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REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

I send you a few Notes on Queries scattered through some of the later numbers of your very valuable publication:

Anonymous Ravennas.—In the library of the Royal Geographical Society, I believe there is a copy of an 8vo. edition of that cosmography.

Selago.—This plant, I should think it probable, is the Lycopodium clavatum of modern botanists; the seeds of which, when ripe, and when the plant is struck, rise like smoke ("fumum" of Pliny), and may have been supposed, from their remarkable inflammability when dashed into a flame, igniting with a sudden flash, to have possessed wonderful virtues. The species known as Lycopodium selago is rare in comparison to the other.

Portugal.—In the library of the Geographical Society are some of the more recent works published in Lisbon on the topography of that country, but they are generally very meagre and unsatisfactory. In a periodical published in Lisbon in numbers, on the plan of the Penny Magazine, there is a good deal of information, with engravings, regarding many places of interest in Portugal. I think it is called The Album, but I am sorry I have not at present the power of sending you more correct particulars concerning it. It is in 4to.

Portugal is a country that is so little travelled in either by natives or foreigners, that information regarding places in the interior is not easily obtained; and facilities for travelling, as well as accommodation for travellers, is of a very limited description.

Sir Roger de Coverley.—In one of your early numbers was a query on this subject, which I do not think has been yet answered. I have a MS. account of the family of Calverley, of Calverley, in Yorkshire, an autograph of Ralph Thoresby in the year 1717, in which occurs the following passage:—

"Roger, so named from the Archbishop" (of York), "was a person of renowned hospitality, since, at this day, the obsolete known tune of Roger a Calverley is referred to him, who, according to the custom of those times, kept his minstrells, from that their office named harpers, which became a family and possessed lands till late years in and about Calverley, called to this day Harpersroids and Harper's Spring.... He was a knight, and lived in the time of K. Richard 1st. His seal, appended to one of his charters, is large, with a chevalier on horseback."
W. CALVERLEY TREVELYAN.

DERIVATIONS OF "NEWS."

It is not declared with what motive "Mr. GUTCH" (No. 17. p. 270.) has laid before the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" the alleged derivation of N.E.W.S.

It must therefore be supposed, that his object was to have its justness and probability commented upon; and it is quite time that they should be so, since the derivation in question has of late become quite a favourite authoritative dictum with etymology compilers. Thus it may be found, in the very words and form adopted by your correspondent, in Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, and in other authorities of equal weight.

This sort of initial-letter derivation was probably brought into fashion in England by the alleged origin of "Cabal," or, perhaps, by the many guesses at the much disputed word "Æra." I shall take the liberty of quoting a few sentences with reference to such etymologies, as a class, which I find in an unpublished manuscript upon a kindred subject.

"Besides, such a splitting up of a word of significant and perfect meaning in itself is always a bad and suspicious mode of derivation.
"It is generally an after-thought, suggested by some fortuitous or fancied coincidence, that appropriateness of which is by no means a sufficient proof of probability.
"Of this there can scarcely be a better example than the English word 'news,' which, notwithstanding the felicity of its supposed derivation from the four cardinal points, must, nevertheless, so long as the corresponding words 'nova,' 'nouvelles,' &c. exist, be consigned to its more sober and common-place origin in the adjective 'new.'"

To this it must be added that the ancient orthography of the word newes, completely upsets the derivation Mr. Gutch has brought before your readers. Hone quotes from "one Burton, printed in 1614: 'if any one read now-a-days, it is a play-book, or a pamphlet of newes."

I had been in two minds whether or not to send this communication, when the scale is completely turned by the apropos occurrence of a corroboration of this latter objection in "NOTES AND QUERIES" of this day. Mr. Rimbault mentions (at p. 277.), "a rare black letter volume entitled Newes from Scotland, 1591."

Here is one more proof of the usefulness of your publication, that I am thus enabled to strengthen the illustration of a totally different subject by the incidental authority of a fellow correspondent.

A.E.B.

Leeds, March, 1850.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

Swot is, as the querist supposes, a military cant term, and a sufficiently vulgar one too. It originated at the great slang-manufactory for the army, the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. You may depend upon the following account of it, which I had many years ago from the late Thomas Leybourne, F.R.S., Senior Professor of Mathematics in that college.

One of the Professors, Dr. William Wallace, in addition to his being a Scotchman, had a bald head, and an exceedingly "broad Scotch" accent, besides a not very delicate discrimination in the choice of his English terms relating to social life. It happened on one hot summer's day, nearly half a century ago, that he had been teaching a class, and had worked himself into a considerable effusion from the skin. He took out his handkerchief, rubbed his head and forehead violently, and exclaimed in his Perthshire dialect,—"It maks one swot." This was a God-send to the "gentlemen cadets," wishing to achieve a notoriety as wits and slangsters; and mathematics generally ever after became swot, and mathematicians swots. I have often heard it said:—"I never could do swot well, Sir;" and "these dull fellows, the swots, can talk of nothing but triangles and equations."

I should have thought that the sheer disgustingness of the idea would have shut the word out of the vocabularies of English gentlemen. It remains nevertheless a standard term in the vocabulary of an English soldier. It is well, at all events, that future ages should know its etymology.

T.S.D.

Pokership, (antè, pp. 185. 218. 269. 282. 323, 324.)—I am sorry to see that no progress has yet been made towards a satisfactory explanation of this office. I was in hopes that something better than mere conjecture would have been supplied from the peculiar facilities of "T.R.F." "W.H.C." (p. 323.) has done little more than refer to the same instruments as had been already adverted to by me in p. 269., with the new reading of poulterer for poker! With repect to "T.R.F.'s" conjecture, I should be more ready to accept it if he could produce a single example of the word pawker, in the sense of a hog-warden. The quotation from the Pipe-roll of John is founded on a mistake. The entry occurs in other previous rolls, and is there clearly explained to refer to the porter of Hereford Castle. Thus, in Pipe 2 Hen. II. and 3 Hen. II. we have, under Hereford,

"In liberatione portarii castelli … 30s. 5d."

In Pipe 1 Ric. I. we have,

"In liberatione constitutâ portarii de Hereford, 30s. 5d."

Again, in Pipe 3 Joh.

"In liberatione constitutâ portario de Hereford, 30s. 5d."

A similar entry is to be found in other rolls, as well printed as inedited. I could indulge some other criticisms on the communication of your correspondent in Spring Gardens, but I prefer encouraging him to make further inquiries, and to produce from the records in his custody some more satisfactory solution of the difficulty. In the meantime, let me refer to a Survey of Wrigmore Castle in the Lansdowne Collection, No. 40. fo. 82. The surveyor there reports, that the paling, rails, &c. of the park are much decayed in many and sundry places, and he estimates the repairs, with allowance of timber from the wood there, "by good surveye and oversight of the poker and other officers of the said parke," at 4l. The date of the survey is 13 May, 1584.

Comparing this notice of the office with the receiver's accounts tempore Hen. VII. and Hen. VIII. (antè, p. 269.), in which the officer is called "pocarius omnium boscorum," I cannot doubt that his duty, or at least one of his duties, was that of woodward, and that, as such, he assigned timber for repair of the premises. How he came by his local title and style of poker is a mystery on which we have all hitherto failed to throw any light.

E.S.

Vox Populi Vox Dei,—about the origin of which saying "QUÆSITOR" asks (No. 21. p. 321.),—were the words chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Mepham, as his text for the sermon which he preached when Edward III. was called to the throne, from which the nation had pulled down his father, Edward II. This we learn from Walsingham, who says:

"Archiepiscopus verò Cantuariæ præsenti consensit electioni, ut omnes prælati et archiepiscopus quidem assumpto themate, Vox populi Vox Dei, sermonem fecit populo, exhortans omnes ut apud regem regum intercederent pro electo."—Tho. Walsingham, Hist. Angl. ed. Camden, p. 126.
DANIEL ROCK.

A living Dog better than a dead Lion.—I no not know whether your correspondent (No. 22. p. 352.) ever goes to church; but if he is not prevented by rain next St. Swithin's day, he will learn who was the author of this proverb. It will be a good thing, if your work should sometimes lead your readers to search the Scriptures, and give them credit for wisdom that has flowed from them so long, and far, and wide, that its source is forgotten; but this is not the place for a sermon, and I now only add, "here endeth the first lesson" from

ECCLESIASTES.

["J.E.," "D.D.," and other correspondents, have also replied to this Query by references to Eccl. ix. 4.]

Curious Monumental Brass (No. 16. p. 247.)—If "RAHERE" will turn to Mr. Boutell's Monumental Brasses and Slabs, p. 148., he will there find a description as well as an engraving of what, from his account, I doubt not he will discover to be the identical fragment to which he refers. A foot legend, and what remains of a border inscription, is added to it. In the above work, pp. 147 to 155, and in the Oxford Architectural Society's Manual for the Study of Brasses, p. 15., "RAHERE" will find an account and references to numerous examples of palimpsest brasses, to which class the one in question belongs.

I presume that "RAHERE" is a young brass-rubber, or the fact of a plate being engraved on both sides would have presented no difficulty to him.

ARUN.

[We have received several other replies to this Query, referring to Mr. Boutell's Monumental Brasses: one from "W."; another from "A CORNISHMAN," who says,—
"The brass in question, when I saw it last, had been removed from the Rectory and placed in the tomb of Abbot Wheathampstead, in company with the famous one of Thomas Delamere, another Abbot of St. Albans."
Another from "E.V.," who states,—
"Other examples are found at St. Margaret's, Rochester (where the cause of the second engraving is found to be an error in costume in the first), St. Martins at Plain, Norwich, Hedgerly Church, Bucks, and Burwell Church, Cambridgeshire. Of this last, an engraving and description, by Mr. A.W. Franks, is given in the fourteenth part of the Publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society."
One from "WILLIAM SPARROW SIMPSON," who says,—
"It is also described in the Oxford Architectural Society's Manual of Mon. Brasses, No. 6. pp. 6, 7. other examples of which occur at Rochester, Kent, and at Cobham, Surrey. A small plate of brass, in the possession of a friend, has on one side a group of children, and on the reverse the uplifted hands of an earlier figure."
And lastly, one from "A.P.H." (to which we cannot do ample justice, as we do not keep an engraver), from which we extract the following passages:—
"A friend of mine has a shield in his possession, taken from a slab, and which has been enamelled. It is of late date and rudely executed. On the back is seen the hands and breast of a small female figure, very nearly a century earlier in date. I can also remember an inscription in Cuxton Church, Kent, which was loose, and had another inscription on the back in the same manner.
"I am very much impressed with the idea that the destroyed brasses never had been used at all; but had been engraved, and then, from circumstances that of course we cannot hope to fathom, thrown on one side till the metal might be used for some other purpose. This, I think, is a more probable, as well as a more charitable explanation than the one usually given of the so-called palimpsest brasses."]

Chapels (No. 20. p. 333.).—As to the origin of the name, will you allow me to refer Mr. Gatty to Ducange's Glossary, where he will find much that is to his purpose.

As to its being "a legal description," I will not undertake to give an opinion without a fee; but I will mention a fact which may assist him in forming one. I believe that fifty years ago the word Chapel was very seldom used among those who formed what was termed the "Dissenting Interest;" that is, the three "denominations" of Independents, Baptists, and Presbyterians. But I well recollect hearing, from good authority, nearly, or quite, forty years ago, that an eminent barrister (whom I might now describe as a late learned judge), who was much looked up to by the dissenters as one of their body, had particularly advised that in all trust-deeds relating to places of dissenting worship, they should be called "Chapels." I do not know that he assigned any reason, but I know that the opinion was given, or communicated, to those who had influence; and, from my own observation, I believe that from about that time we must date the adoption of the term, which has now been long in general use.

I do not imagine that there was any idea of either assistance or opposition to the Church of England, in the mind of him who recommended, or those who adopted, the alteration, or that either of them expected or sought any thing by this measure but to obtain a greater security for property, or, rather, to avoid some real or imagined insecurity, found or supposed to attach to the form of description previously in use.

A BARRISTER.

Forlot, Forthlot (No. 20. p. 320.).—A measure of grain used throughout Scotland at present—query fourthlot. See Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language.

"Firlot; Fyrlot; Furlet.—A corn measure in S., the fourth part of a boll.
"Thay ordainit the boll to mat victual with, to be devidit in foure partis, videlicet, foure fyrlottis to contene a boll; and that fyrlot not to be maid efter the first mesoure, na efter the mesoure now usit, bot in middill mesoure betwixt the twa."—Acts Jac. l. 1526. c. 80. edit. 1566.