Chapter L: B. L

[Footnote 1: Toto atilo; quasi "attelage."]

[Footnote 2: Springaldus; "veterum profecto fuit balistæ genus, et, recentis militiæ, tormentum est pulverarium, non ita ponderosum ut majoribus bombardis æquari possit, nec ea levitate ut gestari manibus valeat."--_Ducange._]

[Footnote 3: Arbaliste ad turnum; arbalists that traversed.]

[Footnote 4: Haukets; "sagum militare."--_Ducange._]

[Footnote 5: Gambeson; "vestimenti genus quod de coactili ad mensuram et tutelam pectoris humani conficitur, de mollibus lanis, ut, hoc inducta primum, lorica vel clibanus, aut his similia, fragilitatem corporis, ponderis asperitate non læderent."--_Ducange._]

[Footnote 6: Cenovectorium; "a mudcart."--_Ducange._]

[Footnote 7: "Conjicio _garrotos_ esse spingardarum tela, quibus pennæ æreæ aptabantur utpote grandioribus; _carrellis_ vero pennæ plumatiles tantum." (See Ducange, sub voce _Garrotus_.)]

* * * * *

DEAN SWIFT: AUTOGRAPHS IN BOOKS.

The biographer and the critic, down to the pamphleteer and the lecturer, have united in painting St. Patrick's immortal Dean in the blackest colours. To their (for the most part) unmerited scandal and reproach thus heaped upon his memory (as little in accordance with truth as with Christian charity), let me, Mr. Editor, oppose the following brief but emphatic testimony on the bright (and I firmly believe the _right_) side of the question, of the virtuous, the accomplished Addison:

"To Dr. Jonathan Swift, The most Agreeable Companion, The Truest
Friend, And the Greatest Genius of his Age, This Book is presented by
his most Humble Servant the Authour."

The above inscription, in the autograph of Addison, is on the fly-leaf of his _Remarks on several Parts of Italy, &c._, 8vo. 1705, the possession of which I hold very dear.

Permit me to add _another_ beautiful example of friendship between two generous rivals in a glorious art.

"My dear Hoppner,

"In return for your elegant volume, let me request you will accept this
little work, as a testimony of ardent esteem and friendship.

"While the two books remain they will prove, that in a time of much
professional jealousy, there were _two painters_, at least, who could
be emulous, without being envious; who could contend without enmity,
and associate without suspicion.

"That this cordiality may long subsist between us, is the sincere
desire of, dear Hoppner,

Yours ever faithfully,
MARTIN ARCHER SHEE.
Cavendish Square, December 7, 1805."

This letter is written on the fly-leaf of _Rhymes on Art, or the Remonstrance of a Painter_, 2nd edit. 1805, also in my library.

Need I offer an apology for introducing a _third_ inscription?

"To my perfect Friend, Mr. Francis Crane, I erect this Altar of
Friendship, And leave it as the Eternall Witnesse of my Love. Ben
Jonson."

This is in the beautiful autograph of rare Ben, on the fly-leaf of _Sejanus his Fall_, 4to. 1605, large paper and _unique_, and bound in the original vellum. It also contains the autograph of Francis Mundy, brother of the dramatist Anthony Mundy, to whom it once belonged. It is now mine.

GEORGE DANIEL.

Canonbury.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE ELUCIDATIONS.

In _All's Well that Ends Well_ (Act II. Sc. 1.) the king, when dismissing the young French noblemen who are going to the wars of Italy, says to them:

"Let higher Italy--
Those 'bated that inherit but the fall
Of the last monarchy--see, that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it."

MR. COLLIER calls this an "obscure passage," and offers no explanation of it, merely giving a note of Coleridge's, who, after Hanmer, proposes to read _bastards_ for _'bated_, saying of the passage itself: "As it stands, I can make little or nothing of it. Why should the king except the then most illustrious states, which, as being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?" Johnson, and the other preceding editors, seem to have taken a similar view of the passage.

I trust it will not be regarded as presumption when I say, that to me the place offers no difficulty whatever. In the first place, _'bate_ is not, as Coleridge takes it, to except, but to overcome, put an end to (from _abattre_); as when we say, "abate a nuisance." In the next, we are to recollect that the citizens of the Italian republics were divided into two parties,--the Guelf, or Papal, and the Ghibelline, or Imperial; and that the French always sided with the former. Florence, therefore, was Guelf at that time, and Siena of course was Ghibelline. The meaning of the king therefore is: By defeating the Ghibelline Sienese, let Italy see, &c. As a Frenchman, he naturally affects a contempt for the German empire, and represents it as possessing (the meaning of _inherit_ at the time) only the limited and tottering dominion which the empire of the west had at the time of its fall. By "higher Italy," by the way, I would understand not Upper Italy, but Tuscany, as more remote from France; for when the war is ended, the French envoy says:

"What will Count Rousillon do then? Will he travel _higher_, or return
again into France?"--Act IV. Sc. 3.

The meaning is plainly: Will he go farther on? to Naples, for example.

I must take this opportunity of retracting what I have said about--

"O thou dissembling cub, what wilt thou be
When time has sow'd a grizzle on thy case?"
_Twelfth Night_, Act. V. Sc. 1.

{256}

MR. SINGER (Vol. vi., p. 584.) by directing attention to the circumstance of _cub_ being a young fox, has proved, at least to me, that _case_ is the proper word,--a proof, among many, of the hazard of tampering with the text when not palpably wrong.

_Cub_ is the young fox, and _fox_, _vixen_, _cub_ are like _dog_, _bitch_, _whelp_,--_ram_, _ewe_, _lamb_, &c. The word is peculiar to the English language, nothing at all resembling it being to be found in the Anglo-Saxon, or any of the kindred dialects. Holland, in his _Plutarch_ (quoted by Richardson), when telling the story of the Spartan boy, says "a little _cub_, or young fox;" and then uses only _cub_. It was by analogy that the word was used of the young of bears, lions, and whales: and if Shakspeare in one place (_Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Sc. 1.) says "_cubs_ of the she-bear," he elsewhere (_Titus Andronicus_, Act IV. Sc. 1.) has "bear-_whelps_." I further very much doubt if _cub_ was used of boys in our poet's time. The earliest employment of it that I have seen is in Congreve, who uses "unlicked cubs," evidently alluding to young bears: and that is the sense in which _cub_ is still used,--a sense that would not in any case apply to Viola.

THOS. KEIGHTLEY.

* * * * *

IMPRECATORY EPITAPHS.

There is a class of epitaphs, or, we should rather say, there are certain instances of monumental indecorum which have not as yet been noticed by the many contributors on these subjects to your pages. I refer to those inscriptions embodying threats, or expressing resentful feelings against the murderers, or supposed murderers, of the deceased individual. Of such epitaphs we have fortunately but few examples in Great Britain; but in Norway, among the Runic monuments of an early and rude age, they are by no means uncommon.

Near the door of the church of Knaresdale, in Northumberland, is the following on a tombstone:

"In Memory of ROBERT BAXTER, of Farhouse,
who died Oct. 4, 1796, aged 56.

"All you that please these lines to read,
It will cause a tender heart to bleed.
I murdered was upon the fell,
And by the man I knew full well;
By bread and butter, which he'd laid,
I, being harmless, was betray'd.
_I hope he will rewarded be_
That laid the poison there for me."

Robert Baxter is still remembered by persons yet living, and the general belief in the country is, that he was poisoned by a neighbour with whom he had had a violent quarrel. Baxter was well known to be a man of voracious appetite; and it seems that, one morning on going out to the fell (or hill), he found a piece of bread and butter wrapped in white paper. This he incautiously devoured, and died a few hours after in great agony. The suspected individual was, it is said, alive in 1813.

We know not how much of the old Norse blood ran in the veins of Robert Baxter's friend, who composed this epitaph; but this summer, among a people of avowedly Scandinavian descent, I copied the following from a large and handsome tomb in the burying-ground of the famous Cross Kirk, in Northmavine parish, in Shetland:

"M.S.
DONALD ROBERTSON,
Born 1st of January, 1785; died 4th of June, 1848,
aged 63 years.

He was a peaceable quiet man, and to all appearance a sincere
Christian. His death was very much regretted, which was caused by the
stupidity of Laurence Tulloch, of Clotherten, who sold him nitre
instead of Epsom salts, by which he was killed in the space of three
hours after taking a dose of it."

Among the Norwegian and Swedish Runic inscriptions figured by Gösannson and Sjöborg, we meet with two or three breathing a still more revengeful spirit, but one eminently in accordance with the rude character of the age to which they belong (A.D. 900 ad 1300).

An epitaph on a stone figured by Sjöborg runs as follows:

"Rodvisl and Rodalf they caused this stone to be raised after their
three sons, and after [to] Rodfos. Him the Blackmen slew in foreign
lands. God help the soul of Rodfos: _God destroy them that killed
him._"

Another stone figured by Gösannson has engraved on it the same revengeful aspiration.

We all remember the Shakspearian inscription, "Cursed be he that moves my bones;" but if Finn Magnussen's interpretation be correct, there is an epitaph in Runic characters at Greniadarstad church, in Iceland, which concludes thus:

"If you willingly remove this monument, may you sink into the ground."

It would be curious to collect examples of these menaces on tombstones, and I hope that other contributors will help to rescue any that exist in this or in other countries from oblivion.

EDWARD CHARLTON, M.D.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

* * * * *

DERIVATION OF "LAD" AND "LASS."

The derivation of the word _lad_ has not yet been given, so far as I am aware; and the word _lass_ is in the same predicament. _Lad_ is undoubtedly of old usage in England, and in its archaic sense it has reference, not to age, as now, but to service or dependence; being applied, not to signify a youth or a boy, but a servant or inferior. {257}

In Pinkerton's _Poems from the Maitland MSS._ is one, purporting to be the composition of Thomas of Ercildoune, which begins thus:

"When a man is made a kyng of a capped man."

After this line follow others of the same bearing, until we come to these:

"When rycht aut wronge astente togedere,
When laddes weddeth lovedies," &c.

The prophet is not, in these words, inveighing against ill-assorted alliances between young men and old women; but is alluding to a general _bouleversement_ of society, when _mésalliances_ of noble women to ignoble men will take place.

This sense of the word gives us, I think, some help towards tracing its derivation, and I have no doubt that its real parent is the Anglo-Saxon _hlafæta_,--a word to be found in one instance only, in a corner of Æthelbyrt's _Domas_: "Gif man ceorles _hlafætan_ of-slæth vi scyllingum gebete."

By the same softening of sound which made _lord_ and _lady_ out of _hlaford_ and _hlæfdige_, _hlafæta_ became _lad_, and _hlafætstre_ became _lass_. As the lord supplied to his dependents the bread which they ate, so each thus derived from the loaf the appellation of their mutual relation, in the plain phraseology of our ancestors.

Dr. Leo, in his interesting commentary on the _Rectitudines singularum personarum_ (edit. Halle, 1842, p. 144.), says:

"Ganz analog dem Verhältnisse von _ealdore_ und _gingra_ ist das
Verhältniss von _hlaford_ (brodherrn), _hlæfdige_ (brodherrin), und
_hlafæta_ (brodeszer). _Hlaford_ ist am Ende zum Standestitel (lord)
geworden; ursprünglich bezeichnet es jeden Gebieter; die Kinder, die
Leibeignen, die abhängigen freien Leute, alles was zum Hausstande und
zum Gefolge eines Mannes gehört, werden als dessen _hlafætan_
bezeichnet."

Perhaps some of your readers may favour myself and others by giving the derivation of _boy_ and _girl_.

H. C. C.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_Iona._--The ancient name of this celebrated island was _I_ (an island), or _I-Columbkille_ (the island of Columba of the Churches). In all the ancient tombstones still existing in the island, it is called nothing but _Hy_; and I have no doubt that its modern name of _Iona_ is a corruption, arising from mistaking _u_ for _n_. In the very ancient copy of Adamnan's _Life of St. Columbkille_, formerly belonging to the monastery of Reichenau (_Augia Dives_), and now preserved in the town library of Schaffhausen, which I had an opportunity of examining very carefully last summer, the name is written everywhere, beyond the possibility of doubt, _Ioua_, which was evidently an attempt to give a power of Latinised declension to the ancient Celtic _I_. It was pronounced _I-wa_ (_i.e._ _Ee-wa_). Who first made the blunder of changing the _u_ into _n_?

J. H. TODD.

Trin. Coll. Dublin.

_Inscriptions in Parochial Registers._--Very quaint and pithy mottoes are sometimes prefixed to parochial registers. I know not whether any communications on this subject are to be found in your pages. The following are examples, and may perhaps elicit from your readers additional information.

Cherry-Hinton, Cambridgeshire:

"Hic puer ætatem, hic Vir sponsalia noscat,
Hic decessorum funera quisque sciat."

Ruyton of the Eleven Towns, Salop:

"No flatt'ry here, where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor is all the history:
Enough, if virtue fill'd the space between,
Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been."

GEORGE S. MASTER.

Welsh-Hampton, Salop.

_Lieutenant._--The vulgar pronunciation of this word, _leftenant_, probably arose from the old practice of confounding _u_ and _v_. It is spelt _leivtenant_ in the Colonial Records of New York. The changes may have been _lievtenant_, _levtenant_, _leftenant_.

UNEDA.

Philadelphia.

_"Prigging Tooth" or "Pugging Tooth."_--MR. COLLIER, in his new book on Shakspeare, containing early manuscript corrections of the folio of 1632, says at page 191., in enumerating those of the _Winter's Tale_, that the emendator substitutes (Act IV. Sc. 2.) "prigging tooth" for the "pugging tooth" of the old copies. Now this, I believe, has been the generally received interpretation, but it is quite wrong. _Prigging_, that is stealing, tooth, would be nonsense; _pugging_ is the correct word, and is most expressive. Antolycus means his molar--his grinding tooth is set on edge.

A pugging-mill (sometimes abbreviated and called pug-mill) is a machine for crushing and tempering lime, consisting of two heavy rollers or wheels in a circular trough; the wheels are hung loose upon the ends of a bar of iron or axle-tree, which is fastened by the centre either to the top or bottom of an upright spindle, moved by a horse or other power, as the case may be, thus causing the wheels in their circuit to revolve from their friction upon the trough, and so to bruise the nuts of lime, which together with the sand and water are fed by a labourer, who removes the mortar when made. The machine is of course variously constructed for the kind of work it has to do: there is a pugging-mill used in the making of bricks that is fitted with projecting knives to cut and knead the clay. {258}

EMENDATOR has doubtless restored the sense to many puzzling passages in Shakspeare, but he certainly is mistaken here in reading _prigging_ for _pugging_.

H. B. J.

Carlisle.

_London._--Is the following, which was copied October 11, 1811, from a MS. pasted on Spitalfields Church at that time, worth preserving in the pages of "N. & Q."? Could any of your numerous correspondents furnish me with the author's name?

"LONDON.

"Houses, churches, mixt together;
Streets cramm'd full in ev'ry weather;
Prisons, palaces, contiguous;
Sinners sad and saints religious;
Gaudy things enough to tempt ye;
Outsides showy, insides empty;
Baubles, beasts, mechanics, arts,
Coaches, wheelbarrows, and carts;
Warrants, bailiffs, bills unpaid,
Lords of laundresses afraid;
Rogues that nightly prowl and shoot men;
Hangmen, aldermen, and footmen;
Lawyers, poets, priests, physicians,
Noble, simple, all conditions;
Worth beneath a threadbare cover,
Villainy bedaubed all over;
Women, black, fair, red, and gray,
Women that can play and pay;
Handsome, ugly, witty, still,
Some that will not, some that will;
Many a beau without a shilling,
Many a widow not unwilling,
Many a bargain, if you strike it,--
This is London, if you like it."

H. E. P. T.

Woolwich.

_Note from the Cathedral at Seville._--

"El Exc^{mo} S^r D^r Don Nicolas Wiseman, Obispo Coadjutor de
Birmingham, y Rector del Collegio de Oscott, por decreto de 2 de Enero
de 1845, concedió 40 dias de Indulgentia per cada Padre-Nuestro, ó
Credo á Nuestri Señor Jesu Cristo, ó un Ave-Maria á su Santissima
Madre, ó un Padre-Nuestro en honor del Santo Patriarcha S^r S^o
Domingo, cujas imagenes se veneran en esta Capilla, como por cualquier
palabra afetuosa ó jaculatoria con devotion."

S. K. N.

_Riddles for the Post Office._--The following ludicrous direction to a letter was copied verbatim from the original and interesting document:

"too dad Tomas
hat the ole oke
otchut
I O Bary pade
Sur plees to let ole feather have this sefe."

The letter found the gentleman at "The Old Oak Orchard, Tenbury." I saw another letter, where the writer, after a severe struggle to express "Scotland," succeeded at length to his satisfaction, and wrote it thus, "stockling." A third letter was sent by a woman to a son who had settled in Tennessee, which the old lady had thus expressed with all phonetic simplicity, "10 S C."

CUTHBERT BEDE.

* * * * *

Queries.

NATIONAL PORTRAITS.--PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, SON OF CHARLES I.

A cotemporary portrait of this prince, fourth son of Charles I., was in existence. He was represented with a fountain by him, probably in early age. He died, at the age of twenty, in 1660. Where is this painting now to be found, or is any engraving from it known? Granger describes an engraved portrait by Vaughan, representing the infant prince seated on a cushion; and a rare portrait of him by Lovell.

It would be very desirable to compile a descriptive catalogue of painted portraits, those especially preserved in the less accessible private collections in England. Such a manual, especially if illustrated with outline sketches or photographs, in order to render it available at a moderate cost, would be most useful, and supply, in some degree, the deficiency of any extensive public collection of national portraits, such as has been commenced in France, at the palace of Versailles.

ALBERT WAY.

Reigate.

[Recognising as we do most fully the value of the idea thrown out by
MR. WAY, that it would be desirable to compile a descriptive Catalogue
of Painted Portraits, as the best substitute which we can have for an
extensive public collection of such memorials of our Great and Good, we
shall always be glad to record in the columns of "N. & Q." any notices
of such pictures as may, from time to time, be forwarded to us for that
purpose. The suggestion that Photography might be usefully employed in
multiplying copies of such portraits, coming as it does from one whose
skill as an artist rivals his learning as an antiquary, is the highest
testimony which could be given to the value of an art which we have
endeavoured to promote, from our conviction that its utility to the
antiquary, the historian, and the man of letters, can scarcely be
over-rated.]

* * * * *

BOSTON QUERIES.

I annex a prospectus of a second edition of my _Collections for a History of the Borough of Boston and the Hundred of Skirbeck, in the County of Lincoln_, which I am now employed upon in preparing for the press. As there may, and most probably will, arise many points upon which I may require assistance, I shall from time to time address (with your leave) inquiries for insertion in your {259} useful miscellany, asking your readers for any information they may be in possession of. At present I should be glad to be informed of the locality of Estoving Hall, the seat of a branch of the Holland family, of whom a long account is given by Blomefield, in his _History of Norfolk_, and which, he says, was nine miles from Bourn, in Lincolnshire, but respecting which I can learn nothing from gentlemen in that neighbourhood. Drayton, so often alluded to by Stukeley, and referred to by Blomefield in connexion with the Holland family, is also of very uncertain locality. Can any of your readers assist me upon these points, either through your journal, or addressed to me at Stoke Newington? I am also in want of information respecting the Kyme family, so as to connect the Kymes of Boston, and its neighbourhood, with the elder branch of that family, the Kymes of Kyme, which merged into the Umfraville family, by the marriage of the heiress of the Kymes with one of the Umfravilles.

The account of "the buylding of Boston steeple," by H. T. H., at p. 166. of your present volume, is incorrect in many respects. That which I have seen and adopted is as follows. It is said to have been accepted as correct by Dr. Stukeley. I find it at the foot of a folio print, published in 1715, representing--

"The west prospect of Boston steeple and church. The foundation whereof
on y^e Monday after Palm Sunday, An^o. 1309, in y^e 3^d year of Edward
y^e II., was begun by many miners, and continued till midsumer foll^g,
when they was deeper than y^e haven by 5 foot, where they found a bed
of stone upon a spring of sand, and that upon a bed of clay whose
thickness could not be known. Upon the Monday next after the Feast of
St. John Bapt^t. was laid the 1st stone, by Dame Margery Tilney, upon
w^{ch} she laid £5. sterl^g. Sir John Truesdale, then Parson of Boston,
gave £5. more, and Rich^d. Stevenson, a Merch^t. of Boston, gave also
£5., wh^{ch} was all y^e gifts given at that time."

PISHEY THOMPSON.

Stoke Newington.

* * * * *

WELBORNE FAMILY.

In Burke's _Extinct Peerage_ it is stated that John de Lacy, first Earl of Lincoln, died A.D. 1240, leaving one son and two daughters. The latter were removed, in the twenty-seventh year of Hen. III., to Windsor, there to be educated with the daughters of the king. One of these sisters, Lady Maud de Lacy, married Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester; but I can find no mention of either the name or marriage of the other. Am I correct in identifying her with "Dorothy, daughter of the Earl of Lincoln," who married Sir John Welborne (see _Harl. MSS._ 888. 1092-1153.)? The dates in the Welborne pedigree perfectly correspond with this assumption.

Another question relative to this family is of greater interest, and I should feel sincerely obliged by any answer to it. Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, married Eleanora, daughter of King John, and had by her five children. The fourth son is called Richard in Burke's _Royal Families_, vol. i. p. xxiii.; and the report is added, that "he remained in England in privacy under the name of Wellsburn." In the _Extinct Peerage_, the name of the same son is Almaric, of whom it says: "When conveying his sister from France, to be married to Leoline, Prince of Wales, he was taken prisoner with her at sea, and suffered a long imprisonment. He was at last, however, restored to liberty, and his posterity are said to have flourished in England under the name of Wellsburne." Is it not to be presumed that the above Sir John Welborne (living, as he must have done, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, and allying himself with the great family especially protected by Henry III., uncle of the De Montforts) was himself the son of Richard or Almaric de Montfort, and founder of that family of Wellesburne, said to have "flourished in England"? The De Montforts no doubt abandoned their patronymic in consequence of the attainder of Simon, earl of Leicester, and adopted that of Wellesburne from the manor of that name, co. Warwick, in the possession of Henry de Montfort temp. Ric. I.

The only known branch of the Welborns terminated (after ten descents from Sir John) in coheiresses, one of whom married in 1574, and brought the representation into a family which counts among its members your correspondent

URSULA.

* * * * *

DESCENDANTS OF SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

In a work published not many years ago, entitled _Antigua and the Antiguans_, by Mrs. Flannigan, there is the following passage:

"The Hon. Nathaniel Gilbert, Speaker of the House of Assembly in the
island of Antigua, and one of the chief proprietors in that island,
derived his descent from a family of considerable distinction in the
west of England, where one of its members, Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
associating himself with his kinsman, Sir Walter Raleigh, became one of
the most eminent circumnavigators of the reign of Queen Elizabeth."

Dying, he left a son, Raleigh Gilbert, who along with others obtained from King James I. a large grant of land, in what was then called Plymouth, but which now forms part of the colony of Virginia. To this place he emigrated with Lord Chief Justice Popham in 1606. Afterwards he succeeded to an estate in Devonshire on the death of his elder brother, Sir John Gilbert, President of the Virginian Company.

Can any of your correspondents kindly inform me from what source I can complete the line of {260} descent, by filling up the interval of three or four generations between the above Raleigh Gilbert and the Hon. Nathaniel Gilbert mentioned by Mrs. Flannigan?

The present Sir George Colebrook and Sir William Abdy are connected, more or less remotely, with the last-mentioned Mr. Gilbert.

The English branch of the family is now established at Tredrea in Cornwall. (See _Burke_.)

Any information whatever upon this subject would be exceedingly valuable to the inquirer.