Chapter D: P. W

Rotherhithe, Jan. 21. 1851.

_Lama Beads_ (Vol. iii., p. 115.).--It is a pretty bold assertion that Lama beads are derived from the Lamas of Asia. _Lamma_, according to Jamieson, is simply the Scotch for _amber_. He says _Lamertyn steen_ means the same in Teutonic. I do not find it in Wachter's _Lexicon_.

Your correspondent's note is a curious instance of the inconvenience of half quotation. He says the Lamas are an order of priests among the Western Tartars. I was surprised at this, since their chief strength, as everybody knows, is in Thibet. On referring to Rees's _Cyclopaedia_, I found that the words are taken from thence; but they are not wrong there, since, by the context they have reference to China.

C. B.

_Language given to Men, &c._ (Vol. i., p. 83.).--The saying that language was given to men to conceal their thoughts is generally fathered upon Talleyrand at present. I did not know it was in Goldsmith; but the real author of it was Fontenelle.

C. B.

_Daresbury, the White Chapel of England_ (Vol. iii., p. 60.).--This _jeu-d'esprit_ was an after-dinner joke of a learned civilian, not less celebrated for his wit than his book-lore. Some stupid blockhead inserted it in the newspapers, and it is now unfortunately chronicled in your valuable work. It is not at all to be wondered at that "the people in the neighbourhood know nothing on the subject."

ECHO.

_Holland Land_ (Vol. ii., pp. 267. 345.; Vol. iii., pp. 30. 70.).--Were not the Lincolnshire estates of Count Bentinck, a Dutch nobleman who came over with William III., and the ancestor of the late Lord George Bentinck, M.P. for Lynn Regis, denominated _Little Holland_, which he increased by reclaiming large portions in the Dutch manner from the Wash?

E. S. TAYLOR.

_Passage in the Tempest_ (Vol. ii., p. 259, &c.).--I do not profess to offer an opinion as to the right reading; but with reference to the suggestion of A. E. B. (p. 338.) that it means--

"Most busy when least I do it,"

or--

"Most busy when least employed,"

allow me to refer you to the splendid passage in the _De Officiis_, lib. iii. cap. i., where Cicero expresses the same idea:--

"Pub. Scipionem,... eum, qui primus Africanus appellatus sit, dicere
solitum scripsit Cato,... _Nunquam se minus otiosum esse, quam cum
otiosus_; nec minus solum, quam cum solus esset. Magnifica vero vox, et
magno viro, ac sapiente digna; quae declarat, illum et in otio de
negotiis cogitare, et in solitudine secum loqui solitum: ut neque
cessaret unquam, et interdum colloquio alterius non egeret."

ACHE.

_Damasked Linen_ (Vol. iii., p. 13.).--I believe it has always been customary to damask the linen used by our royal family with appropriate devices. I have seen a cloth of Queen Anne's, with the "A. R." in double cypher, surrounded by buds and flowers; and have myself a cloth with a view of London, and inscribed "Der Konig Georg II.," which was purchased at Brentford, no doubt having come from Kew adjoining.

H. W. D.

_Straw Necklaces_ (Vol. ii., p. 511.).--Having only lately read the "NOTES AND QUERIES" (in fact, this being the first number subscribed for), I do not know the previous allusion. It makes me mention a curious custom at Carlisle, of the {230} servants who wish to be hired going into the marketplace of Carlisle, or as they call it "Carel," with a straw in their mouths. It is fast passing away, and _now_, instead of keeping the straw constantly in the mouth, they merely put it in a few seconds if they see any one looking at them. Anderson, in his _Cumberland Ballads_, alludes to the custom:--

"At Carel I stuid wi' a strae i' my mouth, The weyves com roun me in clusters: 'What weage dus te ax, canny lad?' says yen."

H. W. D.

_Library of the Church of Westminster_ (Vol. iii., p. 152.).--The statement here quoted from the _Delices de la Grande Bretagne_ is scarcely likely to be correct. We all know how prone foreigners are to misapprehension, and therefore, how unsafe it is to trust to their observations. In this case, may not the description of the _Bibliotheque Publique_, which was open night and morning, during the sittings of the courts of justice, have originated merely from the rows of booksellers' stalls in Westminster-hall?

J. G. N.

_The Ten Commandments_ (Vol. iii., p. 166.).--Waterland (vol. vi. p. 242., 2nd edition, Oxford, 1843) gives a copy of the Decalogue taken from an old MS. In this the first two commandments are embodied in one. Leighton, in his _Exposition of the Ten Commandments_, when speaking on the point of the manner of dividing them, refers in a vague manner to Josephus and Philo.

R. V.

_Sitting crosslegged to avert Evil_ (Vol. ii.,p. 407.).--Browne says:--

"To set crosselegg'd, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together,
is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same
conceit religiously possessed the ancients, as is observable from
Pliny: 'Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim;' and also from
Athenaeus, that it was an old veneficious practice."--_Vulg. Err._, lib.
v. cap. xxi. Sec. 9.

ACHE.

_George Steevens_ (Vol. iii., p. 119.).--A. Z. wishes to know whether a memoir of George Steevens, the Shakspearian commentator, was ever published, and what has become of the manuscripts.

I believe the late Sir James Allen Park wrote his life, but whether for public or private circulation I cannot tell.

The late George Steevens had a relative, a Mrs. Collinson, and daughters who lived with him at Hampstead, and with him when he died, in Jan. 1800. Miss Collinson married a Mr. Pyecroft, whose death, I think, is in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for this month: perhaps the Pyecroft family may give information respecting the manuscripts.

"The house he lived in at Hampstead, called the Upper Flask, was
formerly a place of public entertainment near the summit of Hampstead
Hill. Here Richardson sends his Clarissa in one of her escapes from
Lovelace. Here, too, the celebrated Kit-Cat Club used to meet in the
summer months; and here, after it became a private abode, the no less
celebrated George Steevens lived and died."--Vide Park's _Hampstead_,
pp. 250. 352.

I just recollect Mr. Steevens, who was very kind to us, as children. My mother, who is an octogenarian, remembers him well, and says he always took a nosegay, tied to the top of his cane, every day to Sir Joseph Banks.

JULIA R. BOCKETT.

Southcote Lodge, near Reading.

_The Waistcoat bursted, &c._ (Vol. ii., p. 505.).--The general effect of melancholy: digestion is imperfectly performed, and melancholy patients generally complain of being "blown up." BODVAR'S "blowing up," on the contrary, is the mere effect of the generation of gases in a dead body, well illustrated by a floating dead dog on the river side, or the bursting of a leaden coffin.

H. W. D.

_Love's Labour's Lost_ (Vol. iii., p. 163.).--Your correspondent has very neatly and ably made out how the names of the ladies ought to have been placed; but the error is the poet's, not the printer's. It is impossible to conceive how, in printing or transcribing, such a mistake should arise; the names are quite unlike, and several lines distant from one another. Such forgetfulness is not very uncommon in poets, especially those of the quickest and liveliest spirit. It is the old mistake of Bentley and other commentators, to think that whatever is wrong must be spurious. These, too, we must recollect, are fictitious characters.