creverunt, pullulant; and 3eloðen (ap. Hickes, p. 135. note) onustus, but rather cretus. Elene, 1227. 3eloðen unðep leápum (cretus sub foliis)."

It has been surmised that LEDE was connected with the O.N. hlÿt4—which not only signified sors, portio, but res consistentia—and the A.-S. hlet, hlyt, lot, portion, inheritance: thus, in the A.-S. Psal. xxx. 18., on hanðum ðinum hlÿt mín, my heritage is in thy hands. Notker's version is: Mín lôz ist in dínen handen. I have since found that Kindlinger (Geschichte der Deutchen Hörigkeit) has made an attempt to derive it from Lied, Lit, which in Dutch, Flemish, and Low German, still signify a limb; I think, unsuccessfully.

Ray, in his Gloss. Northanymbr., has "unlead, nomen opprobrii;" but he gives a false derivation: Grose, in his Provincial Glossary, "unleed or unlead, a general name for any crawling venomous creature, as a toad, &c. It is sometimes ascribed to a man, and then it denotes a sly wicked fellow, that in a manner creeps to do mischief. See Mr. Nicholson's Catalogue."

In the 2d edition of Mr. Brockett's Glossary, we have: "Unletes, displacers or destroyers of the farmer's produce."

This provincial preservation of a word of such rare occurrence in Anglo-Saxon, and of which no example has yet been found in old English, is a remarkable circumstance. The word has evidently signified, like the Gothic, in the first place poor; then wretched, miserable; and hence, perhaps, its opprobrious sense of mischievous or wicked.

"In those rude times when wealth or movable property consisted almost entirely of living money, in which debts were contracted and paid, and for which land was given in mortgage or sold; it is quite certain that the serfs were transferred with the land, the lord considering them as so much live-stock, or part of his chattels."

A vestige of this feeling with regard to dependants remains in the use of the word Man (which formerly had the same sense as lede). We still speak of "a general and his men," and use the expression "our men." But, happily for the masses of mankind, few vestiges of serfdom and slavery, and those in a mitigated form, now virtually exist.

S.W. SINGER.

April 16. 1850.

BP. COSIN'S MSS.—INDEX TO BAKER'S MSS

Your correspondent "J. SANSOM" (No. 19. p. 303.) may perhaps find some unpublished remains of Bp. Cosin in Baker's MSS.; from the excellent index to which (Cambridge, 1848, p. 57.) I transcribe the following notices, premising that of the volumes of the MSS. the first twenty-three are in the British Museum, and the remainder in the University Library, (not, as Mr. Carlyle says in a note in, I think, the 3d vol. of his Letters. &c. of Cromwell in the library of Trin. Coll.).

"Cosin, Bp.– Notes of, in his Common Prayer, edit. 1636, xx. 175. Benefactions to See of Durham, xxx. 377-380. Conference with Abp. of Trebisond, xx. 178. Diary in Paris, 1651, xxxvi. 329. Intended donation for a Senate-House, xxx. 454. Letters to Peter Gunning, principally concerning the authority of the Apocrypha, vi. 174-180. 230-238. Manual of Devotion, xxxvi. 338."

As the editors of the Index to Baker's MSS. invite corrections from those who use the MSS., you will perhaps be willing to print the following additions and corrections, which may be of use in case a new edition of the Index should be required:—

Preface, p. vii. add, in Thoresby Correspondence, one or two of Baker's Letters have been printed, others have appeared in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes.

Index, p. 2. Altars, suppression of, in Ely Diocese, 1550, xxx. 213. Printed in the British Magazine, Oct. 1849, p. 401.

P. 5. Babraham, Hullier, Vicar of, burnt for heresy. Brit. Mag. Nov. 1849, p. 543.

P. 13. Bucer incepts as Dr. of Divinty, 1549, xxiv. 114. See Dr. Lamb's Documents from MSS. C.C.C.C. p. 153.

Appointed to lecture by Edw. VI., 1549, xxx. 370. See Dr. Lamb, p. 152.

Letter of University to Edw., recommending his family to care, x. 396. Dr. Lamb, p. 154.

P. 14. Buckingham, Dr. Eglisham's account of his poisoning James I., xxxii. 149-153. See Hurl. Misc.

Buckmaster's Letter concerning the King's Divorce, x. 243. This is printed in Burnet, vol. iii. lib. 1. collect. No. 16., from a copy sent by Baker, but more fully in Dr. Lamb, p. 23., and in Cooper's Annals.

P. 25. Renunciation of the Pope, 1535. See Ant. Harmer, Specimen, p. 163.

P. 51. Cowel, Dr., charge against, and defence of his Antisanderus. Brit. Mag. Aug. 1849, p. 184.

Cranmer, extract from C.C.C. MS. concerning. Brit. Mag. Aug. 1849, p. 169, seq.

Cranmer, life of, xxxi. 1-3. Brit. Mag. Aug. 1849, p. 165.

P. 57. Convocation, subscribers to the judgment of, xxxi. 9. British Magazine, Sept. 1849, p. 317.

P. 68. Ely, Altars, suppression of, 1550, xxx. 213. Brit. Mag. Oct. 1849, p. 401.

P. 77. Several of the papers relating to Bishop Fisher will be found in Dr. Hymers' edition of The Funeral Sermon on Lady Margaret.

P. 80. Gloucester, Abbey of, &c., a Poem by Malvern, v. 285-7. Brit. Mag. xxi. 377.; Caius Coll. MSS. No. 391. art 13.

Goodman, Declaration concerning the articles in his book. Strype's Annals, I. i. 184.

P. 89. Henry VII., Letter to Lady Margaret, xix. 262. See Dr. Hymers, as above, p. 160.

P. 91. Henry VIII., Letter to, giving an account of the death of Wyngfield, &c. See Sir H. Ellis, Ser. III. No. 134.

P. 94. Humphrey, Bishop, Account, &c., xxxv. 1-19. Rend xxvi. 1-19.

Humphrey, Bishop, Images and Relics, &c., xxx. 133-4. Brit. Mag. Sept. 1849, p. 300.

P. 121-2. Lady Margaret. Several of the articles relating to Lady Margaret have been printed by Dr. Hymers (ut sup.).

P. 137. Pole Card. Oratio Johannis Stoyks, &c., v. 310-312. Dr. Lamb, p. 177.

P. 143. Redman, Dr., Particulars of, xxxii. 495.—Brit. Mag. Oct. 1849, p. 402.

P. 151. Spelman's Proposition concerning the Saxon Lecture, &c. Sir H. Ellis Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camd. Soc. No. 59.

P. 169. Noy's Will, xxxvi. 375., read 379.

Many of the articles relating to Cambridge in the MSS. have been printed by Mr. Cooper in his Annals of Cambridge: some relating to Cromwell are to be found in Mr. Carlyle's work; and several, besides those which I have named, are contained in Dr. Lamb's Documents.

J.E.B. MAYOR.

Marlborough Coll., March 30.

ARABIC NUMERALS AND CIPHER

Will you suffer me to add some further remarks on the subject of the Arabic numerals and cipher; as neither the querists nor respondents seem to have duly appreciated the immense importance of the step taken by introducing the use of a cipher. I would commence with observing, that we know of no people tolerably advanced in civilisation, whose system of notation had made such little progress, beyond that of the mere savage, as the Romans. The rudest savages could make upright scratches on the face of a rock, and set them in a row, to signify units; and as the circumstance of having ten fingers has led the people of every nation to give a distinct name to the number ten and its multiples, the savage would have taken but a little step when he invented such a mode of expressing tens as crossing his scratches, thus X. His ideas, however, enlarge, and he makes three scratches, thus [C with square sides], to express 100. Generations of such vagabonds as founded Rome pass away, and at length some one discovers that, by using but half the figure for X, the number 5 may be conjectured to be meant. Another calculator follows up this discovery, and by employing [C with square sides], half the figure used for 100, he expresses 50. At length the rude man procured a better knife, with which he was enabled to give a more graceful form to his [C with square sides], by rounding it into C; then two such, turned different ways, with a distinguishing cut between them, made CD, to express a thousand; and as, by that time, the alphabet was introduced, they recognised the similarity of the form at which they had thus arrived to the first letter of Mille, and called it M, or 1000. The half of this DC was adopted by a ready analogy for 500. With that discovery the invention of the Romans stopped, though they had recourse to various awkward expedients for making these forms express somewhat higher numbers. On the other hand, the Hebrews seem to have been provided with an alphabet as soon as they were to constitute a nation; and they were taught to use the successive letters of that alphabet to express the first ten numerals. In this way b and c might denote 2 and 3 just as well as those figures; and numbers might thus be expressed by single letters to the end of the alphabet, but no further. They were taught, however, and the Greeks learnt from them, to use the letters which follow the ninth as indications of so many tens; and those which follow the eighteenth as indicative of hundreds. This process was exceedingly superior to the Roman; but at the end of the alphabet it required supplementary signs. In this way bdecba might have expressed 245321 as concisely as our figures; but if 320 were to be taken from this sum, the removal of the equivalent letters cb would leave bdea, or apparently no more than 2451. The invention of a cipher at once beautifully simplified the notation, and facilitated its indefinite extension. It was then no longer necessary to have one character for units and another for as many tens. The substitution of 00 for cb, so as to write bdeooa, kept the d in its place, and therefore still indicating 40,000. It was thus that 27, 207, and 270 were made distinguishable at once, without needing separate letters for tens and hundreds; and new signs to express millions and their multiples became unnecessary.

I have been induced to trespass on your columns with this extended notice of the difficulty which was never solved by either the Hebrews or Greeks, from understanding your correspondent "T.S.D." p. 367, to say that "the mode of obviating it would suggest itself at once." As to the original query,—whence came the invention of the cipher, which was felt to be so valuable as to be entitled to give its name to all the process of arithmetic?—"T.S.D." has given the querist his best clue in sending him to Mr. Strachey's Bija Ganita, and to Sir E. Colebrooke's Algebra of the Hindus, from the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta. Perhaps a few sentences may sufficiently point out where the difficulty lies. In the beginning of the sixth century, the celebrated Boethius described the present system as an invention of the Pythagoreans, meaning, probably, to express some indistinct notion of its coming from the east. The figures in MS. copies of Boethius are the same as our own for 1, 8, and 9; the same, but inverted, for 2 and 5; and are not without vestiges of resemblance in the remaining figures. In the ninth century we come to the Arabian Al Sephadi, and derive some information from him; but his figures have attracted most notice, because though nearly all of them are different from those found in Boethius, they are the same as occur in Planudes, a Greek monk of the fourteenth century, who says of his own units, "These nine characters are Indian," and adds, "they have a tenth character called [Greek: tziphra], which they express by an 0, and which denotes the absence of any number." The date of Boethius is obviously too early for the supposition of an Arabic origin; but it is doubted whether the figures are of his time, as the copyists of a work in MS. were wont to use the characters of their own age in letters, and might do so in the case of figures also.

H.W.

ROMAN NUMERALS

There are several points connected with the subject of numerals that are important in the history of practical arithmetic, to which neither scientific men nor antiquaries have paid much attention. Yet if the principal questions were brought in a definite form before the contributors to the "NOTES AND QUERIES," I feel quite sure that a not inconsiderable number of them will be able to contribute each his portion to the solution of what may till now be considered as almost a mystery. With your permission, I will propose a few queries relating to the subject,

1. When did the abacus, or the "tabel" referred to in my former letters, cease to be used as calculating instruments?

The last printed work in which the abacal practice was given for the purposes of tuition that I have been able to discover, is a 12mo. edition, by Andrew Mellis, of Dee's Robert Recorde, 1682.

2. When did the method of recording results in Roman numerals cease to be used in mercantile account-books? Do any ledgers or other account-books, of ancient dates, exist in the archives of the City Companies, or in the office of the City Chamberlain? If there do, these would go far towards settling the question.

3. When in the public offices of the Government? It is probable that criteria will be found in many of them, which are inaccessible to the public generally.

4. When in the household-books of royalty and nobility? This is a class of MSS. to which I have paid next to no attention; and, possibly, had the query been in my mind through life, many fragments tending towards the solution that have passed me unnoticed would have saved me from the necessity of troubling your correspondents. The latest that I remember to have particularly noticed is that of Charles I. in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; but I shall not be surprised to find that the system was continued down to George I., or later still. Conservatism is displayed in its perfection in the tenacious adherence of official underlings to established forms and venerable routine.

T.S.D.

Shooter's Hill, April 8.

[Our correspondent will find some curious notices of early dates of Arabic numerals, from the Rev. Edmund Venables, Rev. W. Gunner, and Mr. Ouvry, in the March number of the Archæological Journal, p. 75-76.; and the same number also contains, at p. 85., some very interesting remarks by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, illustrative of the subject, and instancing a warrant from Hugh le Despenseer to Bonefez de Peruche and his partners, merchants of a company, to pay forty pounds, dated Feb. 4, 19 Edward II., i.e. 1325, in which the date of the year is expressed in Roman numerals; and on the dorso, written by one of the Italian merchants to whom the warrant was addressed, the date of the payment, Feb. 1325. in Arabic numerals, of which Mr. Hunter exhibited a fac-simile at a meeting of the Institute.]

Arabic Numerals.—In the lists of works which treat of Arabic Numerals, the following have not been noticed, although they contain a review of what has been written on their introduction into this part of Europe:—Archæologia, vols. x. xiii.; Bibliotheca Literaria, Nos. 8. and 10., including Huetiana on this subject; and Morant's Colchester, b. iii. p. 28.

T.J.

ERROR IN HALLAM'S HISTORY OF LITERATURE

If Mr. Hallam's accuracy in parvis could be fairly judged by the following instance, and that given by your correspondent "CANTAB." (No. 4, p. 51.), I fear much could not be said for it. The following passage is from Mr. Hallam's account of Campanella and his disciple Adami. My reference is to the first edition of Mr. Hallam's work; but the passage stands unaltered in the second. I believe these to be rare instances of inaccuracy.

"Tobias Adami, … who dedicated to the philosophers of Germany his own Prodromus Philosophiæ Instauratio, prefixed to his edition of Campanella's Compendium de Rerum Naturæ, published at Frankfort in 1617. Most of the other writings of the master seem to have preceded this edition, for Adami enumerates them in his Prodromus."—Hist. of Literature, iii. 149.

The title is not Prodromus Philosophiæ Instauratio, which is not sense; but Prodromus Philosophiæ Instaurandæ (Forerunner of a philosophy to be constructed). This Prodromus is a treatise of Campanella's, not, as Mr. Hallam says, of Adami. Adami published the Prodromus for Campanella, who was in prison; and he wrote a preface, in which he gives a list of other writings of Campanella, which he proposes to publish afterwards. What Mr. Hallam calls an "edition," was the first publication.