Chapter C: Forbes

Temple.

In looking over the second volume of "N. & Q.," I find the use of the word _blackguard_ is referred to, and passages illustrative of its meaning are given from the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Hobbes, Butler, &c. To these may be added the following fanciful use of the word, which occurs in the poems of Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset; the author of the well-known naval song "To all you Ladies now at Land:"

"Love is all gentleness, all joy,
Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace.
Her [Belinda's] Cupid is a blackguard boy,
That rubs his link full in your face."

CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

_Talleyrand_ (Vol. vi., p. 575.).--Talleyrand's maxim is in Young. I regret that I cannot give the reference.

Z. E. R.

_Lord King and Sclater_ (Vol. v., pp. 456. 518.).--By Sclater's answer, "as I am informed, the Lord Chancellor _King_ was himself fully convinced."--Zach. Grey's _Review of Neal_, p. 67., edit. 1744.

_"Beware the Cat"_ (Vol. v., p. 319.).-The "dignitary of Cambridge" was probably Dr. Thackeray, provost of King's, who bequeathed all his {488} black-letter books to the college. Perhaps _Beware the Cat_ may be among them.

Z. E. R.

"_Bis dat qui cito dat_" (Vol. vi., p. 376.).--The following Greek is either in the _Anthologia_, or in Joshua Barnes:

"[Greek: ôkeiai charitos glukerôterai, ên de bradunêi pasa charis
phthinuthei, mêde legoito charis.]"

"Gratia ab officio quod mora tardat, abest."

Z. E. R.

_High Spirits a Presage of Evil._--The Note of your correspondent CUTHBERT BEDE (Vol. vii., p. 339.) upon this very interesting point recalls to my recollection a line or two in Gilfillan's _First Gallery of Literary Portraits_, p. 71., which bears directly upon it. Speaking of the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author says, "During all the time he spent in Leghorn, he was in brilliant spirits, _to him a sure prognostic of coming evil_." I may add, that I have been on terms of intimacy with various persons who entertained a dread of finding themselves in good spirits, from a strong conviction that some calamity would be sure to befall them. This is a curious psychological question, worthy of attention.

W. SAWYER.

Brighton.

_Colonel Thomas Walcot_ (Vol. vii., p. 382.) married Jane, the second daughter of James Purcel of Craugh, co. Limerick, and had by her six sons and two daughters: John, the eldest, who married Sarah Wright of Holt, in Denbighshire; Thomas, Ludlow, and Joseph, which last three died unmarried; Edward (who died an infant); William (of whom I have no present trace); Catherine and Bridget. The latter married, first, Mr. Cox of Waterford, and second, Robert Allen of Garranmore, co. Tipperary. John, the eldest son, administered to his father, and possessed himself of his estates and effects. I think his son was a John Minchin Walcot, who represented Askeaton in Parliament in 1751, died in London in 1753, and was buried in St. Margaret's churchyard. Two years after his death his eldest daughter married William Cecil Pery, of the line of Viscount Pery, and had by him Edmund Henry Pery, member of parliament for Limerick in 1786. A William Walcot was on the Irish establishment appointed a major in the 5th Regiment of Foot in 1769, but I cannot just now say whether, or how, he was related to Colonel Thomas Walcot.

JOHN D'ALTON.

Dublin.

_Wood of the Cross: Mistletoe_ (Vol. vii., p. 437.).--Was S. S. S.'s farmer a native of an eastern county? If he came from any part where Scandinavian traditions may be supposed to have prevailed, there may be some connexion between the myth, that the mistletoe furnished the wood for the cross, and that which represents it as forming the arrow with which Hödur, at the instigation of Lok, the spirit of evil, killed Baldyr. I have met with a tradition in German, that the aspen tree supplied the wood for the cross, and hence shuddered ever after at the recollection of its guilt.

T. H. L.

The tradition to which I have been always accustomed is, that the aspen was the tree of which the cross was formed, and that its tremulous and quivering motion proceeded from its consciousness of the awful use to which it had once been put.

W. FRASER.

Tor-Mohun.

_Irish Office for Prisoners_ (Vol. vii, p 410.).--The best reference for _English_ readers is to Bishop Mant's edition of the Prayer-Book, in which this office is included.

J. C. R.

_Andries de Græff: Portraits at Brickwall House_ (Vol. vii, p. 406.).--"Andries de Græff. Obiit lxxiii., MDCLXXIV." Was this gentleman related to, or the father of, Regulus de Græf, a celebrated physician and anatomist, born in July, 1641, at Scomharen, a town in Holland, where his father was the first architect? Regulus de Græf married in 1672, and died in 1673, at the early age of thirty-two. He published several works, chiefly _De Organis Generationis_, &c. (See Hutchinson's _Biographia Medica_; and, for a complete list of his works, _Lindonius Renovatus_, p. 933.: Nuremberg, 1686, 4to.)

S. S. S.

Bath.

"_Qui facit per alium, facit per se_" (Vol. vii., p. 382.).--This is one of the most ordinary maxims or "brocards" of the common law of Scotland, and implies that the employer is responsible for the acts of his servant or agent, done on his employment. Beyond doubt it is borrowed from the civil law, and though I cannot find it in the title of the digest, _De Diversis Regulis Juris Antiqui_ (lib. 1. tit. 17.), I am sure it will be traced either to the "Corpus Juris," or to one of the commentators thereupon.

W. H. M.

_Christian Names_ (Vol. vii., p. 406.).--When Lord Coke says "a man cannot have two names of baptism, as he may have divers surnames," he does not mean that a man may not have two or more Christian names given to him at the font, but that, while he may have "divers surnames at divers times," he may not have divers Christian names _at divers times_.

When a man changes his Christian name, he alters his legal identity. The surname, however, is assumable at pleasure. The use of surnames came into England, according to Camden, about {489} the time of the Conquest, but they were not in general use till long after that. Many branches of families used to substitute the names of their estate or residence for their patronymic, which often makes the tracing of genealogies a difficult matter. It was not till the middle of the fourteenth century that surnames began to descend from father to son, and a reference to any old document of the time will show how arbitrarily such names were assumed.

A surname, in short, may be called a matter of convenience; a Christian name, a matter of necessity. The giving two Christian names at baptism did not come generally into use till, owing to the multiplication of the patronymic, a single Christian name became insufficient to identify the individual. Consequently an instance of a double Christian name, previous to the commencement of the eighteenth century, is a rarity. The fifth and sixth earls of Northumberland bore the names of Henry-Algernon Percy. The latter died in 1537.

As to the period at which Christian names were assumed as surnames, your correspondent ERICAS is referred to Lower's _English Surnames_.

H. C. K.

---- Rectory, Hereford.

Your correspondent ERICA will not, I think, find an instance in this country of a person having more than one Christian name before the last century. Charles James Fox and William Wyndham Grenville are the two earliest instances I can find. It is trivial but curious to observe, that in the lists given at the beginning of the _Oxford Calendar_ of the heads of colleges and halls from their several foundations, the first who appears with two Christian names is the venerable president of Magdalene College. Antony Ashley Cooper is only a seeming exception; his surname was Ashley-Cooper, as is proved by his contributing the letter _a_ to the word _cabal_, the nickname of the ministry of which he formed a part. We find the custom common enough in Germany at the time of the Reformation, and still earlier in Italy. I apprehend that its origin is really in the _tria nomina_ of Roman freemen. It was introduced into this country through our royal family, but I am not aware of any prince who had the benefit of it before Charles James.

I apprehend the passage which ERICA quotes from Lord Coke has not the significance which he attributes to it. A man can have but one Christian or baptismal name, of however many single names or words that baptismal name may be composed. I have spoken in this letter of two Christian names, in order to be more intelligible at the expense of correctness.

J. J. H.

Temple.

_Lamech's War-song_ (Vol. vii., p. 432.).--There have been many speculations about the origin and meaning of these lines. I agree with EWALD in _Die Poetischen Bücher des Alten Bundes_, vol. i., who calls it a "sword-song;" and I imagine it might have been preserved by tradition among the Canaanitish nations, and so quoted by Moses as familiar to the Israelites. I should translate it--

"Adah and Zillah, hear ye my voice!
Wives of Lemek, heed ye my saying!
For man do I slay, for my wound;
And child, for my bruise.
For seven-fold is Cain avenged,
And Lemek seventy-fold and seven."

Bishop Hall, in his _Explication of Hard Texts_, paraphrases it thus:

"And Lamech said to his wives, 'Adah and Zillah, what tell you me of
any dangers and fears? Hear my voice, oh ye faint-hearted wives of
Lamech, and hearken unto my speech; I pass not of the strength of my
adversary: for I know my own valour and power to revenge; if any man
give me but a wound or a stroke, though he be never so young and lusty,
I can and will kill him dead.'"

Your correspondent H. WALTER says that "every branch of Cain's family was destroyed by the Deluge." Where is the authority to be found for the tradition, quoted in an _Introduction to the Books of Moses_, by James Morison, p. 26., that Naameh, the daughter of Lamech the Cainite and Zillah, married Ham, the son of Noah, and thus survived the Flood?

W. FRASER.

Tor-Mohun.

_Traitor's Ford_ (Vol. vii., p. 382.).--Nothing is known of any legend in connexion with the stirring events of the battle of Edgehill, or its times, and the origin of the name is a matter of speculation. One _Trait_ had lands near this stream, and it is thought by some that, from this circumstance, it is properly _Trait's_ Ford, corrupted into Traitor's Ford,--a locality well known to sportsmen as a favourite meet of the Warwickshire hounds.

A. B. R.

Banbury.

* * * * *

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.

We understand the Committee appointed by the Society of Antiquaries to consider the best mode of restoring the Society to its former efficient state, have agreed upon their Report, and also to the revised laws to be recommended to the Fellows for adoption. Of the nature of alterations suggested, we know nothing; for while, on the one hand, it is stated that the Report recommends changes of a most sweeping character, on the other it is rumoured that the changes to be proposed are neither many nor important. The truth in this, as in most cases, no doubt lies midway between {490} the two: and the Report will probably be found to breathe a spirit of conservative reform. Embracing, as the proposed changes necessarily must, points on which great difference of opinion has existed, and may continue to exist, we hope they will receive the impartial consideration of the Fellows; and that they will bear in mind, that in coming to the conclusions at which they have arrived, the Committee have had the advantage of sources of information, necessarily beyond the reach of the body generally; and that those very recommendations, which at first sight may seem most open to objection, may probably be those which their information most completely justifies.

BOOKS RECEIVED.--_Young's Night Thoughts, or Life, Death, and Immortality, revised and collated with the early Quarto Editions, with a Life of the Author by_ Dr. Doran. This new, handsomely printed, and carefully edited reprint of the great work of this noble and original writer, is rendered more valuable by the well-written and critical Memoir of Young, which Dr. Doran has prefixed to it.--_The National Miscellany_, _May_ 1853. The first Number of a New Magazine just issued by Mr. Parker (Oxford), with every promise of realising the objects for which it has been projected, namely, "to aid the elevation of the reader's mind, to raise some glow of generous desire, some high and noble thoughts, some kindly feeling, and a warm veneration for all things that are good and true."--_Cyclopædia Bibliographica_, Part VIII. This most useful work is in the present Part carried from _Fawcett_ (John) to _Göthe_. Every fresh issue of it affords additional evidence of the great utility which the complete work will prove to all authors, preachers, students, and literary men.

* * * * *

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE.

REV. A. DYCE'S EDITION OF DR. RICHARD BENTLEY'S WORKS. Vol. III. Published by Francis Macpherson, Middle Row, Holborn. 1836.

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* * * * *

Notices to Correspondents.

H. C. B. _No._

J. D. LUCAS (Bristol). _The inscription is Dutch, and means "Praise God for all things."_

WALTER J. WATTS _will find much of the literary history of the_ Travels of Baron Munchausen, _which were written in ridicule of Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, in our_ 3rd Vol., pp. 117, 305, 453.

P. P. _Longfellow_ is _an American, having been born at Portland. He is now, we believe, Professor of Modern Languages and Belles Lettres at Cambridge University, U.S._

A BRITON _must be aware that if we were so far to depart from our plan of avoiding religious controversy, as to insert his Query, we should be inviting endless disputes and discussions, such as our pages could not contain, or our readers endure._