Chapter C: Clifton Barry

_Punning Devices._--Sir John Cullum, in his _Hist. of Hawsted_, 1st edit. p. 114., says that the seal of Sir William Clopton, knight, t. Hen. VII., was "a ton, out of which issues some plant, perhaps a _caltrop_, which might be contracted to the first syllable of his name." This appears to be too violent a contraction. Can any of your readers suggest any other or closer analogy between the name and device?

BURIENSIS.

"_Pinece with a stink._"--In Archbishop Bramhall's _Schism Guarded_ (written against Serjeant) there is a passage in which the above curious expression occurs, and of which I can find no satisfactory, nor indeed any explanation whatever. The passage is this (_Works_, vol. ii. p. 545., edit. Ox.):

"But when he is baffled in the cause, he hath a reserve,--that
Venerable Bede, and Gildas, and Foxe in his Acts and Monuments, do
brand the Britons for wicked men, making them 'as good as Atheists; of
which gang if this Dinoth were one,' he 'will neither wish the Pope
such friends, nor envy them to the Protestants.'

"What needeth this, when he hath got the worst of the cause, to defend
himself like a _pinece with a stink_? We read no other character of
Dinoth, but as of a pious, learned, and prudent man."

Can any of your readers furnish an explanation?

R. BLAKISTON.

_Soiled Parchment Deeds._--Having in my possession some old and very dirty parchment deeds, and other records, now almost illegible from the accumulation of grease, &c., on the surface of the skins, I am desirous to know if there be any "royal road" to the cleansing and restoration of these otherwise enduring MSS.?

T. HUGHES.

Chester.

_Roger Wilbraham, Esq.'s Cheshire Collection._--Can any of your correspondents say where the original collection made by the above-named gentleman, or a copy of them, referred to in Dr. Foote Gower's _Sketch of the Materials for a Cheshire History_, may now be met with?

CESTRIENSIS.

_Cambridge and Ireland._--In the first volume of the _Pictorial History of England_, p. 270., it is stated that--

"Martin skins are mentioned in _Domesday Book_ among the commodities
brought by sea to Chester; and this appears from other authorities to
have been one of the exports in ancient times from Ireland. Notices are
also found of merchants from Ireland _landing at Cambridge_ with
cloths, and exposing their merchandise to sale."

The authority quoted for this statement is Turner, vol. iii. p. 113.

On referring to Turner's _Anglo-Saxons_, I find it stated:

"We read of merchants from Ireland _landing at Cambridge_ with cloths,
and exposing their merchandise to sale."

Mr. Turner refers to Gale, vol. ii. p. 482.

I do not know to what work Mr. Turner refers, unless to Gale's _Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores {271} Veteres_; on examining this I can find no passage at the page and volume indicated, on the subject.

Can any of your readers state where it is to be found? It appears remarkable that the merchants from Ireland should land at the inland town of Cambridge, and it seems a probable conjecture that Cambridge is a mistake for Cambria.

William of Malmesbury speaks of a commerce between Ireland and the neighbourhood of Chester, and it seems much more probable that the merchants of Ireland landed in Wales than in Cambridge.

JOHN THRUPP.

_Derivation of Celt._--What is the proper derivation of the word _celt_, as applied to certain weapons of antiquity? A good authority, in Dr. Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_, p. 351., obtains the term from--

"Celtes, an old Latin word for a chisel, probably derived from caelo, to
engrave."

Mr. Wright (_The Celt, Roman, and Saxon_, p. 73.) says that Hearne first applied the word to such implements in _bronze_, believing them to be "Roman _celtes_ or chisels;" and that--

"Subsequent writers, ascribing these instruments to the Britons, have
retained the name, forgetting its origin, and have applied it
indiscriminately, not only to other implements of bronze, but even to
the analogous instruments of _stone_."

And he objects to the term "as too generally implying that things to which it is applied are Celtic." On the other hand, Dr. Wilson (_Prehistoric Annals_, p. 129.) prefers to retain the word, inasmuch as the Welsh etymologists, Owen and Spurrell, furnish an ancient Cambro-British word _celt_, a flint stone. M. Worsaae (_Primeval Antiq._, p. 26.) confines the term to those instruments of bronze which have a hollow socket to receive a wooden handle; the other forms being called paalstabs on the Continent. It seems clear that there is no connexion between this word and the name of the nation (_Celtae_); but its true origin may perhaps be elicited by a little discussion in the pages of "N. & Q."