Minor Queries.

"Then Whitby's nuns exulting told,How to their house three Barons boldMust menial service do;While horns blow out a note of shame,And monks cry 'Fye upon your name!In wrath, for loss of silvan game,Saint Hilda's priest ye slew.'—'This on Ascension Day, each year,While labouring on our harbour pier,Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear.'"

"Then Whitby's nuns exulting told,

How to their house three Barons bold

Must menial service do;

While horns blow out a note of shame,

And monks cry 'Fye upon your name!

In wrath, for loss of silvan game,

Saint Hilda's priest ye slew.'—

'This on Ascension Day, each year,

While labouring on our harbour pier,

Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear.'"

In note 2. C. the popular account printed and circulated at Whitby is given. It is substantially the same with that given by Beckwith, but for "strut-stowers" we have "strout-stowers;" and for "yadders" we have "yethers." It appears, also, that the service was not at that time performed by the proprietors in person; and that part of the lands charged therewith were then held by a gentleman of the name of Herbert.

I shall be glad if any of your correspondents will elucidate the terms strut-stowers, and yeathers or yadders.

C. H. Cooper.

Cambridge.

Archbishop Parker's Correspondence.—I am now engaged in carrying out a design which has been long entertained by the Parker Society, that of publishing the Correspondence of the distinguished prelate whose name that Society bears. If any of your readers can favour me with references to any letters of the archbishop, either unpublished, or published in works but little known, I shall feel extremely obliged. I add my own address, in order that I may not encumber your pages with mere references. Any information beyond a reference will probably be as interesting to your readers generally as to myself.

John Bruce.

5. Upper Gloucester Street, Dorset Square.

Amor Nummi.—Can any of your correspondents inform me as to the authorship of the following verses?

Amor Nummi."'The love of money is the root of evil,Sending the folks in cart-loads to the devil.'So says an ancient proverb, as we're told,And spoke the truth, we [no?] doubt, in days of old.But now, thanks to our good friend,Billy Pitt,This wholesome golden adage will not sit [fit?];On English ground the vice dissolves in vapour,Being at best only a love—of paper."

Amor Nummi.

"'The love of money is the root of evil,

Sending the folks in cart-loads to the devil.'

So says an ancient proverb, as we're told,

And spoke the truth, we [no?] doubt, in days of old.

But now, thanks to our good friend,Billy Pitt,

This wholesome golden adage will not sit [fit?];

On English ground the vice dissolves in vapour,

Being at best only a love—of paper."

It must have appeared in an English ministerial paper about the year 1805.—From theNavorscher.

Dionysios.

The Number Nine.—Can any of your mathematical correspondents inform me of the law and reason of the following singular property of the numbers? If from any number above nine the same number be subtracted written backwards, the addition of the figures of the remainder will always be a multiple of nine; for instance—

John Lammens.

Position of Font.—The usual and very significant position of the font is near the church door. But there is one objection to this, viz. that the benches being best arranged facing the chancel, the people cannot without much confusion see the baptisms. This being so, perhaps a better placefor the font is at the entrance of the chancel. The holy rite, so edifying to the congregation, as well as profitable to the recipient, can then be duly seen; and the position is tolerably symbolical, expressing as it were "the way that is opened for us into the holiest of all." I am curious to know if there are any ancient examples of this position, and how far the canon sanctions it, which directs that the font be set up in "the ancient usualplaces" [plural]? While on the subject let me put another Query. The Rubric directs that the font be "then,"i. e.just before the baptism, filled with pure water. In what vessel is the water brought, and who fills the font? What are the precedents in this matter? Rules, I think, there are none.

A. A. D.

Aix Ruochim or Romans Ioner.—On the verge of the cliff at Kingsgate, near the North Foreland, is a small castle or fort of chalk and flint, known by the above name. Can any of your readers give any information regarding the date of the erection of this curious edifice? Some of the local guidebooks attribute it to the time of Vortigern, or about 448; but this seems an almost fabulous antiquity.

A. O. H.

Blackheath.

"Lessons for Lent," &c.—Lessons for Lent, or Instructions on the Two Sacraments of Penance and the B. Eucharist, printed in the year 1718. Who was the author?

"La Branche des réaus Lignages."—Have any of your correspondents met with a romance, of which I have a MS. copy, entitled "La Branche des réaus Lignages?" The MS. I possess is evidently a modern copy, and begins thus:

"Et tens de celi mandementDuquel j'ai fait ramembrementEt qu'aucun homme d'avis oitJehan, qui Henaut justisoitGuerréoit et grevoit yglisesEn la garde le roi commisesNe ... li vouloit faire hommage."

"Et tens de celi mandement

Duquel j'ai fait ramembrement

Et qu'aucun homme d'avis oit

Jehan, qui Henaut justisoit

Guerréoit et grevoit yglises

En la garde le roi commises

Ne ... li vouloit faire hommage."

The poem is divided by numbers, probably referring to the pages of the original: beginning with 1292, and ending with 1307. It is also evident, from the first verses themselves, that I have only a fragment before me.—From theNavorscher.

Ganske.

Marriage Service.—Are there any parishes in which the custom of presenting the fee, together with the ring, in the marriage service, as ordered by the rubric, is observed?

E. W.

"Czar" or "Tsar."—Whence the derivation of the titleCzarorTsar? I know that some suppose it to be derived from Cæsar, while others trace it from the terminal-saror-zarin the names of the kings of Babylon and Assyria: as Phalas-sar, Nebuchadnez-zar, &c. In Persian,sarmeans the supreme power. I have heard much argument about its origin, and would be much obliged if any reader of "N. & Q." could state the correct derivation of the word.

By which Emperor of Russia was the title first assumed?

J. S. A.

Old Broad Street.

Little Silver.—There are several places in Devonshire so called, villages or hamlets. It is said, they are alway situated in the immediate neighbourhood of a Roman, or some other ancient camp. Hence, some people suppose the name is given to these localities from the number of silver coins frequently found there.

Will any of your correspondents throw light on this subject?

As every one knows, there is also a Silverton in Devonshire—Silver-townpar excellence. Is it in any way connected with the "Little Silvers?"

A. C. M.

Exeter.

On Æsop's (?) Fable of washing the Blackamoor.—Is it possible the well-known fable was a real occurrence? The following extract would seem to allude to an analogous fact:

"Counting the labour as endlesse as the maids in the Strand, which endeavoured by washing the Black-a-more to make him white."—Case of Sir Ignoramus of Cambridge, 1648, p. 23.

R. C. Warde.

Kidderminster.

Wedding Proverb.—Is the following distich known in any part of England?—

"To change the name, but not the letter,Is to marry for worse, and not for better."

"To change the name, but not the letter,

Is to marry for worse, and not for better."

I met with it in an American book, but it was probably an importation.

Spinster.

German Phrase.—What is the origin of a sarcastic German phrase often used?

"Er erwartet dass der Himmel voll Bassgeigen längt."

L. M. M. R.

German Heraldry.—Where can I refer to a book in which the armorial bearings of all the principal German families are engraved?

Speriend.

Leman Family.—About the middle of the seventeenth century, say 1650 to 1670, two gentlemen left England for America, who are supposed to have been brothers or near relatives of Sir John Leman, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1616. Traditions, which have been preserved in manuscript, and which can be traced back over onehundred years, tell of a correspondence which took place between the said Sir John and the widow of one of the brothers, in relation to her returning to England.

The writer of this (a descendant of one of these gentlemen) is anxious to learnthe names of the brothers and near relatives of this Sir John; and whether any evidence exists of their leaving England for America, &c., &c.; and would feel much indebted to any one who would supply the information through your paper.

R. W. L.

Philadelphia.

A Cob-wall.—Why do the inhabitants of Devonshire call a wall made of tempered earth, straw, and small pebbles mixed together, acob-wall? Walls so constructed require a foundation of stone or bricks, which is commonly continued to the height of about two feet from the surface of the ground. Has the termcobreference to the fact that such a wall is a superstructure on the foundation of stone or brick?

A. B. C.

Inscription near Chalcedon.—In 1675, when Sir Geo. Wheler and his travelling companion visited Chalcedon (as recorded in hisVoyage from Venice to Constantinople, fol., Lond. 1682, p. 209.), it was famous only for the memory of the great council held there inA.D.327, the twentieth of the reign of Constantine the Great:

"The first thing we did (he says) was to visit the metropolitan church, where they say it was kept; but M. Nanteuil assured us that it was a mile from thence, and that he had there read an inscription that mentioneth it. Besides, it is a small obscure building, incapable to contain such an assembly."

Has the inscription here spoken of been noticed by any traveller, and can any of your readers refer to a copy of it; and say whether it is cotemporary, and whether it has been more recently noticed?

W. S. G.

Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Domesday Book.—What does the abbreviation glđ, or gelđ, applied to terra, signify? Also, in the description of places, there is frequently a capital letter, B., or M., or S. before it, as in one case,e. g."B. terr. glđ wasta." Can any one inform me what it signifies?

In the case of many parishes, it is stated that there was a church there: is it consideredconclusiveauthority that there was not one, if it is not mentioned inDomesday Book?

A. W. H.

Dotinchem.—What modern town in Holland, or elsewhere, bore or bears the name of Dotinchem, at which is dated a MS. missal I have inspected, written in the fifteenth century? The reason for believing the place to be Dutch is, that the Calendar marks the days of the principal saints of Holland with red letters. There are other indications in the Calendar of the missal having been written in and for the use of a community situated where the influence of Cologne, Liège, Maestricht, and Daventer would have been felt.

Perhaps, should the above Query not be answered in England, some correspondent of your Dutch cotemporary theNavorschermay have the goodness to reply to it.

G. J. R. Gordon.

Sidmouth.

"Mirrour to all," &c.—Can you refer me to any possessor of the poetical work entitled aMirrour to all who love to follow the Wars(or Waves), 4to.: London, printed by John Wolfe, 1589? A copy was sold by Mr. Rodd for six guineas. (See his Catalogue for 1846.)

H. Delta.

Oxford.

Title wanted.—I have a copy of thePugna Porcorum, the margin of which is covered with illustrative and parallel passages, among which is the following:

"HerosAd magnum se accingit opus ferrumque bifurcumCote acuit, pinguique perungit acumina lardo;Deinde suis, vasto consurgens corpore, rostrumPerforat et furcam capulo tenus urget, at illaProminuit rostro summisque in naribus hæsit."Χοιροχοιρογ. 182.

"Heros

Ad magnum se accingit opus ferrumque bifurcum

Cote acuit, pinguique perungit acumina lardo;

Deinde suis, vasto consurgens corpore, rostrum

Perforat et furcam capulo tenus urget, at illa

Prominuit rostro summisque in naribus hæsit."

Χοιροχοιρογ. 182.

I shall be much obliged to any one who will give me the full title to the book from which this is quoted, and any account of it.

G. H. W.

Portrait of Charles I.—Countess Du Barry.—In Bachaumont'sMémoires Secrets, &c., I read the following passage under date of March 25, 1771:

"L'impératrice des Russies a fait enlever tout le cabinet de tableaux de M. le Comte de Thiers, amateur distingué, qui avait une très-belle collection en ce genre. M. de Marigny a eu la douleur de voir passer ces richesses chez l'étranger, faute de fonds pour les acquérir pour le compte du roi."On distinguait parmi ces tableaux un portrait en pied de Charles I., roi d'Angleterre, original de Vandyk. C'est le seul qui soit resté en France. Madame la Comtesse Dubarri, qui déploie de plus en plus son goût pour les arts, a ordonné de l'acheter: elle l'a payé 24,000 livres. Et sur le reproche qu'on lui faisait de choisir un pareil morceau entre tant d'autres qui auraient dû lui mieux convenir, elle a répondu que c'était un portrait de famille qu'elle retirait. En effet, les Dubarri se prétendent parents de la Maison des Stuards."

"On distinguait parmi ces tableaux un portrait en pied de Charles I., roi d'Angleterre, original de Vandyk. C'est le seul qui soit resté en France. Madame la Comtesse Dubarri, qui déploie de plus en plus son goût pour les arts, a ordonné de l'acheter: elle l'a payé 24,000 livres. Et sur le reproche qu'on lui faisait de choisir un pareil morceau entre tant d'autres qui auraient dû lui mieux convenir, elle a répondu que c'était un portrait de famille qu'elle retirait. En effet, les Dubarri se prétendent parents de la Maison des Stuards."

Can you give me any account of this portrait of King Charles by Vandyk, for which the Countess Du Barry paid the sum of 1000l.sterling?

What grounds are there for the allegation, that the Countess was related to the royal House of Stuart?

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

"Preparation for Martyrdom."—Can any of your correspondents discover for me the author of the following work?—

"A Preparation for Martyrdom; a Discourse about the Cause, the Temper, the Assistances, and Rewards of a Martyr of Jesus Christ: in Dialogue betwixt a Minister and a Gentleman his Parishioner. Lond. 1681, 4to."

In order to afford somewhat of a clue to this discovery, I send a few extracts from another anonymous work:A Letter to the late Author of the"Preparation for Martyrdom," alluding to various circumstances relating to the author:

"I must confess that I had once as great a veneration for you as for any one [of] your figure in the church; but then you preach'd honestly, and liv'd peaceably; but since pride or ambitious discontent, or some particular respects to some special friends of the adverse party, or something I know not what else, has thrust you upon scribbling, and a design of being popular; since you had forsaken your first love (if ever you had any) to our church and establishment, and appear to be running overad partem Donati, to the disturbers of our church and peace, you must needs pardon this short reflection, though from an old friend, and sometimes a great admirer of you."As for the present establishment, you have (you conclude) as much already from that as you are likely to have, but you claw the democratical party, hoping at long run to see an (English) Parliament; that is, we must know, one that has noFrenchpensioners shuffled into it to blast the whole business, such as will be govern'd by your instructions; and then Presbytery (you trust) will be turn'd up Trump, the Directory once more take place of the Liturgy, and God knows what become of the Monarchy, and Mr. C. be made a great man."What an excellent design was that of your Stipulation, which I heard one say was like a new modell'd Independency. 'Twas intended, I suppose, as an expedient to reduce the sheep of your own flock, which through your default chiefly (as is commonly reported) were gone astray; but because this tool could not work, without the force of a law to move it, therefore by law it must have been establisht, and the whole nation forsooth comprehended under it, and all must have set their instruments to your key, and their voices to the tune ofB—ley. Oh! had this engine but met with firm footings in Parliament, as was hoped, ourEnglishworld had been lifted off its pillars long before this day; it had gone round, and in the church all old things had been done away, and everything had appeared new. But, Sir, I trust the foundations of our church stand more sure than to need such silly props as yourCatholicon(as you vainly call it) to support 'em."What an excellent thing too is your book of Patronage? 'Twere no living forSimon Magus, or any of his disciples here, if those rules you there lay down were but duly attended to."But in those two books you showed yourself pragmatical only; but in this ofMartyrdomnot a little impious, in your unworthy reflections upon almost all the honest people of England since the beginning of the reign ofOliverthe First, and some time before; not sparing many loyal worthies' memory who held up a good cause upon their sword points (as you express it) as long as they could; and when they could do so no longer, either dy'd for't, or deliver'd themselves up to the will of the conqueror, yet never (as you) abjur'd the cause. Our rulers you suppose are ill affected (otherwise your talk of Popery at your rate is like that of one that were desirous and in conspiracy to bring in Popery): and, undoubtedly, it had been in already, had not the prayers of Mr. C., and the fifty righteousNon-Consin every city, prevented it."

"As for the present establishment, you have (you conclude) as much already from that as you are likely to have, but you claw the democratical party, hoping at long run to see an (English) Parliament; that is, we must know, one that has noFrenchpensioners shuffled into it to blast the whole business, such as will be govern'd by your instructions; and then Presbytery (you trust) will be turn'd up Trump, the Directory once more take place of the Liturgy, and God knows what become of the Monarchy, and Mr. C. be made a great man.

"What an excellent design was that of your Stipulation, which I heard one say was like a new modell'd Independency. 'Twas intended, I suppose, as an expedient to reduce the sheep of your own flock, which through your default chiefly (as is commonly reported) were gone astray; but because this tool could not work, without the force of a law to move it, therefore by law it must have been establisht, and the whole nation forsooth comprehended under it, and all must have set their instruments to your key, and their voices to the tune ofB—ley. Oh! had this engine but met with firm footings in Parliament, as was hoped, ourEnglishworld had been lifted off its pillars long before this day; it had gone round, and in the church all old things had been done away, and everything had appeared new. But, Sir, I trust the foundations of our church stand more sure than to need such silly props as yourCatholicon(as you vainly call it) to support 'em.

"What an excellent thing too is your book of Patronage? 'Twere no living forSimon Magus, or any of his disciples here, if those rules you there lay down were but duly attended to.

"But in those two books you showed yourself pragmatical only; but in this ofMartyrdomnot a little impious, in your unworthy reflections upon almost all the honest people of England since the beginning of the reign ofOliverthe First, and some time before; not sparing many loyal worthies' memory who held up a good cause upon their sword points (as you express it) as long as they could; and when they could do so no longer, either dy'd for't, or deliver'd themselves up to the will of the conqueror, yet never (as you) abjur'd the cause. Our rulers you suppose are ill affected (otherwise your talk of Popery at your rate is like that of one that were desirous and in conspiracy to bring in Popery): and, undoubtedly, it had been in already, had not the prayers of Mr. C., and the fifty righteousNon-Consin every city, prevented it."

Ἁλιέυς.

Dublin.

[The Preparation for Martyrdomis not to be found either in the Bodleian or British Museum Catalogues. The author of theLetterin reply to it, however, has afforded a clue to its authorship. Zachary Cawdrey, who appears to have been an admirer of the Vicar of Bray, was Rector ofBarthomleyin Cheshire during the Commonwealth, and for fourteen years after the Restoration; this explains the hint in theLetter, of "setting their voices to the tune ofB—ley." Cawdrey, moreover, was the author ofDiscourse of Patronage; being a Modest Inquiry into the Original of it, and a further Prosecution of the History of it: which is also noticed in theLetter. Zachary Cawdrey was born at Melton Mowbray about 1616; at the age of sixteen he entered St. John's College, Cambridge; and in 1649 became Rector of Barthomley, where he died Dec. 24, 1684. His brother David was one of the ejected, and the author of several works.]

Reference wanted.—I find, in Blackwood, No. XXXVI. p. 432., a reference to an article in theEdinburgh Review, by Sir D. K. Sandford, on Greek banquets. As I cannot find the article itself, may I ask your assistance?

P. J. F. Gantillon.

N. B.—In the article in Blackwood, p. 441., for "Hegesander" read Hegesippus; p. 444., for "Demgle" read Demglus; p. 450., for "Nausidice" read Nausinicus; p. 455., for "Hesperides" read Hyperides.

[The article will be found in theEdinburgh Review, vol. lvi. p. 350. January, 1833.]

Speaker of the House of Commons in 1697.—Who was the Speaker who succeeded Sir John Trevor, and was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1697?

W. Fraser.

Tor-Mohun.

[Peter Foley, Esq., succeeded Sir John Trevor, March 14, 1694. Sir Thomas Littleton, Bart., was chosen the next Speaker, December 3, 1698.]

(Vol. vii.passim.)

Under this head the following translation of part of the inscription at Behistun may be classed. It is, I apprehend, the earliest of this sort of inscription:

"Darius rex dicit: si hanc tabulam, hasque effigies spectas, et iis injuriam facias, et quamdiu tibi proles sit non eas conserves, Oromasdes hostis fiat tibi, et tibi proles non sit, et quod facias id tibi Oromasdes frustretur."

See Rawlinson's "Translation of the Great Persian Inscription at Behistun," par. 17.Asiatic Society's Transactions.

The following is an extract from Maitland'sDark Ages, p. 270., notes 3 and 4:

"Terrible imprecations were occasionally annexed by the donors or possessors of books; as in a sacramentary which Mastene found at St. Benoit sur Loire, and which he supposed to belong to the ninth century. 'Ut si quis eum de Monasterio aliquo ingenio non redditurus abstraxerit cum Juda proditore, Anna et Caipha, portionem æternæ damnationis accipiat. Amen, Amen, Fiat, Fiat.'"

There is a curious instance of this in a manuscript of some of the works of Augustine and Ambrose in the Bodleian Library:

"Liber S. Mariæ de Ponte Roberti, qui eum abstulerit, aut vendiderit, vel quolibet modo ab hâc domo absciderit, sit anathema maranatha. Amen."

In another hand (alienâ manu),—

"Ego Johannes Exōn Epūs, nescio ubi est domus predicta, nec hunc librum abstuli, sed modo legitimo adquisivi."

Also page 283.:

"Liber B. Mariæ de Camberone: si quis eum abstulerit, anathema esto."

In the preface to a late publication (1853),Fragments of the Iliad of Homer from a Syrian Palimpsest, edited by William Cureton, the editor tells us:

"The Palimpsest Manuscript, in which I discovered these fragments of a very ancient copy of the Iliad of Homer, formed a part of the library of the Syrian convent of St. Mary Deipara, in the Valley of the Ascetics, or the Deserts of Nigritia. On the first page of the last leaf the following notice occurs: 'This volume of my Lord Severus belongs to the reverend and holy my Lord Daniel, Bishop of the province of Orrhoa (Edessa), who acquired it from the armour of God, when he was down in the province of the city of Amida, for his own benefit, and that of every one that readeth it. But under the curse of God is he whosoever steals it, or hides or removes it ... or tears, or erases, or cuts off this memorial from it, for ever. And through our Lord Jesus Christ may he who readeth it pray for the same Daniel, that he may find mercy in the day of judgment! Yea, and Amen, and Amen. And upon the sinner who wrote it, may there be mercy in the day of judgment! Amen. But at the end of his life he bequeathed it to this sacred convent of my Lord Silas, which is in Tarug (a city of Mesopotamia), for the sake of the remembrance of himself and of the dead belonging to him. May the Lord have mercy upon him in the day of judgment! Amen. Whosoever removeth this volume from this same convent, may the anger of the Lord overtake him in both worlds to all eternity! Amen.'"

Anon.

In some of Dugdale's MS. volumes in this College is the following, written by himself:

"Maledictus sit qui abstulerit."

Thomas W. King, York Herald.

College of Arms.

(Vol. vii., p. 431.)

Mr. Forbes rightly describes the Drummer's Letter in theSentimental Journeyas "not only correctly but elegantly written." There is, moreover, in two or three places, a play upon words, which indicates an intimate acquaintance with the idiomatic turns of the language. But all these circumstances are, to my mind, only so many grounds for the belief that the French of the letter is not Sterne's.

If we are to judge of Sterne's French from the samples to be met with inTristram Shandyand theSentimental Journal, there is ample evidence that his knowledge of that language was somewhat superficial. I shall give a few examples.

Your readers are familiar with the incident inTristram Shandy, where the Abbess and Margarita, having occasion to make use of two very coarse and indecent expressions, resort to the ludicrous expedient of splitting them in two, each pronouncing a separate syllable. Those words are scandalously common in the mouths of Frenchmen; and yet Sterne seems so little aware of the correct spelling of them, that he makes the poor nuns give utterance to two words, one of which, "bouger," means "to move," and the other, "fouter," is unknown to the French language.

Farther on, in chapter xxxiv., the commissary employs the expression "C'est tout égal;" but this is merely the translation of our English phrase "'Tis all one." The French say "C'est égal," but never "C'est tout égal."

In theSentimental Journey, under the head of "The Bidet," La Fleur is made to say "C'estuncheval le plus opiniâtre du monde." Now, the man who could write the Drummer's Letter would not have applied the epithet "opiniâtre"to a horse; and, at any rate, he would have said "C'estlecheval le plus opiniâtre du monde."

In the chapter headed "The Passport," and also in another place, we have the phrase "Ces Messieurs Anglais sont des gens très extraordinaires." This should be "Messieurs les Anglais," &c.

Again, under the head of "Characters," Count de B. says, "But if you do support it,M. Anglais, you must do it with all your powers." This "M. Anglais" is our "Mr. Englishman." The correct expression is "M. l'Anglais"—Mr.theEnglishman.

I might add other instances; but these, I trust, are sufficient to warrant the opinion that the Drummer's Letter, in its present shape, was not written by Sterne.

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

(Vol. vii., p. 632.)

At the place above referred to,Mr. Keightleyputs to me several Queries; but being resident in the country, I had not an opportunity of seeing them till the 15th instant, and it took some days to get the information that would enable me to answer them.

I have now obtained the most ample evidence of the existence, in the latter part of the last, and the beginning of the present, centuries, of the existence of a peculiar body of men called theFogies, in Edinburgh Castle. My informants agree in describing them as old men, dressed in red coats with apple-green facings, and cocked hats. One says that they fired the Castle guns; another says that he understood them to be the keepers, or, as we might say, the warders of the Castle, and that they were sometimes brought into the town to assist in quelling riots; and this gentleman's recollection of them goes back to 1784 at least. But the oldest date I have been able to get is from a much respected friend, the retired Town Clerk of Edinburgh, who writes to me thus: "I have a most vivid recollection of theCastle Foggies. They were an invalid company, and my recollection of them goes as far back at least as 1780, when I was at Stalker's English school in the Lawnmarket."

To the testimony of these still living witnesses, I have to add that of Dr. Jamieson, who gives the word in hisDictionaryas one of common and well-known use in Scotland in his time, 1759-1808; though he may have mistaken in supposing it to be exclusively Scottish. It was for his testimony to thisfactthat I referred to Dr. Jamieson'sDictionary, and not for his etymology, for I am not so much of a "true Scot" as to consider him infallible in that department. I have not leisure at present to search any farther for the word in books, but in the meantime I presume to think the evidence I have procured of its use in Scotland, will carry us nearly as far back asMr. Keightley'sfor its use in Ireland.

I cannot pretend to much acquaintance with the Swedish language, but I was quite well aware that that "is what is meant by the mysterious Su.-G." I was also aware that in the kindred Teutonic tongues the word runs through the various forms ofvogt,fogat,phogat,voget,voogd,fogde,foged,fogeti, with the meaning of bailiff, steward, preses, watchman, guard or protector, tutor, overseer, judge, mayor, policeman; and I doubt not thatfogiebelongs to the same family, though it has lost its tail.Mr. Keightleydoes not need to be told that words frequently degenerate in meaning, falling from the noblest to the basest, from the purest to the most obscene. Is there then anything improbable in supposing that a word once applied to the governor or chief keeper of a castle, came at last to be applied to all, even the meanest, of his subordinates? Dr. Jamieson asserts that the wordfogdein the Su.-G. has actually had that fate; canMr. Keightleycontrovert him?

As a proof,quantum valeat, that theCastle fogieswere so called for some other reason than merely because of their being "old folks," I may mention that there was in Edinburgh, for more than a century, another body of veterans, called the Town Guard, or City Guard, maintained by the magistrates as a sort of military police, or gendarmerie, and finally disbanded in 1817. This corps was generally recruited from old soldiers; and during the period of my acquaintance with them (9½ years) they were all aged, and some of them very old men; yet I never heard the wordfogiesapplied to them. On the contrary, they were always distinguished from the fogies by the elegant appellation of the "Toon Rottens," or Town Rats, as well as by their facings, which weredark blue. Some, indeed, of my younger friends, who remember the "Rats" very well, say they never heard of the "Fogies" at all; only one of them, who lived when a boy at the Castle Hill, perhaps about forty years ago, recollects of the word "fogie" as being then applied to the soldiers of the ordinary veteran or garrison battalions, with blue facings, that had superseded the fogies in the keeping of the Castle; but of the veritable apple-green fogies of the older establishment, he has no remembrance. As my own recollections of Edinburgh go back to 1808, the fogies, I presume, must have been by that time extinct, for I never saw any of them, though I frequently heard them spoken of by those who had seen them.

I may mention also that while "fogie" was in use, and of well understood application in Scotland,the phrase "old folks," or, to write it according to our vernacular pronunciation, "auld fo'k," was also, and continues to be, in general and familiar use; but nobody in Scotland, I dare say, ever imagined that "the auld fo'k" of his ordinary acquaintance were just "old fogies," or had anything whatever to do with that peculiar class of men, properly so called, the keepers of the royal castles. It is most remarkable, also, that while the corrupt derivative, asMr. Keightleysays "old fogie" is, has been almost quite forgotten among us, having disappeared with the men that bore the name of fogies, the parent form, as he would have "old folks" or "auld fo'k" to be, should remain in full vigour and common use, as part of our living speech. In a word, from all I can learn it would appear that the word "fogie," in its most general acceptation, means by itself, without the "old," an old soldier; and that "old fogie" is only a tautological form, arising from ignorance of its meaning. Be its origin, however, what it may, I have no hesitation now in expressing my conviction thatMr. Keightley'setymology of the word is utterly groundless.

J. L.

City Chambers, Edinburgh.

(Vol. vii., p. 628.)

All persons will, I think, agree withMr. Wardenin his very just complaint of the carelessness with which many of the English Peerages are compiled. It would be a task, little short of a new compilation, to correct the errors and inaccuracies with which many of these productions abound, the less pardonable now, because of the facilities afforded for consulting the Public Records, should even our older genealogists, without such aids, be in some degree excused; but asMr. Wardeninvites, by a personal appeal, the rectification of a chronological error which has crept into all the Peerages, founded upon the authority of Dugdale, respecting the period of the death of Thomas, sixth Lord Fauconberge, I am induced to send you a few Notes, which a recent examination of the Records in the Tower of London has supplied.

When the facts are made patent, there will be no need to dwell upon the inconsistencies pointed out byMr. Warden, and the alleged incompatibility in regard to age for an union between two persons of some note in family history, the son of the first Earl of Westmoreland and his Countess Joan and the daughter and heir of the Lord Fauconberge, who formed an alliance from which the co-heirs are, it is believed, represented at this day.

The birth of William Nevill, Lord Fauconberge, afterwards created Earl of Kent, second son of a marriage which took place early in, or just before, the year 1397, may be assigned to in or about the year 1400; and we shall presently see that his future wife was born on the 18th of October, 1406, and married to him before the 1st of May, 1422.

Walter, fifth Lord Fauconberge, died on the 29th of September, 1362 (Esc. 36 Edw. III., 1st part, No. 77.), leaving a son Thomas (issue of his first marriage with Matilda, sister and co-heir of Sir William de Pateshull, Kt., Esc. 33 Edw. III., 1st part, No. 40., andRot. Orig., 34 Edw. III., Ro. 2.), then a minor, under eighteen years of age.

Thomas, who was born circa 1345, was already in 1362 married to his first wife Constancia, by whom he does not appear to have left any issue surviving. His was rather an eventful life; some incidents not noticed by Dugdale will be briefly cited. On the 10th of August, 1372, being then a knight or chivaler, he had letters of protection on going abroad in the king's service, in the company of Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (Rot. Franc., 46 Edw. III.). Here it seems he forgot his allegiance, and having gone over to the French side was branded "tanquam proditor domini Regis Angliæ" (Esc. 5 Ric. II., No. 67., 6 Ric. II., No. 180., and 11 Ric. II., No. 59.). Can this have been the origin of the error in assigning his death to the year 1376? He was, however, yet living in 1401, as in that year he succeeded to the reversion of the estates which his step-mother Isabella (a sister of Sir John Bygot, Chivaler), the widow of Walter Lord Fauconberge, held in dower (Esc. 2 Hen. IV., No. 47.). Not long after this, and apparently a few years only before his death, and when somewhat advanced in years, he married a second time. I have not been able to ascertain to what family his wife Joan, or Johanna, belonged, but she survived her husband only a short time. About the period of his marriage, too (9th August, 1405), an occurrence of some importance to his descendants is recorded, namely, a grant by the king to Sir Thomas Bromflete and Sir Robert Hilton, of the custody and governance of all his estates in England, which had come into the king's hands "ratione ideociæ Thomæ Fauconberge, Chivaler," to hold during the life of the said Thomas. This grant, however, was in the following year, on 24th December, 1406, revoked and annulled, because the said Thomas had proved before the king and his council in Chancery, "quod ipse sanæ discretionis hactenus fuerit et ad tunc existat," and he was thereupon re-admitted to his estates which had descended to him "jure hæreditario post mortem Walteri Fauconberge patris sui, cujus hæres ipse est" (Rot. Pat., p. 1., 8 Hen. IV., m. 16.). He had only a few months before (15th February, 1406) obtained from the king livery of an estate which had come to him in1375 as one of the co-heirs, on his mother's side, of his grandmother Mabilia, a sister of Otho de Graunson, upon the death without issue of Thomas de Graunson, son of the said Otho. (Rot. Pat., p. 1., 7 Hen. IV., m. 6.)

Was there in fact any real ground for the suggestion of Lord Fauconberge's idiocy? This is one of the gravest imputations that can be cast upon a family, and it is a most unpardonable presumption to make it lightly and without justice; but it is somewhat singular that nearly fifty years afterwards, his only daughter and heir, born at the very period when this charge was being refuted, and when he himself was upwards of sixty years of age, became the subject of a commission issued to inquire of her alleged imbecility and idiocy. The commissioners sat at Gisburn in Cleveland in the county of York, on the 28th of March, 1463, and it was then found by the inquest that "Johanna Fauconberge nuper comitissa de Kent, fatua et ydeota est, et a nativitate sua semper fuit, ita quod se terras et tenementa sua neque alia bona sua regere scit, aut aliquo tempore scivit:" the jury also returned that she had not alienated any lands or tenements since the death of William, late Earl of Kent, her late husband. That Joan, the wife of Sir Edward Bethom, Kt., thirty years old and upwards, Elizabeth, the wife of Richard Strangeways, Esq., twenty-eight years old and upwards, and Alice, wife of John Conyers, Esq., twenty-six years old and upwards, were the daughters and heirs, as well of the said William the late earl, as of the said Joan the late countess. (Esc. 3 Edw. IV., No. 33.)

Thomas Lord Fauconberge died on the 9th of September, 1407, leaving the above-mentioned Joan, or Johanna, his daughter and heir, an infant of one year old. (Esc. 9 Hen. IV., No. 19.; see also Esc. 9 Hen. V., No. 42.) His widow Joan had assignment of dower after her husband's death on 20th October, 1408, and she herself died in the following year, on the 4th of March, 1409. (Esc. 10 Hen. IV., No. 15.) A later inquisition, however, taken on 1st of April, 1422 (Esc. 10 Hen. V., No. 22ᵃ.), states that the said Joan, widow of Sir Thomas Fauconberge, Chivaler, died on the 23rd of June, 1411. The first date is most probably the correct one, as a fact would be more likely to be accurately stated by a jury impanneled a few months only after the event recorded, than by an inquest taken after an interval of twelve or thirteen years.

On the formal proof of age (Esc. 10 Hen. V., No. 22ᵇ.) of Joan Fauconberge, daughter and heir of Thomas Lord Fauconberge and Joan his wife, taken at Northallerton, in the county of York, on the 1st of May, 10 Henry V., 1422, she was described as the wife of William Neville. She appears to have been born at Skelton in the said county, and baptized in the church there on the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist (18th of October), 1406; and on the same feast in 1421, being the 9th of Henry V., she had accomplished her fifteenth year. Dugdale (tom. ii. p. 4.) has fallen into a singular mistake in alluding to this event, not to speak of the obvious inconsistency which those writers who follow his account have introduced in assigning the year of Lord Fauconberge's decease to 1372, thus making the daughter's birth to have occurred more than thirty years after her father's death. It is this:—One of the witnesses, who speaks to the period of the baptism of Joan, was namedThomasBlawefrount the elder, fifty years of age and upwards, and the reason assigned by him for his remembrance of the event is as follows: "Et hoc scit eo quod Isabella filia prædicti Thomæ desponsata fuit cuidam Johanni Wilton, et idem Thomas fuit ad sponsalia eodem die quo præfata Johanna baptizata fuit, propter quod bene recolit quod præfata Johanna fuit ætatis prædictæ." Dugdale has by a strange oversight made the Isabella here described to be the daughter of Thomas Fauconberge, and sister of Joan, instead of the witness' own daughter.

It is not quite evident, from the language of the document which records the imbecility of the Countess of Kent in March 1463, whether she was then actually dead. It appears, however, clear that she survived her husband, who lived but a few months to enjoy his newly acquired dignity.

The account given by Dugdale of John, son of Thomas Lord Fauconberge, is scarcely intelligible. He says this lord "left issue John, his son and heir," and subsequently adds, "which John died without issue in the lifetime of his father."

Lord Fauconberge may have had a son by his former wife, but I have seen nothing to confirm this supposition. By an inquisition taken after the death of Sir Walter Fauconberge, Chivaler, at Bedford, on the 18th of November, 1415, it was found that Joan, widow of one Sir John Fauconberge, Chivaler, deceased, whom Thomas Brounflete, junior, afterwards married, was then living, and that she granted to the said Sir Walter all the estate which she had in certain rents payable by Matilda Wake, formerly the wife of Sir Thomas Wake, Chivaler; that the said Sir Walter died on the 1st of September, 1415, but the jurors knew not who was his heir. (Esc. 3 Hen. V., No. 15.) Dugdale (vol. ii. p. 234.) cites a feoffment dated 9 Hen. IV., 1407-8, which shows that Thomas Brounflete, Esq., was then married to the said Joan, and consequently that Sir John Fauconberge was dead at that time.

I must close this, for I fear I have now exceeded the limits which your valuable paper may, with justice to others, spare to subjects of this nature.

William Hardy.

Lining of Cameras.—I find nothing so good to line a camera with asblack velvet; for, black the inside of a camera as you will, if it is hard wood or any size used, there will be reflection from the bottom, which, with very sensitive plates, gives a dulness which, I think I may say, is caused by this reflection. I think even the inside of the lens tube might advantageously be lined with black velvet.

W. M. F.

Cyanuret of Potassium.—I have been using lately 12 grs. of cyanuret of potassium in 1 oz. of water for clearing the collodion plates, instead of hypo. There is one advantage, that there are no crystals formed if imperfectly washed, which is too common with hypo. You must take care to well wash off the developing fluid, whether pyrogallic, protonitrate, or protosulphite: if you use the latter 40-grains strong, thewhitestpictures can be obtained, nearly as white as after bichloride of mercury. A good formula to make it is—

This I know to act well with care, and it will keep a long time.

I find protonitrate solution—

mixed in a proportion of 8 to 4, with a 3-grain solution of pyrogallic—a very nice developing mixture; and, if poured back again after being used, will suffice 6 or 8 times over; but it isbestnew.

W. M. F.

Minuteness of Detail on Paper.—Being fond of antiquarian studies, and having learned from "N. & Q." the value of photography to the archæologist, I have serious thoughts of taking up the practice of the art. Before doing so, however, I am anxious to learn how far that minuteness of detail which I so much prize, and which is of such value to the antiquary, is to be obtained by any of the processes on paper. I have seen some specimens produced by collodion which certainly exhibit that quality in an eminent degree. Is anything approaching to such minuteness attainable by any of the Talbotype processes?

F. S. A.

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