Chapter C: H. P

Brighton.

* * * * *

PASSAGE IN ST. JAMES.

(Vol. vii., p. 549)

On referring to the passage cited by S. S. S. in Bishop Taylor's _Holy Dying_, vol. iv. p. 345. (Heber's edit.), I find I had marked two passages in St. James's Epistle as being those to which, in all probability, the bishop alluded; one in the first chapter, and one in the third. In the commencement of his Epistle St. James exhorts his hearers to exercise patience in all the worldly accidents that might befal them; to resign themselves into God's hands, and accept in faith whatever might happen. He then proceeds:

"If any of you lack wisdom" (prudentia ad dijudicandum quid in singulis
circumstantiis agendum sit--_Grotius_), "let him ask of God" (postulet
ab eo, qui dat, nempe Deo: ut intelligas non aliunde petendum
sapientiam.--_Erasmus_).

Again, in chap. iii. 13., he asks:

"Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you" ([Greek:
epistemon], _i. e._ sciens, sive scientia praeditus, quod recentiores
vocant scientificus.--_Erasmus_).

He bids him prove his wisdom by submission to the truth; for that cunning craftiness which manifests itself only in generating heresies and contentions, is--

"Not from above," [Greek: all' epigeios, Psuchike ] (animalis,--ista
sapientia a natura est, non a Deo) [Greek: daimoniodes].--_Vid._ Eph.
ii. 2., and 2 Cor. iv. 4.

These passages would naturally afford ample scope for the exuberant fancy of ancient commentators; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that Bishop Taylor may have had the remarks of one of these writers running in his mind, when he quoted St. James as reprobating, with such minuteness of detail, the folly of consulting oracles, spirits, sorcerers, and the like.

I have not, at present, access to any of the commentators to whom I allude; so I am unable to confirm this suggestion.

H. C. K.

---- Rectory, Hereford.

There is no uncanonical epistle attributed to this apostle, although the one received by the English from the Greek and Latin churches was pronounced uncanonical by Luther. The passage to which Jeremy Taylor refers, is iv. 13, 14., which he interpreted as referring to an unlawful inquiry into the future:

"Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a
city and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas
ye know not what shall be on the morrow: for what is your life? It is
even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth
away."

Hug (Wait's Trans., vol. ii. p. 579.) considers the apostle as reproving the Jews for attempting to evade the national punishment threatened them, by removing out of their own country of Judaea. Probably, however, neither Taylor nor Hug are correct in departing from the more obvious signification, which refers to the mercantile character of the twelve tribes (i. 1.), arising mainly out of the fact of their captivities and dispersions ([Greek: diasporai]). The practice is still common in the East for merchants on a large and small scale to spend a whole season or year in trafficking in one city, and passing thence to another with the varied products suitable respectively to each city; and such products were interchanged without that extreme division of labour or despatch which the magnitude of modern commerce requires. The whole passage, from James iv. 13. to v. 6. inclusive, must be taken as specially applicable to the sins of mercantile men whose _works_ of righteousness St. James (iii. 17-20.) declared to be wanting, in proof of their holding the _faith_ necessary, {624} according, to St. Paul (Rom. iii. 27.), for their salvation.

T. J. BUCKTON.

Birmingham.

* * * * *

FAITHFULL TEATE.

(Vol. vii., p. 529.)

The _Ter Tria_[3], about which your correspondent J. S. inquires, is neither a rare nor a very valuable book; and if his copy has cost him more than some three and sixpence, it is a poor investment of capital. Mine, which is of the second edition, 1669, has the following book-note:

"The worthy Faithfull Teate indulges himself in the then prevailing bad
taste of _anagramising_ his name: see the result after the title. A
better play upon his name is that of Jo. Chishull, who, in lashing the
prophane wits of the day, and eulogising the author, has the following
comical allusion thereto:

'Let all wise-hearted sav'ring things divine
_Come suck this_ TEAT that yields both milk and wine,
Loe depths where elephants may swim, yet here
The weakest lamb of Christ wades without fear.'"

The _Ter Tria_ was originally published in 1658; its author, F. T., was the father of the better known Nahum Tate, the co-translator of the last authorised version of the Psalms,--a _Teat_ which, following the metaphor of Mr. Chishull, has nourished not a few generations of the godly, but now, like a sucked orange, thrown aside for the more juicy productions of our modern Psalmists. Old Teate (or Tate, as the junior would have it) is styled in this book, "preacher at Sudbury." He seems subsequently to have removed to Ireland, where his son Nahum, the laureat, was born.

J. O.

[Footnote 3: "Ter Tria; or the Doctrine of the Three Sacred Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. Principal Graces: Faith, Hope, and Love. Main Duties: Prayer, Hearing, and Meditation. Summarily digested for the Pleasure and Profit of the pious and ingenious Reader. By F. T. Tria sunt omnia."]

* * * * *

PARVISE.

(Vol. viii., p. 528.)

_Parvise_ seems to have been a porch, used as a school or place for disputation. The _parvise_ mentioned in the Oxford "Little-Go" (Responsions) Testamur is alluded to in Bishop Cooper's book against Private Mass (published by the Parker Society). He ridicules his opponent's arguments as worthy of "a sophister in the parvyse schools." The Serjeant-at-law, in Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, had been often at the _paruise_. In some notes on this character in a number of the _Penny Magazine_ for 1840 or 1841, it is farther remarked that the choristers of Norwich Cathedral were formerly taught in the _parvise_, _i. e._ porch. The chamber over a porch in some churches may have been the school meant. Instances of this arrangement were to be found at Doncaster Church (where it was used as a library), and at Sherborne Abbey Church. The porch here was Norman, and the chamber Third Pointed; and at the restoration lately effected the pitch of the roof was raised, and the chamber removed.

B. A. OXON.

Oxford University.

I believe that the _parvisus_, or _paradisus_ of the Responsions Testamur, is the _pro-scholium_ of the divinity school, otherwise called the "pig-market," from its site having been so occupied up to the year 1554. This is said to be the locality in which the Responsions were formerly held.

It is ordered by the statutes, tit. vi.,--

"Quod priusquam quis ad Gradum Baccalaurei in Artibus admittatur, in
Parviso semel Quaestionibus Magistrorum Scholarum respondeat."

However, they go on to direct, "Locus hisce Responsionibus assignetur Schola Metaphysices;" and there they are at present held. (See the Glossary to Tyrwhitt's _Chaucer_; and also Parker's _Glossary of Architecture_, ad voc. "Parvise.")

CHEVERELLS.

The term _parvise_, though used in somewhat different senses by old writers, appears to mean strictly a _porch_ or _antechamber_. Your correspondent OXONIENSIS will find in Parker's _Glossary_ ample information respecting this word, with references to various writers, showing the different meanings which have been attached to it. "Responsions," or the preliminary examinations at Oxford, are said to be held _in parviso_; that is, in the porch, as it were, or antechamber before the schools, which are the scene of the greater examinations for the degree.

H. C. K.

If your correspondent will refer to the word _Parvisium_, in the Glossary at the end of Watt's edition of Matthew Paris, he will find a good deal of information. To this I will add that the word is now in use in Belgium in another sense. I saw some years since, and again last summer, in a street leading out of the Grande Place, by one side of the Halle at Bruges, on a house, this notice,--

"IN PERVISE
VERKOOPT MEN DRANK."

D. P.

Begbrook.

* * * * *

THE COENACULUM OF LIONARDO DA VINCI.

(Vol. vii., pp. 524, 525.)

MR. SMIRKE's paper, questioning the received opinion as to the points of time and circumstance {625} expressed in this celebrated fresco, contains the following sentence:

"The work in question is now so generally accessible, through the
medium of _accurate_ engravings, that any one may easily exercise his
own judgment on the matter."

Having within no very distant period spent an hour or two in examining the original, with copies lying close at hand for the purposes of comparison, allow me to offer you a few impressions of which, while fresh, I "made a note" in an interleaved copy of Bishop Burnet's curious _Tour in Italy_, which served me as a journal while abroad. Burnet mentions the Dominican Convent at Milan as in his day "very rich." My note is as follows:

"The Dominican convent is now suppressed. It is a cavalry barracks:
dragoons have displaced Dominicans. There is a fine cupola to the
church, the work of Bramante: in the salle or refectory of this convent
was discovered, since Burnet's time, under a coat of wash or plaster,
the celebrated fresco of Lionardo da Vinci, now so well known to the
world by plates and copies, better finished than the original ever was,
in all probability; certainly better than it is now, after abuse,
neglect, damp, and, worst of all, _restoring_, have done their joint
work upon it. A visit to this fresco disenchants one wonderfully. It is
better to be satisfied with the fine engravings, and let the original
live in its ideal excellence. The copyists have taken some liberties,
of which these strike me as the chief:

"First, The Saviour's head is put more on one side, in what I would
call a more languishing position than its actual one.

"Second, the expression of the figure seated at his left hand is quite
changed. In the copies it is a grave, serious, fine face: in the
original, though now indistinct, it evidently expressed 'open-mouthed
horror' at the declaration, 'One of you shall betray me.'

"Third, Judas in all copies is identified not only by the held bag of
money, but by the overturned saltcellar at his elbow. This last is not
in the original.

"The whole fresco, though now as well kept as may be, seems spoiling
fast. There is a Crucifixion at the other end of the same hall, in much
better preservation, though of the same date; and the doorway which the
tasteful Dominicans cut in the wall, through the bottom of the
painting, is, though blocked up, still quite visible. It is but too
probable that the monks valued the absurd and hideous frescoes in the
cloisters outside, representing Saint Dominic's miracles! and the
Virgin fishing souls out of purgatory with a rosary, beyond Lionardo's
great work."

So far my original note, written without supposing that the received idea, as to the subject of the picture, had ever been questioned. In reference to the question raised, however, I will briefly say, that, as recollection serves me, it would require a well-sustained criticism to convince me that the two disciples at the Saviour's right hand were not designed to express the point of action described in the 23rd and 24th verses of chapter xiii. of St. John's Gospel. Possibly MR. SMIRKE might favour us with the argument of his MSS. on the group.

A. B. R.

Belmont.

* * * * *

FONT INSCRIPTIONS.

(Vol. vii., p. 408.)

I have in my note-book the following entries:--

Kiddington, Oxon.:

"This sacred Font Saint Edward first receaved,
From womb to grace, from grace to glory went
His virtuous life. To this fayre isle beqveth'd.
Prase ... and to vs bvt lent.
Let this remaine the trophies of his fame;
A King baptized from hence a Saint became.

"This Fonte came from the King's Chapell in Islip."

Newark, round the base in black letter:

"Suis . Natis . sunt . Deo . hoc . Fonte . Renati . erunt."

On a pillar adjoining the font is a brass tablet with this inscription:

"This Font was demolished by the Rebels, May 9, 1646, and rebuilt by
the charity of Nicholas Ridley in 1660."

Kirton, Lincoln:

"Orate pro aia Alauni Burton qui fontem istum fieri fec. A.D. MCCCCV."

Clee, Lincoln:

"The Font is formed of two cylindrical parts, one placed upon the
other, over which, in the shaft of the circular column, is inlaid a
small piece of marble, with a Latin inscription in Saxon characters,
referring to the time of King Richard, and stating it was dedicated to
the Holy Trinity and St. Mary, by Hugh Bishop of Lincoln, A.D. 1192."

The above are extracts from books, not copied by me from the fonts.

F. B. RELTON.

At Threckingham, Lincolnshire, round the base of the font--

"Ave Maria gratis . p . d . t."

At Little Billing, Northamptonshire,--

"Wilberthus artifex atq; cementarius hunc fabricavit, quisquis suum
venit mergere corpus procul dubio capit."

J. P., Jun.

To the list of these should be added the early English font at Keysoe, Beds., noticed in the _Ecclesiologist_, vol. i. p. 124., and figured in Van Voorst's _Baptismal Fonts_. It bears the legend in Norman French:

+ "Trestui: ke par hiei passerui
Pur le alme Warel prieui:
Ke Deu par sa grace
Verrey merci li face. A[=m]."

{626} Or, in modern French:

"Restez: qui par ici passerez
Pour l'ame de Warel priez:
Que Dieu par sa grace
Vraie merci lui fasse. Amen."

CHEVERELLS.

* * * * *

BURN AT CROYDON.

(Vol. vii., pp. 238. 393.)

The bourne at Croydon is one of the most remarkable of those intermitting springs which issue from the upper part of the chalk strata after long-continued rains.

All porous earth-beds are reservoirs of water, and give out their supplies more or less copiously according to their states of engorgement; and at higher or lower levels, as they are more or less replenished by rain. Rain percolates through the chalk rapidly at all times, it being greatly fissured and cavernous, and finds vent at the bottom of the hills, in ordinary seasons, in the perennial springs which issue there, at the top of the chalk marl, or of the galt (the clay so called) which underlies the chalk. But when long-continued rains have filled the fissures and caverns, and the chinks and crannies of the ordinary vents below are unequal to the drainage, the reservoir as it were overflows, and the superfluity exudes from the valleys and gullies of the upper surface; and these occasional sources continue to flow till the equilibrium is restored, and the perennial vents suffice to carry off the annual supply. Some approach to the full engorgement here spoken of takes place annually in many parts of the chalk districts, where springs break out after the autumnal and winter rains, and run themselves dry again in the course of a few months, or maybe have intermissions of a year or two, when the average falls are short. Thence it is we have so many "Winterbournes" in the counties of Wilts, Hants, and Dorset; as Winterbourne-basset, Winterbourne-gunner, Winterbourne-stoke, &c. (Vide Lewis's _Topog. Dict._) The highest sources of the Test, Itchen, and some other of our southern rivers which take their rise in the chalk, are often dry for months, and their channels void of water for miles; failing altogether when the rains do not fill the neighbouring strata to repletion.

In the case of long intermissions, such as occur to the Croydon bourne, it is not wonderful that the sudden appearance of waters in considerable force, where none are usually seen to flow, should give rise to superstitious dread of coming evils. Indeed, the coincidence of the running of the bourne, a wet summer, a worse sowing-season, and a wet cold spring, may well inspire evil forebodings, and give a colourable pretext for such apprehensions as are often entertained on the occurrence of any unusual natural phenomenon. These intermittent rivulets have no affinity, as your correspondent E. G. R. supposes, to subterraneous rivers. The nearest approach to this kind of stream is to be found in the Mole, which sometimes sinks away, and leaves its channel dry between Dorking and Leatherhead, being absorbed into fissures in the chalk, and again discharged; these fissures being insufficient to receive its waters in times of more copious supply. The subterraneous rivers of more mountainous countries are also not to be included in the same category. They have a history of their own, to enlarge on which is not the business of this Note: but it may not be irrelevant to turn the attention for a moment to the use of the word _bourne_ or _burn_. The former mode of spelling and pronouncing it appears to prevail in the south, and the latter in the north of England and in Scotland; both alike from the same source as the _brun_ or _brunen_ of Germany. The perennial bourne so often affords a convenient natural geographical boundary, and a convenient line of territorial division, that by an easy metonymy it has established itself in our language in either sense, signifying streamlet or boundary-line,--as witness the well-known lines:

"That undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns."--_Shakspeare._

"I know each lane, and every alley green,
And every bosky bourn from side to side."--_Milton._

M.

* * * * *

CHRISTIAN NAMES.

(Vol. vii., pp. 406. 488, 489.)

The opinion of your correspondents, that instances of persons having more than one Christian name before the last century are, at least, very rare, is borne out by the learned Camden, who, however, enables me to adduce two earlier instances of polyonomy than those cited by J. J. H.:

"Two Christian names," says he (_Remaines concerning Britaine_, p.
44.), "are rare in England, and I onely remember now his majesty, who
was named Charles James, and the prince his sonne Henry Frederic; and
among private men, Thomas Maria Wingfield, and Sir Thomas Posthumous
Hobby."

The custom must have been still rare at the end of the eighteenth century, for, as we are informed by Moore in a note to his _Fudge Family in Paris_ (Letter IV.):

"The late Lord C. (Castlereagh?) of Ireland had a curious theory about
names; he held that _every_ man with _three_ names was a Jacobin. His
instances in Ireland were numerous; Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Theobald
Wolfe Tone, James Napper Tandy, John Philpot Curran, &c.: and in
England he produced as examples, Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley
{627} Sheridan, John Horne Tooke, Francis Burdett Jones," &c.

Perhaps the noble lord thought with Sterne in _Tristram Shandy_, though the _nexus_ is not easy to discover, that "there is a strange kind of magic bias, which good or bad names irresistibly impose upon our character and conduct," or perhaps he had misread that controverted passage in Plautus (_Aulular._ Act II. Sc. 4.):

"Tun' _trium literarum_ homo
Me vituperas? _Fur._"

The custom is now almost universal; and as, according to Camden (_Remaines, &c._, p. 96.),

"Shortly after the Conquest it seemed a disgrace for a gentleman to
have but one single name, as the meaner sort and bastards had,"

so now, the _tria nomina nobiliorum_ have become so common, as to render the epigram upon a certain M. L-P. Saint-Florentin, of almost universal applicability as a neat and befitting epitaph.

"On ne lui avait pas epargne," says the biographer of this gentleman
(_Biographie Universelle_, tom. xxxix. p. 573.), "les epigrammes de son
vivant; il en parut encore contre lui au moment de sa mort; en voici
une:--

'Ci git un petit homme a l'air assez commun,
Ayant porte _trois noms_, et n'en laissant _aucun_.'"

WILLIAM BATES.

Birmingham.

Leopold William Finch, fifth son of Heneage, second Earl of Nottingham, born about the year 1662, and afterwards Warden of All Souls, is an earlier instance of an English person with two Christian names than your correspondent J. J. H. has noticed.

J. B.

* * * * *

WEATHER RULES.

(Vol. vii., p. 522.)

Your correspondent J. A., JUN., makes a Note and asks a question regarding a popular opinion prevalent in Worcestershire, on the subject of a "Sunday's moon," as being one very much addicted to rain. In Sussex that bad repute attaches to the moon that changes on Saturday:

"A Saturday's moon,
If it comes once in seven years, it comes too soon."

It may be hoped that the time is not far distant when a scientific meteorology will dissipate the errors of the traditional code now in existence. Of these errors none have greater or more extensive prevalence than the superstitions regarding the influence of the moon on the atmospheric phenomena of wet and dry weather. Howard, the author of _The Climate of London_, after twenty years of close observation, could not determine that the moon had any perceptible influence on the weather. And the best authorities now follow, still more decidedly, in the same train.

"The change of the moon," the expression in general use in predictions of the weather, is idly and inconsiderately used by educated people, without considering that in every phase that planet is the same to us, as a material agent, except as regards the power of reflected light; and no one supposes that moonlight produces wet or dry. Why then should that point in the moon's course, which we agree to call "the new" when it begins to emerge from the sun's rays, have any influence on our weather. Twice in each revolution, when in conjunction with the sun at new, and in opposition at the full, an atmospheric spring-tide may be supposed to exist, and to exert some sort of influence. But the existence of any atmospheric tide at all is denied by some naturalists, and is at most very problematical; and the absence of regular diurnal fluctuations of the barometric pressure favours the negative of this proposition. But, granting that it were so, and that the moon, in what is conventionally called the beginning of its course, and again in the middle, at the full, did produce changes in the weather, surely the most sanguine of _rational lunarians_ would discard the idea of one moon differing from another, except in relation to the season of the year; or that a new moon on the Sabbath day, whether Jewish or Christian, had any special quality not shared by the new moons of any other days of the week.

Such a publication as "N. & Q." is not the place to discuss fully the question of lunar influence. Your correspondent J. A., JUN., and all persons who have inconsiderately taken up the popular belief in moon-weather, will do well to consult an interesting article on this subject (I believe attributed to Sir D. Brewster) in _The Monthly Chronicle_ for 1838; and this will also refer such inquirers to Arago's _Annuaire_ for 1833. There may be later and completer disquisitions on the lunar influences, but they are not known to me.

M.

* * * * *

ROCOCO.

(Vol. i., pp. 321. 356.)

This word is now receiving a curious illustration in this colony of French origin. _Rococo_--antiquated, old-fashioned--would seem to have become _rococo_ itself; and in its place the negroes have adopted the word _entete_, wilful, headstrong, to express, as it were, the persistence of a person in retaining anything that has gone out of fashion. This term was first applied to white hats; and the wearers of such have been assailed from every corner of the streets with the cry of "Entete chapeau!" It was next applied to umbrellas of a {628} strange colour (the varieties of which are almost without number in this country of the sun); and it has now been extended to every article of wearing apparel of an unfashionable or peculiar shape. A negro woman, appearing with a blue umbrella, has been followed by half a dozen black boys with the cry of "Entete parasol!" and in order to get rid of the annoyance she had to shut the umbrella and continue her way under the broiling sun. But the term is not always used in derision. A few days ago, a young girl of colour, dressed in the extreme of the fashion, was passing along, when some bystanders began to rally her with the word "Entete." The girl, perceiving that she was the object of their notice, turned round, and in an attitude of conscious irreproachableness, retorted with the challenge in Creole French, "Qui entete ca?" But the smiles with which she was greeted showed her (what she had already partly suspected) that their cries of "Entete" were intended rather to compliment her on the style of her dress.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia.

* * * * *

DESCENDANTS OF JOHN OF GAUNT.

(Vol. vii., p. 41.)

I am gratified to see that MR. HARDY's documentary researches have confirmed my conjectures as to the erroneous date assigned for the death of the first husband of Jane Beaufort. Perhaps it may be in his power also to rectify a chronological error, which has crept into the account usually given of the family into which one of her sons married. The Peerages all place the death of the last Lord Fauconberg of the original family in 1376, not observing that this date would make his daughter and heiress married to William Nevill, second son of the Earl of Westmoreland and Countess Joane, twenty-five years at the lowest computation; or, if we take the date which they assign for the death of Lord Ferrers of Wemme, forty years older than her husband,--a difference this, which, although perhaps it might not prove an insuperable impediment to marriage where the lady was a great heiress, would undoubtedly put a bar on all hopes of issue: whereas it stands on record that they had a family.

I must take this opportunity of complaining of the manner in which many, if not all these Peerages, are compiled: copying each others' errors, however obvious, without a word of doubt or an attempt to rectify them; though MR. HARDY's communication, above mentioned, shows that the materials for doing so, in many cases, exist if properly sought. Not to mention minor errors, they sometimes crowd into a given time more generations than could have possibly existed, and sometimes make the generations of a length that has not been witnessed since the patriarchal ages. As instances of the former may be mentioned, the pedigree of the Ferrerses, Earls of Derby (in which eight successions from father to son are given between 1137 and 1265), and those of the Netterville and Tracy families: and of the latter, the pedigree of the Fitzwarines, which gives only four generations between the Conquest and 1314; and that of the Clanricarde family. It is strange that Mr. Burke, who appears to claim descent from the latter, did not take more pains to rectify a point so nearly concerning him; instead of making, as he does in his Peerage, one of the family to have held the title (MacWilliam Eighter) and estates for 105 years!--an absurdity rendered still more glaring by this long-lived gentleman's father having possessed them fifty-four years before him, and his son for fifty-six years after him. If such can be supposed true, the Countess of Desmond's longevity was not so unusual after all.

J. S. WARDEN.

* * * * *

THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

(Vol. vii., p. 407.)

May I be allowed to inform your correspondent R. L. P. that he is in error, when supposing that the English knights were deprived of their property by Queen Elizabeth, as it was done by act of parliament in the year 1534, and during the reign of Henry VIII.

For the information sought by your correspondent R. L. P., I would refer him to the following extract taken from Sutherland's _History of the Knights of Malta_, vol. ii. pp. 114, 115.:

"To increase the despondency of L'Isle Adam [the Grand Master of the
Order of St. John of Jerusalem], Henry VIII. of England having come to
an open rupture with the Pope, in consequence of the Pontiff's steady
refusal to countenance the divorcement of Catherine of Arragon his
queen, commenced a fierce and bloody persecution against all persons in
his dominions, who persisted in adhering to the Holy See. In these
circumstances, the Knights of St. John, who held themselves bound to
acknowledge the Pope as their superior at whatever hazard, did not long
escape his ire. The power of the Order, composed as it was of the
chivalry of the nation, while the Prior of London sat in parliament on
an equality with the first baron of the realm, for a time deterred him
from openly proscribing it; but at length his wrath burst forth in an
ungovernable flame. The knights Ingley, Adrian Forrest, Adrian
Fortescu, and Marmaduke Bohus, refusing to abjure their faith, perished
on the scaffold. Thomas Mytton and Edward Waldegrave died in a dungeon;
and Richard and James Bell, John Noel, and many others, abandoned their
country for ever, and sought an asylum at Malta[4], completely stripped
{629} of their possessions. In 1534, by an act of the legislature, the
Order of St. John was abolished in the King of England's dominions; and
such knights as survived the persecution, but who refused to stoop to
the conditions offered them, were thrown entirely on the charity of
their brethren at Malta. Henry offered Sir Wm. Weston, Lord Prior of
England, a pension of a thousand pounds a year; but that knight was so
overwhelmed with grief at the suppression of his Order, that he never
received a penny, but soon after died. Other knights, less scrupulous,
became pensioners of the crown."

W. W.

La Valetta, Malta.

[Footnote 4: I have sought in vain among the records of the Order at this island to find any mention made of those English knights, whom Sutherland thus mentions as having fled to Malta at the time of this persecution in their native land.]

* * * * *

Replies to Minor Queries.

_Anticipatory Worship of the Cross_ (Vol. vii., p. 548.).--A correspondent wishes for farther information on the anticipatory worship of the cross in Mexico and at Alexandria. At the present moment I am unable to refer to the works on which I grounded the statement which he quotes. He will, however, find the details respecting Mexico in Stephens's _Travels in Yucatan_; and those respecting Alexandria in the commentators on Sozomen (_H. E._, vii. 15.), and Socrates (_H. E._, v. 16.). A similar instance is the worship of the _Cross Fylfotte_ in Thibet.

THE WRITER OF "COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE UNSEEN WORLD."

_Ennui_ (Vol. vii., p. 478.).--

"Cleland (voc. 165.) has, with his usual sagacity, and with a great
deal of trouble, as he himself acknowledges, traced out the true
meaning and derivation of this word: for after he had long despaired of
discovering the origin of it, mere chance, he says, offered to him what
he took to be the genuine one: 'In an old French book I met,' says he,
'with a passage where the author, speaking of a company that had sat up
late, makes use of this expression, "l'ennuit les avoit gagnes," by the
context of which it was plain he meant, that the common influence of
_the night_, in bringing on _heaviness_ and _yawning_, had come upon
them. The proper sense is totally antiquated, but the figurative
remains in full currency to this day."--Lemon's _Etymological
Dictionary_.

The true synonym of _ennui_ seem to be _taedium_, which appears to have the same relation to _taedo_, a torch, as _ennui_ to _nuit_.

B. H. C.

_"Qui facit per alium, facit per se," &c._ (Vol. vii., p. 488.).--This maxim is found in the following form in the _Regulae Juris_, subjoined to the 6th Book of the Decretals, Reg. lxxii.: "Qui facit per alium, est perinde ac si faciat per seipsum."

J. B.

_Vincent Family_ (Vol. vii., pp. 501. 586.).--The _Memoir of Augustine Vincent_, referred to by MR. MARTIN, was written by the late Sir N. Harris Nicolas, and published by Pickering in 1827, crown 8vo. Shortly after its publication, a few pages of _Addenda_ were printed in consequence of some information communicated by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, respecting the descendants of Augustine Vincent. At that time Francis Offley Edmunds, Esq., of Westborough, was his representative.

G.

_Judge Smith_ (Vol. vii., pp. 463. 508.).--I am well acquainted with the monumental inscriptions in Chesterfield Church, but I do not recollect one to the memory of Judge Smith.

Thomas Smith, who was an attorney in Sheffield, and died in 1774, had a brother, William Smith of Norwich, who died in 1801. Thomas Smith married Susan Battie, by whom he had a son Thomas Smith of Sheffield, and after of Dunston Hall, who married in 1791 Elizabeth Mary, only surviving child of Robert Mower of Woodseats, Esq., (by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Richard Milnes of Dunston Hall, Esq.) It was through this lady that the Dunston estate came to the Smiths by the will of her uncle Mr. Milnes. Mr. Smith died in 1811, having had issue by her (who married secondly John Frederick Smith, Esq., of London) three sons and several daughters. The second son (Rev. Wm. Smith of Dunston Hall) died in 1841, leaving male issue; but I am not aware of the death of either of the others. The family had a grant of arms in 1816. Dunston Hall had belonged to the Milnes family for about a century.

W. ST.

_"Dimidiation" in Impalements_ (Vol. vii., p. 548.).--In reply to your correspondent's Query as to _dimidiation_, he will find that this was the most ancient form of impalement. Its manifest inconvenience no doubt at last banished it. Guillim (ed. 1724) says, at p. 425.:

"It was an ancient way of impaling, to take half the husband's coat,
and with that to joyn as much of the wife's; as appeareth in an old
roll, wherein three lions, being the arms of _England_, are dimidiated
and impaled with half the pales of Arragon. The like hath been
practised with quartered coats by leaving out half of them."

On p. 426. he gives the example of Mary, Henry VIII.'s sister, and her husband Louis XII. of France. Here the French king's coat is cut in half, so that the lily in the base point is _dimidiated_; and the queen's coat, being quarterly France and England, shows two quarters only; England in chief, France in base.

Sandford, in his _Genealogical History_, gives a plate of the tomb of Henry II. and Richard I. of England at Fontevrault, which was built anew in {630} 1638. Upon it are several impalements by _dimidiation_. Sandford (whose book seems to me to be strangely over-valued) gives no explanation of them. No doubt they were copied from the original tomb.

In Part II. of the _Guide to the Architectural Antiquities in the Neighbourhood of Oxford_, at p. 178., is figured an impalement by _dimidiation_ existing at Stanton Harcourt, in the north transept of the church, in a brass on a piece of blue marble. The writer of the _Guide_ supposes this bearing to be some union of Harcourt and Beke, in consequence of a will of John Lord Beke, and to be commemorative of the son of Sir Richard Harcourt and Margaret Beke. It is in fact commemorative of those persons themselves. Harcourt, two bars, is dimidiated, and meets Beke, a cross moline or ancree. The figure thus produced is a strange one, but perfectly intelligible when the practice of impaling by dimidiation is recollected. I know no modern instance of this method of impaling. I doubt if any can be found since the time of Henry VIII.

D. P.

Begbrook.

_Worth_ (Vol. vii., p. 584.).--At one time, and in one locality, this word seems to have denoted manure; as appears by the following preamble to the statute 7 Jac. I. cap. 18.:

"Whereas the sea-sand, by long triall and experience, hath bin found to
be very profitable for the bettering of land, and especially for the
increase of corne and tillage, within the counties of Devon and
Cornwall, where the inhabitants have not commonly used any other
_worth_, for the bettering of their arable grounds and pastures."

I am not aware of any other instance of the use of this word in this sense.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

_"Elementa sex," &c._ (Vol. vii., p. 572.).--The answer to the Latin riddle propounded by your correspondent EFFIGY, seems to be the word _putres_; divided into _utres_, _tres_, _res_, _es_, and the letter _s_.

The allusion in _putres_ is to Virgil, _Georgic_, i. 392.; and in _utres_ probably to _Georgic_, ii. 384.: the rest is patent enough.

I send this response to save others from the trouble of seeking an answer, and being disappointed at their profitless labours. If I may venture a guess at its author, I should be inclined to ascribe it to some idle schoolboy, or perhaps schoolmaster, who deserved to be whipped for their pains.