Chapter C: Forbes

Temple.

_Hand-bells at Funerals_ (Vol. ii., p. 478.; Vol. vii., p. 297.).--A few years ago I happened to arrive at the small sea-port of Roscoff, near the ancient cathedral town of St. Pol de Leon in Britanny, on the day appointed for the funeral of one of the members of a family of very old standing in that neighbourhood. My attention was attracted by a number of boys running about the streets with small hand-bells, with which they kept up a perpetual tinkling. On inquiring of a friend of mine, a native of the place, what this meant, he informed me that it was an old custom in Britanny--but one which in the present day had almost fallen into disuse--to send boys round from door to door with bells to announce when a death had occurred, and to give notice of the day and the hour at which the funeral was to take place, begging at the same time the prayers of the faithful for the soul of the deceased. The boys selected for this office are taken from the most indigent classes, and, on the day of the funeral, receive cloaks of coarse black cloth as an alms: thus attired, they attend the funeral procession, tinkling their bells as they go along.

EDGAR MACCULLOCH.

Guernsey.

"_Warple-way_" (Vol. ix., p. 125.).--The communications of your correspondents (Vol. ix., p. 232.) can scarcely be called answers to the questions put.

I find, in Holloway's _Dictionary of Provincialisms_, 8vo., 1838, that a ridge of land is called, in husbandry, a _warp_. It is defined to be a quantity of land consisting of ten, twelve, or more ridges; on each side of which a furrow is left, to carry off the water.

Again, in Halliwell's _Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words_, two volumes, 1847, it will be {479} found that _warps_ are distinct pieces of ploughed land, separated by furrows. I think I here give the derivation and meaning, and refer to the authority. If the derivation be not here given, then I would refer to the Saxon word _werpen_, meaning "to cast."

Across marshy grounds, to this day, are seen ridges forming foot-paths, with a furrow on each side. A ridge of this sort would formerly be, perhaps, a _warple-way_. Or perhaps a path across an open common field, cast off or divided, as Halliwell mentions, by warps, would be a _warple-way_.

VIATOR.

_Wapple-way_, or, as on the borders of Surrey and Sussex it is called, _waffel-way_: and the gate itself, _waffel-gate_. If it should appear, as in the cases familiar to me, these waffel-ways run along the borders of shires and divisions of shires, such as _hundreds_, I would suggest that they were military roads,--the derivation _waffe_ (Ger.), weapon.

H. F. B.

_Medal of Chevalier St. George_ (Vol. ix., pp. 105. 311.).--With reference to the observations of your correspondents A. S. and H., I would beg to observe that, some time ago, I gave to the Museum at Winchester a medal struck on the occasion of the marriage of Prince James F. E. Stuart and M. Clementina Sobieski: on the obverse is a very striking head and bust of Clementina, with this inscription:

"Clementina, M. Britan., Fr., et Hib. Regina."

On the reverse is Clementina, driving an ancient chariot towards the Colosseum, with this inscription: on the top--

"Fortunam causamque sequor."

at the bottom--

"Deceptis Custodibus. MDCCXIX."

This latter inscription refers to her escape from Innspruck, where the princess and her suite had been detained by the emperor's orders.

This marriage, to prevent which so many efforts were made, prolonged for eighty-eight years the unfortunate House of Stuart.

E. S. S. W.

_Shakspeare's Inheritance_ (Vol. ix., pp. 75. 154.).--Probably the following extracts from Littleton's _Tenures in English, lately perused and amended_ (1656), may tend to a right understanding of the meaning of _inheritance_ and _purchase_--if so, you may print them:

"Tenant in fee simple is he which hath lands or tenement to hold to him
and his heires for ever: and it is called in Latine _feodum simplex_;
for _feodum_ is called inheritance, and _simplex_ as much to say as
lawful or pure, and so _feodum simplex_ is as much to say as lawfull or
pure inheritance. For if a man will purchase lands or tenements in fee
simple, it behoveth him to have these words in his purchase, To have
and to hold unto him and to his heires: for these words (his heires)
make the estate of inheritance, _Anno_ 10 _Henrici_ 6. fol. 38.; for if
any man purchase lands in these words, To have and to hold to him for
ever, or by such words, To have and to hold to him and to his assigns
for ever; in these two cases he hath none estate but for terme of life;
for that, that he lacketh these words (his heires), which words only
make the estate of inheritance in all feoffements and grants."

"And it is to be understood that this word (_inheritance_) is not only
understood where a man hath lands or tenements by descent of heritage,
but also every fee simple or fee taile that a man hath by his purchase,
may be said inheritance; for that, thus his heires may inherite them.
For in a Writ of Right that a man bringeth of land that was of his own
purchase, the writ shall say, _Quam clamat esse jus et haereditatem
suam_, this is to say, which he claimeth to be his right and his
inheritance."

"Also _purchase_ is called the possession of lands or tenements that a
man hath by his deed or by his agreement, unto which possession he
commeth, not by descent of any of his ancestors or of his cosins, but
by his own deed."

J. BELL.

Cranbroke, Kent.

_Cassock_ (Vol. ix., pp. 101. 337.).--A note in Whalley's edition of _Ben Jonson_ has the following remark on this word:

"_Cassock_, in the sense it is here used, is not to be met with in our
common dictionaries: it signifies a soldier's loose outward coat, and
is taken in that acceptation by the writers of Jonson's times. Thus
Shakspeare, in _All's Well that Ends Well:_

'Half of the which dare not shake the snow from their _cassocks_.'"

This is confirmed in the passage of _Jonson_, on which the above is a note.

"This small service will bring him clean out of love with the soldier.
He will never come within the sign of it, the sight of a
_cassock_."--_Every Man in his Humour_, Act II. Sc. 5.

The cassock, as well as the gown and band, seem to have been the usual attire of the clergy on all occasions in the last century, as we find from the paintings of Hogarth and the writings of Fielding, &c. When did this custom cease? Can any reader of "N. & Q." supply traditional proof of clergymen appearing thus apparelled in ordinary life?

E. H. M. L.

_Tailless Cats_ (Vol. ix., p. 10.).--On the day on which this Query met my eye, a friend informed me that she had just received a letter from an American clergyman travelling in Europe, in which he mentioned having seen a tailless cat in Scotland, called a Manx cat, from having come {480} from the Isle of Man. This is _not_ "a Jonathan." Perhaps the Isle of Man is too small to swing long-tailed cats in.

UNEDA.

Philadelphia.

Mr. T. D. Stephens, of Trull Green, near this town, has for some years had and bred the Manx tailless cat; and, I have no doubt, would have pleasure in showing them to your correspondent SHIRLEY HIBBERD, should he ever be in this neighbourhood.

K. Y.

Taunton.

A friend of mine, who resided in the Park Farm, Kimberley, had a breed of tailless cats, arising from the tail of one of the cats in the _first instance_ having been cut off; many of the kittens came tailless, some with half length; and, occasionally, one of a litter with a tail of the usual length, and this breed continued through several generations.

G. J.

_Names of Slaves_ (Vol. viii., p. 339.).--I can answer the first of J. F. M.'s Queries in the affirmative; it being common to see in Virginia slaves, or free people who have been slaves, with names acquired in the manner suggested: _e. g._ "Philip Washington," better known in Jefferson county as "Uncle Phil.," formerly a slave of the Washingtons. A large family, liberated and sent to Cape Palmas, bore the surname of "Davenport," from the circumstance that their progenitor had been owned by the Davenports. In fact, the practice is almost universal. But fancy names are generally used as first names: _e. g._ John Randolph, Peyton, Jefferson, Fairfax, Carter, &c. A fine old body-servant of Col. Willis was called "Burgundy," _shortened_ into "Uncle Gundy." So that "Milton," in the case mentioned, may have been merely the homage paid to genius by some enthusiastic admirer of that poet.

J. BALCH.

Philadelphia.

_Heraldic_ (Vol. ix., p. 271.).--On the brass of Robert Arthur, St. Mary's, Chartham, Kent, are two shields bearing a fess engrailed between three trefoils slipped: which may probably be the same as that about which LOCCAN inquires, though I am unable to tell the colours. There are two other shields bearing, Two bars with a bordure. The inscription is as follows:

"Hic iacet d[=n]s Robertus Arthur quondam Rector isti' Eccli[=e] qui
obiit xxviii^o die marcii A^o d[=n]i Mill[=o] CCCC^oLIIII^o. Cui'
a[=i]e ppiciet' de' Am[=e]."

F. G.

_Solar Annual Eclipse of 1263_ (Vol. viii., p. 441.).--Mr. Tytler, in the first volume of his _History of Scotland_, mentions that this eclipse, which occurred about 2 P.M. on Sunday, August 5, 1263, has been found by calculation to have been actually central and annular to Ronaldsvoe, in the Orkneys, where the Norwegian fleet was then lying: a fine example, as he justly adds, "of the clear and certain light reflected by the exact sciences on history." S. asks, is this eclipse mentioned by any other writer? As connected with the Norwegian expedition, it would seem not; but Matthew of Westminster (vol. ii. p. 408., Bohn's edit.) mentions it having been seen in England, although he places it erroneously on the 6th of the month.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Brissot de Warville_ (Vol. ix., p. 335.).--Brissot's _Memoires_ is a very common book in the original, and has gone through several editions. The passage quoted by N. J. A. was only an impudent excuse for an impudent assumption. Brissot, in his early ambition, wished to pass himself off as a gentleman, and called himself _Brissot de Warville_, as Danton did D'Anton, and Robespierre de Robespierre; but when these worthies were endeavouring to send _M. de Warville_ to the scaffold as an aristocrat, he invented this fable of his father's having some landed property at _Ouarville en Beauce_ (not Beance), and that he was called, according to the custom of the country, from this place, where, it seems, he was put out to nurse. When the dread of the guillotine made _M. de Warville_ anxious to get rid of his aristocratic pretensions, he confessed (in those same _Memoires_) that his father kept a cook's shop in the town of Chartres, and was so ignorant that he could neither read nor write. I need not add, that his having had a landed property to justify, in any way, the son's territorial appellation, was a gross fiction.

C.

"_Le Compere Mathieu_" (Vol. vi., pp. 11. 111. 181.).--On the fly-leaf of my copy (three vols. 12mo., Londres, 1766) of this amusing work, variously attributed by your correspondents to Mathurin Laurent and the Abbe du Laurens, is written the following note, in the hand of its former possessor, Joseph Whateley:

"Ecrit par Diderot, fils d'un Coutelier: un homme tres licentieux, qui
ecrit encore plusieurs autres Ouvrages, comme La Religieuse, Les Bijoux
mechant (_sic_), &c. Il jouit un grand role apres dans la Revolution.

"J. W."

By the way, A. N. styles it "a not altogether undull work." May I ask him to elucidate this phrase, as I am totally at a loss to comprehend its meaning. "Not undull" must surely mean _dull_, if anything. The work, however, is the reverse of dull.

WILLIAM BATES.

Birmingham.

_Etymology of "Awkward"_ (Vol. viii., p. 310.--H. C. K. has probably given the true derivation of this word, but he might have noticed the {481} singularity of one Anglo-Saxon word branching off into two forms, signifying different ways of acting wrong; one, _awkward_, implying ignorance and clumsiness; the other, _wayward_, perverseness and obstinacy. That the latter word is derived from the source from which he deduces _awkward_, can, as I conceive, admit of no doubt.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Life and Death_ (Vol. ix., p. 296.).--What is death but a sleep? We shall awake refreshed in the morning. Thus Psalm xvii. 15.; Rom. vi. 5. For the full meanings, see these passages in the original tongues. Sir Thomas Browne, whose _Hydriotaphia_ abounds with quaint and beautiful allusions to this subject, says, in one place, "Sleep is so like death, that I dare not trust him without my prayers:" and he closes his learned treatise with the following sentence:

"To live indeed is to be again ourselves; which being not only a hope,
but an evidence in noble believers, it is all one to lie in St.
Innocent's churchyard as in the sands of Egypt; ready to be anything in
the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six feet as the moles of
Adrianus."

"Tabesne cadavera solvat,
An rogus, haud refert."--_Lucan._

How fine also is that philosophical sentiment of Lucan:

"Victurosque Dei celant, ut vivere durent,
Felix esse mori."

Can any of your correspondents say in what work the following analogous passage occurs, and who is the author of it? The stamp of thought is rather of the philosophic pagan than the Christian, though the latinity is more monkish than classic:

"Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum, nihil curo."

J. L.

Dublin.

These notes remind my parishioners of an epitaph on a child in Morwenstow churchyard:

"Those whom God loves die young!
They see no evil days;
No falsehood taints their tongue,
No wickedness their ways!

"Baptized, and so made sure
To win their blest abode;
What could we pray for more?
They die, and are with God!"

R. H. MORWENSTOW.

_Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound"_ (Vol. ix., p. 351.).--I offer a conjecture on the meaning of the obscure passage adduced by J. S. WARDEN. It seems that Shelley intended to speak of that peculiar feeling, or sense, which affects us so much in circumstances which he describes. With the slight alterations indicated by Italics, his meaning I think will be apparent; though in his hurry, or inadvertence, he has left his lines very confused and ungrammatical.

"Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring
_Make_ rarest visitation, or the voice
Of one beloved _is_ heard in youth alone,
Fills the faint eyes with falling tears," &c.

F. C. H.

"_Three Crowns and a Sugar-loaf_" (Vol. ix., p. 350.).--The latter was perhaps originally a mitre badly drawn, and worse copied, till it received a new name from that it most resembled. The proper sign would be "The Three Crowns and a Mitre," equivalent to "The Bishop's Arms:" if Franche was in the diocese of Ely, or Bristol, the reference would be clearer. Similar changes are known to have happened.

G. R. YORK.

To the inquiry of CID, as to the meaning of the above sign of an inn, I answer that there can be little doubt that its original meaning was the Pope's tiara.

F. C. H.

_Stanza in "Childe Harold"_ (Vol. viii., p.258.).--I fear that, considering Lord Byron's cacography and carelessness, a reference to his MS. would not mend the matter much; as, although the stanza undoubtedly contains some errors due to the printer or transcriber for the press, the obscurity and unconnected language are his lordship's own, and nothing short of a complete recast could improve it materially: however, to make the verses such as Byron most probably wrote them, an alteration of little more than _one letter_ is required. For "wasted," read "washed;" to supply the deficient syllable, insert "yet" or "still" after "they," and remove the semicolon in the next line from the middle to the end of the verse. Then the stanza runs thus:

"Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee;
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, where are they?
Thy waters wash'd them while they yet were free,
And many a tyrant since their shores obey,
The stranger, slave, or savage--their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts," &c.

The sentiment is clear enough, although not well expressed; and the use of the present tense, "obey," for "have obeyed," is not at all warranted by the usage of our language. In plain prose, it means--

"Thy waters washed their shores while they were independent, and do so
still, although many a race of tyrants has successively reigned over
them since then: their decay has converted many fertile regions to
wildernesses, but thou art still unchanged."

Not having your earlier volumes at hand, I cannot be sure that these conjectures of mine are original (the correction in the punctuation of the fourth line certainly is not), and have only to request the {482} forbearance of any of your correspondents whose "thunder" I may have unwittingly appropriated.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Errors in Punctuation_ (Vol. viii., p. 217.).--Every one must agree with R. H. C. as to the importance of correct punctuation; and it may easily be supposed how it must puzzle readers of works whose language is in great part obsolete, to meet with mistakes of this kind, when we find modern writers frequently rendered almost unintelligible by similar errors. To take those whose works have, perhaps, been oftener reprinted than any others of this century, Byron and Scott, the foregoing passage in _Childe Harold_ is a signal instance; and as another, the Sonnet translated by Byron from Vittorelli, has only had corrected in the very latest editions, an error in the punctuation of the first two lines which rendered them a mystery to those who did not understand the original, as printed on the opposite page. In note 12 to the 5th Canto of _Marmion_, every edition, British or foreign, down to the present day, punctuates the last two or three lines as follows:

"A torquois ring;--probably this fatal gift is, with James's sword and
dagger, preserved in the College of Heralds, London."

Sir Walter is thus made to express a doubt, which he never intended, as to the ring being there. A comma after "ring," another after "gift," and the omission of the dash, will restore the true meaning of the sentence.

J. S. WARDEN.

_Waugh of Cumberland_ (Vol. ix., p. 272.).--John Waugh (D.C.L., Feb. 8, 1734)--born and educated at Appleby, Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford; Rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill; Prebendary of Lincoln; Dean of Gloucester,--was consecrated to the See of Carlisle Oct. 13, 1723: he died Oct. 1734, and was buried in the church of St. Peter, Cornhill. He bore for arms: Arg., on a chevron engrailed gules, three bezants.

MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A.

_"Could we with ink," &c._ (Vol. viii. _passim_).--Perhaps one more communication may find admission on the above interesting lines. I received from a clerical friend, many years ago, a version of them, which differs considerably from that given in "N. & Q.," Vol. viii., p. 127. The variations I have marked by Italics:

"Could _you_ with ink the ocean fill,
_Were the whole world_ of parchment made,
Were every _single stick_ a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God _alone_,
Would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the _earth_ contain the _scroll_,
Though stretch'd from sky to sky."

My friend did not profess to know who wrote these lines; but he understood that they were an attempt to render in English verse a sublime passage of the great St. Augustin. It is highly probable that this eminent Father was the original author of the passage. It is extremely like one of his grand conceptions; but I have hitherto searched his voluminous works for it in vain.

F. C. H.

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Notices to Correspondents.

_We have been induced, by the number of articles we have in type writing for insertion, to omit our usual_ NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

AGMOND. Cecil _was written by Mrs. Gore_.

F. M. M. Balaam Box _has long been used in Blackwood as the name of the depository of rejected articles. The allusion is obvious._

H. M. H. _will find all the information he can desire respecting_ The Gentlemen at Arms, _in Pegge's_ Curialia; _Thiselton's Memoir of that Corps, published in 1819; or, better still, Curling's_ Account of the Ancient Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, 8vo. 1850.

J. C. K. _The coin is a very common penny of Henry III., worth ninepence, or a shilling at most._

BALLIOLENSIS. _Porson's jeu d'esprit is reprinted in the_ Facetiae Cantabrigienses (1850). p. 16.

ENQUIRER. _A triolet is a stanza of eight lines, in which, after the third the first line, and after the sixth the first two lines, are repeated, so that the first line is heard three times: hence the name. It is suited for playful and light subjects, and is cultivated by the French and Germans. The volume of_ Patrick Carey's Trivial Poems and Triolets, _edited by Sir Walter Scott, in 1820, from a MS. of 1651, is an early instance of the use of the term_.

A. B. M. _The line referred to_--"Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war"--_is from_ Othello, _Act III. Sc. 3_.

JARLTZBERG. _Has not our Correspondent received a note we inclosed to him respecting_ The Circle of the Seasons?

OLD MORTALITY'S _offer of a collection of Epitaphs is declined with thanks. We have now waiting for insertion almost as many as would fill a cemetery._

ABHBA. _The proverb "Mad as a March hare" has appeared in our_ Fourth Volume, p. 208.--_Also, in the same volume_, p. 309. _&c., will be found several articles similar to the one forwarded on "Bee Superstitions."_

F. (Oxford.) _The extract forwarded from Southey's_ Common Place Book _is a copy of the title-page of the anonymous work required_.

H. C. M. _The date of the earliest Coroner's Inquest, we should think, cannot be ascertained. The office of Coroner is of so great antiquity that its commencement is not known. It is evident that Coroners existed in the time of Alfred, for that king punished with death a judge who sentenced a party to suffer death upon the Coroner's record, without allowing the delinquent liberty to traverse._ (Bac. on Gov. 66.; 6 Vin. Abr. 242.) _This officer is also mentioned by Athelstan in his charter to Beverly_ (Dugd. Monast. 171.).