Chapter M: T. R

Though not cotemporary, there are some lively notices of Sterne's journey to France in the _London Magazine_ for 1825, pp. 38. 387.

COWGILL.

Replies to Minor Queries.

_Collar of Esses._--As an original subscriber, and the _first_ Querist who opened the _vexata questio_ of Collar of Esses, I shall perhaps be doing you a kind service, Mr. Editor, if I may be allowed to step forward once more as _moderator_ between the disputants, as I did (Vol. ii., p. 394.) between ARMIGER and a much respected correspondent.

There may be some excuse for H. B. as he confesses (Vol. v., p. 182.) himself to be _freshman_ in the pages of "N. & Q.;" and therefore he is a stranger to the tone of courtesy and good humour which are so essential to the prosperity, maintenance, and extension of your very useful periodical. A little more experience in his readings, and less of self-opiniatedness, would have spared him the severe but merited remarks of MR. L. EVANS (Vol. v., p. 207.).

As of old all writers were wont to consider their readers _most courteous_, so let those who write for your pages reverse this rule--and then there will be nothing contrary to such a tone, to the injury of "N. & Q."

S. S.

_Quid est Episcopus_ (Vol. v., p. 177.).--This passage does not, as X. G. X. thinks, come from Irenæus, but from St. Austin. I find the reference to it in Bingham's _Antiquities_ (vol. i. p. 72. ed. 1843), where the whole passage is thus quoted at the foot of the page:

"Quid est episcopus, nisi primus presbyter, id est, summus
sacerdos?"--_Aug. Quæst. Vet. et N. Test._ c. ci.

F. A.

_Paper-making in England_ (Vol. v., p. 83.).--I do not pretend to know anything of the history of paper-making; but it may be well to send you a passage from Fuller's _Worthies_ (Vol. i. p. 224., ed. Nuttall), which lately fell in my way:

"Paper is entered as a manufacture of this county
[Cambridgeshire], because there are mills nigh Sturbridge fair,
where paper was made in the memory of our fathers. Pity the making
thereof is disused: considering the vast sums yearly expended in
our land for paper out of Italy, France, and Germany, which might
be lessened, _were it made in our nation_."

J. C. R.

"_Mother Damnable_" (Vol. v., p. 151.).--The real name of this shrew does not appear to have reached posterity, but she gave rise to the sign of Mother Red-cap on the Hampstead Road, A.D. 1676, and was probably the person represented _on_ that sign; to her portrait, which may be found in a book published by "Arnett, Westminster, 1819," entitled _Portraits and Lives of Remarkable and Eccentric Characters_, are annexed the following lines:

"You've often seen (from Oxford tipling house)
Th' effigies of Shipton fac'd Mother Louse,
Whose pretty pranks (tho' some they might excel)
With this old trot's ne'er gallop'd parallel--
'Tis Mother Damnable! that monstrous thing,
Unmatch'd by Macbeth's wayward women's ring,
For cursing, scolding, fuming, flinging fire
I' th' face of madam, lord, knight, gent, cit, squire;
Who (when but ruffled into the least pet)
With cellar door-key into pocket get--
Then no more ale; and now the fray begins!
'Ware heads, wigs, hoods, scarfs, shoulders, sides, and shins!
While these dry'd bones, in a Westphalian bag,
(Through the wrinkled weasan of her shapeless crag)
Send forth such dismal shrieks and uncouth noise,
As fills the town with din, the streets with boys;
Which makes some think, this fierce she-dragon fell
Can scarce be match'd by any this side hell.
So fam'd both far and near, is the renown
Of Mother Damnable of Kentish Town.
Wherefore this symbol of the cat's we'll give her,
Because, so curst, a dog, would not dwell with her."

JAMES CORNISH.

_Miniature of Cromwell_ (Vol. v., p. 189.).--At the last meeting of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, a curious jewel, belonging to the Earl of Leven, and entailed in his lordship's family, was exhibited by the Hon. Leslie Melville. It is believed to have been transmitted by the Speaker of the House of Commons to the Earl of Leven on the occasion of the surrender of Charles I., when the earl was in command of the army at Newark. The jewel encloses a beautiful little miniature of Oliver Cromwell.

E. N.

_Etymology of Church_ (Vol. v., p. 79.).--Gieseler, in his _Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte_, vol. i., p. 1. ed. 4., says that the word _kirche_ (and consequently _church_) is most probably derived from τὸ κυριακόν. In support of this opinion, he quotes Walafrid Strabo, who wrote about A.D. 840:

"Si autem quæritur qua occasione ad vos vestigia hæc Græcitatis
advenerint, dicendum--præcipue a Gothis, cum eo tempore quo ad
fidem Christianam, licet non recto itinere [_i.e._ by means of
Arianism], perducti sunt, in Græcorum provinciis commorantes,
nostrum, _i.e._ theotiscum, sermonem habuerint."

He adds that Ulphilas is evidence for the general adoption of Greek ecclesiastical terms by the Goths; and he confirms the idea of a Greek derivation by the remark that derivatives of κυριακόν occur, not only in the Teutonic languages, but in those of the Sclavonic nations, whose conversion proceeded from Greece. Thus, the Bohemian word is _cyrkew_, the Russian _zerkow_, the Polish _cerkiew_. The use of derivatives of _ecclesia_ (which I would remind MR. STEPHENS is also originally Greek) in the Roman languages, no doubt arises from the circumstance that that word had been adopted into Latin, whereas the other had not.

J. C. R.

_The Königsmarks_ (Vol. v., pp. 78. 115. 183.).--It is certain from the _State Trials_, ix. 31., that Count Charles John Königsmark, the murderer of Mr. Thynn, was the elder of the two brothers; for it appeared on the trial that the younger, Philip Christopher (a dozen years later the gallant of the young Princess of Hanover), was at that time a youth still under the care of a travelling tutor, who was examined on the trial. This is stated in the _Quarterly Review_, art. "Lexington Papers," to which inquirers had been already referred (Vol. v., p. 115.). I am a little at a loss to account for J. R. J.'s distribution of his epithets; he calls the case of the elder brother "_mysterious_," and that of the second "_well-known_," when in truth the former case is, and has been _well-known_ these hundred and fifty years. Whereas the second case was so long a mystery that it was nowhere told but in a corner of Horace Walpole's _Reminiscences_, and he was mistaken as to the identity of the victim,--a mistake but recently cleared up. I believe, too, that until the discovery of the Lexington Papers, no one altogether believed the story; and the minuter details of the case, such as by whose order, and how, and when and where the deed was done, and how and where the body was disposed of, are still so far mysterious that Walpole's _Reminiscences_ and the Princess's own notes differ essentially on all those points.

C.

_L'Homme de 1400 Ans_ (Vol. v., p 175.).--I have not immediate means of access to the French work referred to in No. 121. of "N. & Q.," and therefore do not know how far the personage there alluded to is described as "imaginary;" but it appears to me that Cagliostro may have intended reference to his great friend and predecessor in Rosicrucian philosophy, the Count de St. Germain. This arch-impostor, who attained no small celebrity at the court of Louis XV., pretended to be possessed of the elixir of life, by means of which he had prolonged his existence from a period which he varied according to the supposed credulity of his audience; at one time carrying back the date of his birth to the commencement of the Christian Era, at others being content to assume an antiquity of a few centuries, being assisted in his imposture by a most accurate memory of the history of the times, the events of which he related, and also by an able accomplice who attended him as a servant. On one occasion, when describing at a dinner table a circumstance which had occurred at the court of "his friend Richard I. of England," he appealed to his attendant valet for the confirmation of his story, who, with the greatest coolness replied: "You forget, Sir, I have only been 500 years in your service." "True," said his master, "it _was_ a little before your time." The origin of this able charlatan, of whom many other amusing stories are related, is not known. He was sometimes thought, from the Jewish cast of his features, to be the "wandering Jew;" while others reported that he was the son of an Arabian princess, and that his father was a Salamander.

E. H. Y.

_Close of the Wady Mokatteb Question_ (Vol. iv., p. 481.; Vol. v., pp. 31. 87. 159., &c.).--I should not have said another word on the above question, had not DR. TODD seen fit to give a somewhat different turn to the criticism on Num. xi. 26. As it is, I must beg space to say, that it is the _learned_ whose attention I solicit to examine the value of our respective criticisms, and not that of the _unlearned_, as DR. TODD intimates. I do not think that there are many regular readers of the "N. & Q." who can be classed amongst the _unlearned_. To the judgment of the _learned_, therefore, I now resign this protracted disquisition.

MOSES MARGOLIOUTH.

_Was Queen Elizabeth dark or fair?_ (Vol. v., p. 201.).--Paul Hentzner, who was presented to Queen Elizabeth at the palace of Greenwich, describes her majesty, who was then in her sixty-fifth year, as "very majestic; her face oblong, _fair_, but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant. She wore false hair, and that red." Delaroche, however, in his well-known picture at the Luxembourg, has given her a very swarthy complexion.

Query: What was the celebrated Lunebourg table, of some of the gold of which, according to Hentzner, a small crown which she wore was reported to be made?

H. C.

Workington.

_Meaning of Knarres_ (Vol. v., p. 200.).--A _knare_ is a _knot_ or lump, "_knarry_, _stubby_, _knotty_" (Coles's _Dictionary_, 1717). It was, no doubt, as J. BR. says, sometimes written _gnare_; and in that form is the root of Shakspeare's "_gnarled_ (or knotty) oak." In Norfolk and Suffolk, small plantations--_not_ "scrubby woods"--are called _carrs_, as J. BR. states, but certainly not from _knare_, but, as I rather think, from their square shape, _carré_. Those that I am acquainted with in those counties are generally of that form, and look like plantations made on purpose for game. When you hear a _carr_ mentioned in those counties, you always think of a pheasants' preserve. I know not whether the same word and meaning extend inland. Nor do I think that _knare_ has any affinity with _snare_.

C.

In reply to your correspondent's Query, I beg to submit the following, which may prove of utility in tracing out the meaning of the word, viz.:--_Forby's Glossary_ by Turner, vol. i. p. 56., thus has it:

"CAR, _s._ a wood or grove on a moist soil, generally of alders."

We have them in this country; also the term "osier-cars."

In Kersey's _English Dictionary_, 1708, we have thus:

"GNAR or Gnur, a hard knot in wood."

In Bailey's _Dictionary_, 1753, we have it thus:

"GNARR [Knorre, Teutonic], a hard knot in a tree.--_Chaucer._"

May it not thus mean a knot or clump of trees?

It is also allied to _quarry_, from the French _carré_, which signifies a bed, not only for digging stones for building purposes, but also as they are sometimes called, _osier-beds_, _alder-beds_.

The towns "Narborough" and "Narford" in Norfolk are so called from their being situated on the river "Nar;" the one a city or town on the river; and the other being, by means of a ford, originally over it. Both were originally written _Nere_ as the prefix.

J. N. C.

_Cheap Maps_ (Vol. v., p. 174.).--PATERFAMILIÆ is informed that a good and not expensive map of Borneo has been recently published by Augustus Petermann; and a section of the Isthmus of Panama, showing the railway from Chargres to Panama, may be had of the Admiralty agent for a few pence.

NORTHMAN.

_English Free Towns_ (Vol. v., pp. 150. 206.).--A short ride from Oxford will take your correspondent J. H. PARKER to one or two market towns in Berks, answering to the description given of the French Villes Anglaises. Wokingham will afford an illustration somewhat resembling Winchelsea; the town is of triangular form, the streets meeting in a central area, which contains a quaint old market-house: it is within the prescribed limits of Windsor Forest, and the Forest Courts were formerly held there--the charter of incorporation has existed from time immemorial.

KT.

_Sir Alexander Cumming and the Cherokees._--There is a Query by S. S. (Vol. iii., p. 39.) about Sir Alexander Cumming and the Cherokees, which I do not think has yet had any reply. Vol. iii., p. 152., a replyist refers to a work in which is an autobiography of the baronet. I have not had an opportunity to refer to _that_, but I suspect it would not meet the question, as Sir Alexander Cumming of Coulter, who was created a Nova Scotia baronet 1695, and Alexander Cumming, the King of the Cherokees, were diverse persons. The last died in 1775, and according to Lysons was buried at East Barnet. At vol. iv. p. 20., under Barnet, Lysons gives the following account bearing on the Cherokees:

"In 1729 he (Cumming) was induced, by a dream of Lady Cumming's,
to undertake a voyage to America, for the purpose of visiting the
Cherokee nations. He left England on the 13th of September, and
arrived at Charlestown on the 5th of December. On the 11th of
March following he set out for the Indians' country; on the 3rd of
April, 1730, he was crowned commander and chief ruler of the
Cherokee nations, in a general meeting of chiefs at Nequisee among
the mountains; he returned to Charlestown the 13th of April with
six Indian chiefs, and on the 5th of June arrived at Dover; on the
18th he presented the chiefs to George II. at Windsor, where he
laid his crown at his Majesty's feet; the chiefs also did homage,
laying four scalps at the king's feet, to show that they were an
overmatch for their enemies, and five eagles' tails as emblems of
victory. These circumstances are confirmed by the newspapers of
that time, which are full of the proceedings of the Cherokees
whilst in England, and speak of them as brought over by Sir
Alexander Cumming. Their portraits were engraved on a single
sheet. In 1766 Archbishop Secker appointed him one of the
pensioners in the Charter-House, where he died at a very advanced
age."

His son, who succeeded him in the title, became deranged in his intellects, and died about three years ago, in a state of indigence, in the neighbourhood of Red Lion Street, Whitechapel. He had been a captain in the army: the title became extinct at his death.

C. G.

_Junius_ (Vol. iii., p. 411.; Vol. v., p. 159.).--As in No. 120. J. R. assumes the acrimonious bearing of M. J. in No. 82., I am induced to refer to the stale, flat, and unprofitable question of the authenticity of the Letters of Junius. If those gentlemen will refer to No. 82., p. 412., fifth line from the bottom, and read "_who once_" for "_and once_," they will find any acrimony unnecessary; and that the use of the word "_and_" was an accidental error. This useless riddle has occupied too much of the time of able and of idle men, on what is, moreover, a worthless subject. Dr. Johnson, in his paper on the "Falkland Islands," has given a severe but just criticism on Junius, and truly says, that most readers mistake the "venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow." Junius has laid down no great principle, illustrated no political truth, nor given any clear and irrefutable proof of contemporaneous history. To attribute reprehensible motives always shows lowness and vulgarity of mind. Junius gives one the idea of a democratic ruff mounted on stilts going, from natural predilection, through the mud and dirt, and splashing it wantonly, so as to bespatter and annoy a few, and to excite the attention and surprise of many; but never to produce a conviction of being just and true on any one.--_Requiescat in pace._

ÆGROTUS.

_Hell-Rake_ (Vol. v., p. 162.).--The explanation given by J. SANSOM of the Devonian use of the term _helling_ or _heleing_, signifying the roof or covering of a church, corresponds to the Midland meaning of the word _hilling_, _s._ bed-clothes or coverlet: "She has got no _hilling_ at all." Ger. _Hüllen_, to wrap one's self up; Saxon, _hilan_. In Warwickshire used for the covers of a book: "It is the _hilling_ which makes it so expensive." _Hilled_, p. _hilled up_, _i.e._ covered with bed-clothes. Leicestershire is particularly rich in quaint phrases and proverbs.

In Leicestershire it is common for the wives of farmers to style their husbands "the Master," and husbands to call their wives "Mamy;" and a labourer will often distinguish his wife by the title of "the O'man." There are people now living who remember the time when _Goody_ and _Dame_, "Gaffer" and "Gammer," were in vogue among the peasantry.

KT.

_Ambassadors addressed as Peers_ (Vol. v., p. 213.).--I must leave you to judge whether a reference to Howell's _Familiar Letters_ is likely to be new to your correspondent MR. J. G. NICHOLS, or of any service to him in his inquiry on this subject. His note reminded me that Howell had respectfully used the words "My Lord," and "Your Lordship," apparently in the modern sense of "Your Excellency," in his letters to the Right Hon. Sir Peter Wichts, and to the Right Hon. Sir Sackvill Crow, ambassadors at Constantinople. See Howell's _Familiar Letters_, Part I. Letters 115. 130.; Part II. Letters 18. 27.