Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850

The cover has "C.R." under a crown. What is the history of this volume. Is it scarce, or worth nothing?

A.C."Welcome the coming, speed the parting Guest?"

—Whence comes the sentence—

"Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest?"E.N.W.

Carpets and Room-paper.—Carpets were in Edward III.'s reign used in the palace. What is the exact date of their introduction? When did they come into general use, and when were rushes, &c., last used? Room-paper, when was it introduced?

JARLTZBERG.

Cotton of Finchley.—Can some one of your readers give me any particulars concerning the family of Cotton, which was settled at Finchley, Middlesex, about the middle of the sixteenth century?

C.F.

Wood Carving in Snow Hill.—Can any one explain the wood carving over the door of a house at the corner of Snow Hill and Skinner Street. It is worth rescuing from the ruin impending it.

A.C.

Walrond Family.—Can any of your readers inform me what was the maiden name of Grace, the wife of Col. Humphry Walrond, of Sea, in the county of Somerset, a distinguished loyalist, some time Lieutenant-Governor of Bridgewater, and Governor of the island of Barbadoes in 1660. She was living in 1635 and 1668. Also the names of his ten children, or, at all events, his three youngest. I have reason to believe the seven elder were George, Humphry, Henry, John, Thomas, Bridget, and Grace.

W. DOWNING BRUCE.

Translations.—What English translations have appeared of the famous Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum?

Has La Chiave del Gabinetto del Signor Borri (by Joseph Francis Borri, the Rosicrucian) ever been translated into English? I make the same Query as to Le Compte de Gabalis, which the Abbé de Rillan founded on Borri's work?

JARLTZBERG.

Bonny Dundee—Graham of Claverhouse.—Can any of your correspondents tell me the origin of the term "Bonny Dundee?" Does it refer to the fair and flourishing town at the mouth of the Tay, or to the remarkable John Graham of Claverhouse, who was created Viscount of Dundee, after the landing of the Prince of Orange in England, and whose person is admitted to have been eminently beautiful, whatever disputes may exist as to his character and conduct?

2. Can reference be made to the date of his birth, or, in other words, to his age when he was killed at Killycrankie, on the 27th of July, 1689. All the biographies which I have seem are silent upon the point.

W.L.M.

Franz von Sickingen.—Perusing a few of your back numbers, in a reply of S.W.S. to R.G. (Vol. i., p. 336.), I read:

"I had long sought for a representation of Sickingen, and at length found a medal represented in the Sylloge Numismatum Elegantiorum of Luckius," &c.

I now hope that in S.W.S. I have found the man who is to solve an obstinate doubt that has long possessed my mind: Is the figure of the knight in Durer's well-known print of "The Knight, Death, and the Devil," a portrait? If it be a portrait, is it a portrait of Franz von Sickingen, as Kugler supposes? The print is said to bear the date 1513. I have it, but have failed to discover any date at all.

H.J.H.

Sheffield.

Blackguard.—When did this word Come into use, and from what?

Beaumont and Fletcher, in the Elder Brother, use it thus:—

"It is a FaithThat we will die in, since from the blackguardTo the grim sir in office, there are fewHold other tenets."

Thomas Hobbes, in his Microcosmus, says,—

"Since my lady's decay I am degraded from a cook and I fear the devil himself will entertain me but for one of his blackguard, and he shall be sure to have his roast burnt."

JARLTZBERG.

Meaning of "Pension."—The following announcement appeared lately in the London newspapers:—

"GRAY'S INN.—At a Pension of the Hon. Society of Gray's Inn, holden this day, Henry Wm. Vincent, Esq., her Majesty's Remembrancer in the Court of Exchequer, was called to the degree of Barrister at Law."

I have inquired of one of the oldest benchers of Gray's Inn, now resident in the city from which I write, for an explanation of the origin or meaning of the phrase "pension," neither of which was he acquainted with; informing me at the same time that the Query had often been a subject discussed among the learned on the dais, but that no definite solution had been elicited.

Had the celebrated etymologist and antiquary, Mr. Ritson, formerly a member of the Society, been living, he might have solved the difficulty. But I have little doubt that there are many of the erudite, and, I am delighted to find, willing readers of your valuable publication who will be able to furnish a solution.

J.M.G.

Worcester.

Stars and Stripes of the American Arms.—What is the origin of the American arms, viz. stars and stripes?

JARLTZBERG.

Passages from Shakspeare.—May I beg for an interpretation of the two following passages from Shakspeare:—

"Isab. Else let my brother die,If not a feodary, but only he,Owe, and succeed thy weakness." Measure for Measure, Act ii. Sc. 4."Imogen. Some jay of Italy,Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him." Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 4.TREBOR.

King's College, London.

Nursery Rhyme.—What is the date of the nursery rhyme:—

"Come when you're called,Do what you're bid,Shut the door after you,Never be chid?"—Ed. 1754.

In Howell's Letters (book i. sect. v. letter 18. p. 211. ed. 1754) I find—

He will come when you call him, go when you bid him, and shut the door after him.

J.E.B. MAYOR.

"George" worn by Charles I.—I should be glad if any of your correspondents could give me information as to who is the present possessor of the "George" worn by Charles I. It was, I believe, in the possession of the late Marquis Wellesley, but since his death it has been lost sight of. Such a relic must be interesting to either antiquaries or royalists.

SPERANS.

Family of Manning of Norfolk.—Can any of your readers supply me with an extract from, or the name of a work on heraldry or genealogy, containing an account of the family of Manning of Norfolk. Such a work was seen by a relative of mine about fifty years since. It related that a Count Manning, of Manning in Saxony, having been banished from thence, became king in Friesland, and that his descendants came over to England, and settled in Kent and Norfolk. Pedigrees of the Kentish branch exist: but that of Norfolk was distinct. Guillim refers to some of the name in Friesland.

T.S. LAWRENCE.

Salingen a Sword Cutler.—A sword in my possession, with inlaid basket guard, perhaps of the early part of the seventeenth century, is inscribed on the blade "Salingen me fecit." If this is the name of a sword cutler, who was he, and when and where did he live?

T.S. LAWRENCE.

Billingsgate.—May I again solicit a reference to any early drawing of Belins gate? That of 1543 kindly referred by C.S. was already in my possession. I am also obliged to Vox for his Note.

W.W.

"Speak the Tongue that Shakspeare spoke."—Can you inform me of the author's name who says,—

"They speak the tongue that Shakspeare spoke,The faith and morals hold that Milton held," &c.?

and was it applied to the early settlers of New England?

X.

Genealogical Queries.—Can any of your genealogical readers oblige me with replies to the following Queries?

1. To what family do the following arms belong? They are given in Blomfield's Norfolk (ix. 413.) as impaled with the coat of William Donne, Esq., of Letheringsett, Norfolk, on his tomb in the church there. He died in 1684.

On a chevron engrailed, two lioncels rampant, between as many crescents.

Not having seen the stone, I cannot say whether Blomfield has blazoned it correctly; but it seems possible he may have meant to say,—

On a chevron engrailed, between two crescents, as many lioncels rampant.

2. Which Sir Philip Courtenay, of Powderham, was the father of Margaret Courtenay, who, in the fifteenth century, married Sir Robert Carey, Knt.? and who was her mother?

3. Where can I find a pedigree of the family of Robertson of Muirtown, said to be descended from John, second son of Alexander Robertson, of Strowan, by his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of John, Earl of Athol, brother of King James II.? which John is omitted in the pedigree of the Strowan family, in Burke's Landed Gentry.

C.R.M.

Parson, the Staffordshire Giant.—Harwood, in a note to his edition of Erdeswick's Staffordshire, p. 289., says,—

"This place [Westbromwich] gave birth to William Parsons, [query Walter,] the gigantic porter of King James I., whose picture was at Whitehall; and a bas-relief of him, with Jeffry Hudson the dwarf, was fixed in the front of a house near the end of a bagnio court, Newgate-street, probably as a sign."

Plot, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, gives some instances of the great strength of Parsons.

I shall feel much obliged if you or your readers will inform me, 1. Whether there is any mention of Parsons in contemporary, or other works? 2. Whether the portrait is in existence? if so, where? Has it been engraved?

C.H.B.

Westbromwich.

Unicorn in the Royal Arms.—When and why was the fabulous animal called the unicorn first used as a supporter for the royal arms of England?

E.C.

The Frog and the Crow of Ennow.—I should be glad to get an answer to the following Query from some one of your readers:—I remember some few old lines of a song I used to hear sung many years ago, and wish to learn anything as regards its date, authorship,—indeed, any particulars, and where I shall be likely to find it at length. What I remember is,—

"There was a little frog, lived in the river swim-o,And there was an old crow lived in the wood of Ennow,Come on shore, come on shore, said the crow to the frog again-o;Thank you, sir, thank you, sir, said the frog to the crow of Ennow,…But there is sweet music under yonder green willow,And there are the dancers, the dancers, in yellow."M.

"She ne'er with treacherous Kiss."—Can any of your readers inform me where the following lines are to be found?

"She ne'er with treacherous kiss her Saviour stung,Nor e'er denied Him with unholy tongue;She, when Apostles shrank, could danger brave—Last at His cross, and earliest at His grave!"C.A.H.

"Incidit in Scyllam" (Vol. ii., p. 85.).—

"Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim;Sie morbum fugiens, incidit in medicos."

Has any of your readers met with, or heard of the second short line, appendant and appurtenant to the first? I think it was Lord Grenville who quoted them as found somewhere together.

FORTUNATUS DWARRIS.

Nicholas Brigham's Works.—Nicholas Brigham, who erected the costly tomb in Poets' Corner to the memory of Geoffrey Chaucer (which it is now proposed to repair by a subscription of five shillings from the admirers of the poet), is said to have written, besides certain miscellaneous poems, Memoirs by way of Diary, in twelve Books; and a treatise De Venationibus Rerum Memorabilium. Can any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" state whether any of these, the titles of which are certainly calculated to excite our curiosity, are known to be in existence, and, if so, where? It is presumed that they have never been printed.

PHILO-CHAUCER.

Ciric-Sceat, or Church-scot.—Can any of your readers explain the following passage from Canute's Letter to the Archbishops, &c. of England, A.D. 1031. (Wilkins Conc. t. i. p. 298):—

"Et in festivitate Sancti Martini primitæ seminum ad ecclesiam, sub cujus parochia quisque degit, quæ Anglice Cure scet nominatur."

J.B.

[If our correspondent refers to the glossary in the second vol. of Mr. Thorpe's admirable edition of the Anglo-Saxon Laws, which he edited for the Record Commission under the title of Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, he will find s.v. "Ciric-Sceat—Primitiæ Seminum church-scot or shot, an ecclesiastical due payable on the day of St. Martin, consisting chiefly of corn;" a satisfactory answer to his Query, and a reference to this very passage from Canute.]

Welsh Language.—Perhaps some of your correspondents would favour me with a list of the best books treating on the Welsh literature and language; specifying the best grammar and dictionary.

JARLTZBERG.

Armenian Language.—This copious and widely-circulated language is known to but few in this country. If this meets the eye of one who is acquainted with it, will he kindly direct me whither I may find notices of it and its literature? Father Aucher's Grammar, Armenian and English (Venice, 1819), is rather meagre in its details. I have heard it stated, I know not on what authority, that Lord Byron composed the English part of this grammar. This grammar contains the two Apocryphal Epistles found in the Armenian Bible, of the Corinthians to St. Paul, and St. Paul to the Corinthians. Like the Greek and German, "the different modes of producing compound epithets and words are the treasure and ornament of the Armenian language; a thousand varieties of compounded words may be made in this tongue," p. 10. I believe we have no other grammar of this language in English.

JARLTZBERG

REPLIES

A TREATISE ON EQUIVOCATION

My attention has recently been drawn to the inquiry of J.M. (Vol. i., p. 260.) respecting the work bearing this name. He inquires, "Was the book ever extant in MS. or print? What is its size, date, and extent?" These questions may in part be answered by the following extracts from Parsons's Treatise tending to Mitigation, 1607, to which J.M. refers as containing, "perhaps, all the substance of the Roman equivocation," &c. It appears from these extracts that the treatise was circulated in MS.; that it consisted of ten chapters, and was on eight or nine sheets of paper. If Parsons' statements are true, he, who was then at Douay, or elsewhere out of England, had not seen it till three years after it was referred to publicly by Sir E. Coke, in 1604. Should the description aid in discovering the tract in any library, it may in answering J.M.'s second Query, "Is it now extant, and where?"

(Cap. i. § iii. p. 440.):—

"To hasten then to the matter, I am first to admonish the reader, that whereas this minister doth take upon him to confute a certain Catholicke manuscript Treatise, made in defence of Equivocation, and intercepted (as it seemeth) by them, I could never yet come to the sight therof, and therfore must admit," &c.

And (p 44):—

"This Catholicke Treatise, which I have hope to see ere it be long, and if it come in time, I may chance by some appendix, to give you more notice of the particulars."

In the conclusion (cap. xiii. §ix. p. 553.):—

"And now at this very instant having written hitherto, cometh to my handes the Catholicke Treatise itselfe of Equivocation before meneyoned," &c.... "Albeit the whole Treatise itselfe be not large, nor conteyneth above 8 or 9 sheetes of written paper."

And (§ xi. p. 554.):—

"Of ten chapters he omitteth three without mention."

I.B.

FURTHER NOTES ON THE DERIVATION OF THE WORD "NEWS."

I have too much respect for the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" to consider it necessary to point out seriatim the false conclusions arrived at by MR. HICKSON, at page 81.

The origin of "news" may now be safely left to itself, one thing at least being certain—that the original purpose of introducing the subject, that of disproving its alleged derivation from the points of the compass, is fully attained. No person has come forward to defend that derivation, and therefore I hope that the credit of expunging such a fallacy from books of reference will hereafter be due to "NOTES AND QUERIES".

I cannot avoid, however, calling Mr. Hickson's attention to one or two of the most glaring of his non-sequiturs.

I quoted the Cardinal of York to show that in his day the word "newes" was considered plural. MR. HICKSON quotes me to show that in the present day it is used in the singular; therefore, he thinks that the Cardinal of York was wrong: but he must pardon me if I still consider the Cardinal an unexceptional authority as to the usage of his own time.

MR. HICKSON asserts that "odds" is not an English word; he classifies it as belonging to a language known by the term "slang," of which he declares his utter disuse. And he thinks that when used at all, the word is but an ellipsis for "odd chances." This was not the opinion of the great English lexicographer, who describes the word as—

"Odds; a noun substantive, from the adjective odd."

and he defines its meaning as "inequality," or incommensurateness. He cites many examples of its use in its various significations, with any of which MR. HICKSON's substitution would play strange pranks; here is one from Milton:—

"I chiefly who enjoySo far the happier lot, enjoying theePre-eminent by so much odds."

Then with respect to "noise," MR. HICKSON scouts the idea of its being the same word with the French "noise." Here again he is at odds with Doctor Johnson, although I doubt very much that he has the odds of him. MR. HICKSON rejects altogether the quasi mode of derivation, nor will he allow that the same word may (even in different languages) deviate from its original meaning. But, most unfortunately for MR. HICKSON, the obsolete French signification of "noise" was precisely the present English one! A French writer thus refers to it:—

"A une époque plus reculée ce mot avait un sens différent: il signifiait bruit, cries de joie, &c. Joinville dit dans son Histoire de Louis IX.,—'La noise que ils (les Sarrazins) menoient de leurs cors sarrazinnoiz estoit espouvantable à escouter.' Les Anglais nous ont emprunté cette expression et l'emploient dans sa première acception."

MR. HICKSON also lays great stress upon the absence, in English, of "the new" as a singular of "the news." In the French, however, "la nouvelle" is common enough in the exact sense of news. Will he allow nothing for the caprice of idiom?

A.E.B.

Leeds, July 8. 1850.

News, Noise (Vol. ii., p. 82.).—I think it will be found that MR. HICKSON is misinformed as to the fact of the employment of the Norman French word noise, in the French sense, in England.

Noyse, noixe, noas, or noase, (for I have met with each form), meant then quarrel, dispute, or, as a school-boy would say, a row. It was derived from noxia. Several authorities agree in these points. In the Histoire de Foulques Fitz-warin, Fouque asks "Quei fust la noyse qe fust devaunt le roi en la sale?" which with regard to the context can only be fairly translated by "What is going on in the King's hall?" For his respondent recounts to him the history of a quarrel, concerning which messengers had just arrived with a challenge.

Whether the Norman word noas acquired in time a wider range of signification, and became the English news, I cannot say but stranger changes have occurred. Under our Norman kings bacons signified dried wood, and hosebaunde a husbandman, then a term of contempt.

B.W.

"NEWS," "NOISE," AND "PARLIAMENT."

1. News.—I regret that MR. HICKSON perseveres in his extravagant notion about news, and that the learning and ingenuity which your correspondent P.C.S.S., I have no doubt justly, gives him credit for, should be so unworthily employed.

Does MR. HICKSON really "very much doubt whether our word news contains the idea of new at all?" What then has it got to do with neues?

Does MR. HICKSON'S mind, "in its ordinary mechanical action," really think that the entry of "old newes, or stale newes" in an old dictionary is any proof of news having nothing to do with new? Does he then separate health from heal and hale, because we speak of "bad health" and "ill health"?

Will MR. HICKSON explain why news may not be treated as an elliptical expression for new things, as well as greens for green vegetables, and odds for odd chances?

When MR. HICKSON says dogmaticè, "For the adoption of words we have no rule, and we act just as our convenience or necessity dictates; but in their formation we must strictly conform to the laws we find established,"—does he deliberately mean to say that there are no exceptions and anomalies in the formation of language, except importations of foreign words? If he means this, I should like to hear some reasons for this wonderful simplification of grammar.

Why may not "convenience or necessity" sometimes lead us to swerve from the ordinary rules of the formulation of language, as well as to import words bodily, and, according to MR. HICKSON'S views of the origin of news, without reference to context, meaning, part of speech, or anything else?

Why may we not have the liberty of forming a plural noun news from the adjective new, though we have never used the singular new as a noun, when the French have indulged themselves with the plural noun of adjective formation, les nouvelles, without feeling themselves compelled to make une nouvelle a part of their language?

Why may we not form a plural noun news from new, to express the same idea which in Latin is expressed by nova, and in French by les nouvelles?

Why may not goods be a plural noun formed from the adjective good, exactly as the Romans formed bona and the Germans have formed Güter?

Why does MR. HICKSON compel us to treat goods as singular, and make us go back to the Gothic? Does he say that die Güter, the German for goods or possessions, is singular? Why too must riches be singular, and be the French word richesse imported into our language? Why may we not have a plural noun riches, as the Romans had divitæ, and the Germans have die Reichthumer? and what if riches be irregularly formed from the adjective rich? Are there, MR. HICKSON, no irregularities in the formation of a language? Is this really so?

If "from convenience or necessity" words are and may be imported from foreign languages bodily into our own, why might not our forefathers, feeling the convenience or necessity of having words corresponding to bona, nova, divitiæ, have formed goods, news, riches, from good, new, rich?

News must be singular, says MR. HICKSON; but means "is beyond all dispute plural," for Shakspeare talks of "a mean:" with news, however, there is the slight difficulty of the absence of the noun new to start from. Why is the absence of the singular an insuperable difficulty in the way of the formation of a plural noun from an adjective, any more than of plural nouns otherwise formed, which have no singulars, as clothes, measles, alms, &c. What says MR. HICKSON of these words? Are they all singular nouns and imported from other languages? for he admits no other irregularity in the formation of a language.

2. Noise.—I agree with MR. HICKSON that the old derivations of noise are unsatisfactory, but I continue to think his monstrous. I fear we cannot decide in your columns which of us has the right German pronunciation of neues; and I am sorry to find that you, Mr. Editor, are with MR. HICKSON in giving to the German eu the exact sound of oi in noise. I remain unconvinced, and shall continue to pronounce the eu with less fullness than oi in noise. However, this is a small matter, and I am quite content with MR. HICKSON to waive it. The derivation appears to me nonsensical, and I cannot but think would appear so to any one who was not bitten by a fancy.

I do not profess, as I said before, to give the root of noise. But it is probably the same as of noisome, annoy, the French nuire, Latin nocere, which brings us again to noxa; and the French word noise has probably the same root, though its specific meaning is different from that of our word noise. Without venturing to assert it dogmatically, I should expect the now usual meaning of noise to be its primary meaning, viz. "a loud sound" or "disturbance;" and this accords with my notion of its alliances. The French word bruit has both the meanings of our word noise; and to bruit and to noise are with us interchangeable terms. The French bruit also has the sense of a disturbance more definitely than our word noise. "Il y a du bruit" means "There is a row." I mention bruit and its meanings merely as a parallel case to noise, if it be, as I think, that "a loud sound" is its primary, and "a rumour" its secondary meaning.