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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 entêté, 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 "Entêté chapeau!" It was next applied to umbrellas of a 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 "Entêté 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 "Entêté." 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 entêté ça?" But the smiles with which she was greeted showed her (what she had already partly suspected) that their cries of "Entêté" 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 Malta4, completely stripped 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.
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 gagnés," 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 tædium, which appears to have the same relation to tædo, 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 Regulæ 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 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 ancrée. 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.
C. W. B.
"A Diasii 'Salve'," &c. (Vol. vii., p. 571.).—The deliverance desired in these words is from treachery, similar to that which was exhibited by the fratricide Alfonso Diaz toward his brother Juan. (Vid. Senarclæi Historiam veram, 1546; Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum, foll. 126-139. [Genevæ], 1560: Histoire des Martyrs, foll. 161-168., ed. 1597; McCrie's Reformation in Spain, pp. 181-188., Edinb. 1829.)
The "A Gallorum 'Venite,'" probably refers to the singing of the "Venite, exultemus Domino," on the occasion of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
R. G.
Meaning of "Claret" (Vol. vii., pp. 237. 511.).—Old Bartholomew Glanville, the venerable Franciscan, gives a recipe for claret in his treatise De Proprietatibus Rerum, Argent., 1485., lib. xix. cap. 56., which proves it to be of older date than is generally supposed:
"Claretum ex vino et melle et speciebus aromaticis est confectum … Unde a vino contrahit fortitudinem et acumen, a speciebus autem retinet aromaticitatem et odorem, sed a melle dulcedinem mutuat et saporem."
H. C. K.
—– Rectory, Hereford.
"The Temple of Truth" (Vol. vii., p. 549.).—The author of this work, according to Dr. Watt, was the Rev. C. E. de Coetlogon, rector of Godstone, Surrey.
Ἁλιέυς.
Dublin.
Wellborne Family (Vol. vii., p. 259.).—The following is from the Town and Country Magazine for 1772:
"Deaths.—Mr. Richard Wellborne, in Aldersgate Street, descended in a direct male line from the youngest son of Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who flourished in King Henry III.'s time, and married that king's sister."
There is now a family of the name of Wellborne residing in Doncaster.
W. H. L.
Devonianisms (Vol. vii., p. 544.).—While a resident in Devonshire, I frequently met with localisms similar in character to those quoted by J. M. B.; but what at first struck me as most peculiar in common conversation, was the use, or rather abuse, of the little preposition to. When inquiring the whereabouts of an individual, Devonians ask one another, "Where is he to?" The invariable reply is, "To London," "To Plymouth," &c., as the case may be. The Cheshire clowns, on the other hand, murder the word at, in just the same strange and inappropriate manner.
The indiscriminate use of the term forrell, when describing the cover of a book, is a solecism, I fancy, peculiarly Devonian. Whether a book be bound in cloth, vellum, or morocco, it is all alike forrell in Devonshire parlance. I imagine, however, that the word, in its present corrupt sense, must have originated from forrell, a term still used by the trade to designate an inferior kind of vellum or parchment, in which books are not unfrequently bound. When we consider that vellum was at one time in much greater request for bookbinding purposes than it is just now, we shall be at no great loss to reconcile this eccentricity in the vocabulary of our west country brethren.
T. Hughes.
Chester.
Humbug (Vol. vii., p. 550.).—A recent number of Miller's Fly Leaves makes the following hazardous assertion as to the origin and derivation of the term Humbug:
"This, now common expression, is a corruption of the word Hamburgh, and originated in the following manner:—During a period when war prevailed on the Continent, so many false reports and lying bulletins were fabricated at Hamburgh, that at length, when any one would signify his disbelief of a statement, he would say, 'You had that from Hamburgh;' and thus, 'That is Hamburgh,' or Humbug, became a common expression of incredulity."
With all my credulity, I cannot help fancying that this bit of specious humbug is a leetle too far-fetched.
T. Hughes.
Chester.
George Miller, D.D. (Vol. vii., p. 527.).—His Donnellan Lectures were never published.
Ἁλιέυς.
Dublin.
"A Letter to a Convocation Man" (Vol. vii., p. 502.).—Your correspondent W. Fraser may be informed that the "great preacher" for whom he inquires was Archbishop Tillotson.
Ἁλιευς.
[Perhaps our correspondent can reply to another Query from Mr. W. Fraser, viz. "Who is the 'certain author' quoted in A Letter to a Convocation Man, pp. 24, 25.?"—Ed.]
Sheriffs of Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire (Vol. vii., p. 572.).—This is a very singular Query, inasmuch as Fuller's list of the sheriffs of these counties begins 1st Henry II., and not, as is assumed by your correspondent D., "from the time of Henry VIII."
C. H. Cooper.
Cambridge.
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto (Vol. vii., p. 551.).—Inquirens will find the passage he quotes in Congreve's Love for Love, Act II. Sc. 5. Foresight, addressing Sir Sampson Legend, says:
"Thou modern Mandeville, Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type," &c.
In the Tatler, No. 254. (a paper ascribed to Addison and Steele conjointly), these veracious travellers are thus pleasantly noticed:
"There are no books which I more delight in than in travels, especially those that describe remote countries, and give the writer an opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being examined and contradicted. Among all the authors of this kind, our renowned countryman, Sir John Mandeville, has distinguished himself by the copiousness of his invention, and the greatness of his genius. The second to Sir John I take to have been Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, a person of infinite adventure and unbounded imagination. One reads the voyages of these two great wits with as much astonishment as the travels of Ulysses in Homer, or of the Red Cross Knight in Spenser. All is enchanted ground and fairy land."
Biographical sketches of Mandeville and Pinto are attached to this paper in the excellent edition of the Tatler ("with Illustrations and Notes" by Calder, Percy, and Nichols), published in six volumes in 1786. Godwin selected this quotation from Congreve as a fitting motto for his Tale of St. Leon.
J. H. M.
The passage referred to occurs in Congreve's Love for Love, Act II. Sc. 5. Cervantes had before designated Pinto as the "prince of liars." It seems that poor Pinto did not deserve the ill language applied to him by the wits. Ample notices of his travels may be seen in the Retrospective Review, vol. viii. pp. 83-105., and Macfarlane's Romance of Travel, vol. ii. pp. 104-192.
C. H. Cooper.
Cambridge.
"Other-some" and "Unneath" (Vol vii., p. 571.).—Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, has other-some, some other, "a quaint but pretty phrase of frequent occurrence." He gives two instances of its use. He has also "Unneath, beneath. Somerset."
