Queries.

We must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest, to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

the beginning of August they Bell, and are sometimes ripe at the end of August, but commonly at the beginning of September." This is quoted in many subsequent encyclopædias. The expression "in the bell" above recalls the expression used by Burns in 'The Cottar's Saturday Night,'" how 'twas TUNISIA. I seek the aid of your contributors a towmond auld sin' lint was in the bell." This is in forming a list as ample as possible of what has usually taken, I suppose, as meaning "in flower," been written on Tunisia. I know already the flax having a blue campanulate flower; if so, it books of Ibn-Hancal, El-Bekri, Shaw, Peyssonnel must be distinct from the phrase "in the bell" et Desfontaines, Hebenstreit, C. T. Falbe, Sir applied to the hop. But bollen is an old pa. pple. Grenville Temple, Dr. H. Barth, Dr. L. Frank, from a vb. to bell, meaning swollen; and a cognate E. Pellissier, Tissot, Berbrugger, Beulé, V. Guérin, bolled is used of flax in Exodus ix. 31, in the Léon Michel, Thomas Macgill, Madame de Voisins, sense, apparently, of in seed. Can any 66 man of Pierre Giffard, Prince J. Lubomirski, Victor Cam-Kent" or Sussex tell us what the bell of the hop is ; bon, Boddy, Albert de la Berge, Madame Barbe- or even if it is still in use? J. A. H. MURRAY. Paterson, Prof. G. Perpetua, Lieut.-Col. Playfair. The Scriptorium, Oxford. There should be much to add to these, especially Spanish, Italian, and German. I request also references to magazine articles, &c., not to be found in Poole's 'Index to Periodical Literature.' A note of any existing pictures, engravings, or good photographs would be welcome.

In the work of Thomas Macgill above mentioned, An Account of Tunis' (London, Longmans, 1816), we read :

PLATFORM.-I want early examples of this in the ordinary modern English sense of a raised structure for a number of speakers, a sense unknown to dictionaries forty years ago. I think it ought to be found in accounts of Anti-Corn-Law or early teetotal meetings, or even, possibly, of political meetings at the time of the Reform Bill of 1832. It may be noted, in passing, that the sense of a political or party programme, which we are indebted to the United States for preserving, and which many people, I find, think to be derived from the modern wooden platform at a public meeting, was very common in England more than three hundred years ago. In 1547 the Bishop of Winchester urged on the Lord Protector "that the Bishop of St. Davids laid a platform for confusion and disturbances in the state (Strype), while the

"The Dutch engineer (who went to Tunis for the purpose of draining the lake) has a very valuable colboth of medals and of stones, and also several curious inscriptions, which he intends one day to lay before the public. His work will be very interesting, for, from a residence of ten years, with the intention from the beginning to publish, he has collected a great deal of very curious information. Another work will also shortly appear, written by the Danish Consul, Mr. Lunby, a man of great classical knowledge, which will contain many interesting details, both regarding the ancient and modern state of Tunis: and should Mr.Programme of the former was described by Foxe as Tulin, his Swedish Majesty's Consul-General, be persuaded to publish the fine views which his pencil has drawn, during a residence of thirty-five years in Tunis, the public will receive a gratification of no ordinary kind."

Have the proposed works of Mr. Lunby or of Mr. Tulin ever appeared, or that of the Dutch engineer, whose name I should be pleased to learn? H. S. A.

BELL OF THE HOP.-Can any one say what the "bell" of the hop exactly is, and why it is so called? In Bradley's Fam. Dict.' (1772), s. v. "Hop," we read, "About August the Hop will begin to be in the Bell or Button"; and Plat (1594) 'Jewel House,' i. 43, has "his hops are more kindly, and the bels of them much larger." There is also a cognate verb, of still earlier appearance: thus, in the Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden' (1578), p. 33, we have, Commonlye at Saint Margarets daye Hoppes blowe, and at Lammas they bell"; and similarly Worlidge, 'Systema Agriculture' (1681), p. 150, says, under the heading "When Hops Blow, Bell, and Ripen," "Towards the end of July Hops Blow, and about

Winchester's devillish platform." So we find "the Puritan platforme" and "the Genevan platforme." But English examples are rare from 1688 until they reappear in reference to American politics, one of which I find in 1837; this must have been about the time that the material "platform" at a public meeting was also coming in. Examples of the "platform" at a railway station would also be useful. Many people still alive must well remember the first use of both. J. A. H. Murray.

The Scriptorium, Oxford.

BELGIUM. - I have seen it stated that this was a brand new name invented for the southern Netherlands in 1830, with reference, of course, to the ancient Belgæ. But I find in the London Gazette, No. 4584, anno 1709, the advertisement of "a neat and large new Map of Modern Belgium or Lower Germany," and I find Belgian and Belgic common in English since 1600. H. Cockeram, by the way, in his 'Dictionarie' of 1621, has the curious entry in part iii., under the heading "People of Sundry Qualities," "Belgeans, People of the Low Countries Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire." Are Wiltshire men, &c., any

Haverstock Hill.

C. A. WARD.

the authorship of a 16mo. book entitled "Mar- Will readers help to put all these bent pins maduke Multiply's Merry Method of making straight? Minor Mathematicians; or, the Multiplication Table illustrated by sixty-nine appropriate enSCOTCH TRADERS IN SWEDEN.-Some years ago gravings.' I. F. C. London: printed for J. I read an account of Scotch traders in Sweden and Harris." The work is without date, but belongs, North Germany in the seventeenth century. The apparently, to about 1820. It would be difficult to author mentioned the existence of numerous Scotch exaggerate the interest and charm of the "sixty-names in the cemeteries of the Baltic towns of that nine appropriate engravings," which are well calculated to drive home wholesome mathematical and any of your readers supply the name other truths in the mind of the dullest child.

date. Can of the work? J. P. LATIN POEM.-Who was the author of the hexameters beginning with the well-known line any Propria quæ maribus tribuunter mascula dicas, and concluding with

A. W. R. 'THE RAPIDS OF NIAGARA.' Can of your correspondents favour me with the authorship of a piece with the above title, thought to be by J. B. Gough, the American temperance lecturer, and say also where I may find it in full?

WILLIAM HARRIES.-Can any of your readers inform me what was the relationship of William Harries to Sir Thomas Harries, Bart., of Tong Castle, co. Salop, one of the Cruckton Hall Harrieses? In the Public Record Office of Ireland mention is made of William Harries in Roll 2, Forty-nine Officers' Roll (skin 123), as a commissioned officer in the service of Charles I. up to his death, and had a Government debenture for a certain sum of money granted to him after the rebellion of 1641. He died in 1685. His descendants in Ireland have since borne heraldic arms, same as those of the Baronet of Tong Castle. And is there to be found anywhere in formation of the now extinct family of Harries, of Cruckton Hall, prior to the year 1463?

42, Lady Lane, Waterford,

E. HARRIS.

COGERS' HALL. Cunningham says it is in Bride Lane; Mr. Walford says Shoe Lane, formerly at No. 10. Who is right; or has it been removed, and so both are right, or half right? It is pretended that coger is from cogitare; Hotten says from cogitators, and not from codger or cadger. Mr. Walford says it is not from codger, which

means

a drinker of cogs." What is a cog in this sense, if sense it have? Code is cobbler's-wax. A codger's-end is the end of a shoemaker's thread, according to Halliwell; but I don't think it is; it is rather what a cobbler works with, a bristle and waxed thread, commonly called a wax-end, which does not mean the end of a thread, but the whole thread used by a leather-stitcher. Cunningham says it was established 1756, Walford says 1755.

small

A friend requests me to say whence comes the above bilingual post-classical jingle. In my friend's cause and my own ignorance I appeal to 'N. & Q.' Its atrocious puns might seem to claim for it a place in some classical burlesque. Did such a thing exist? If Sir John Falstaff had but Latin and less Greek," and could not have been himself its author, he would, I think, at any rate (if one may judge by his catechism on the subject in '1 Henry IV.,' V. i.), have given it his "imprimatur." HARRY LEROY TEMPLE.

Replies.

THE CORONATION STONE.
(6th S. xii. 449.)

Keating's History of Ireland' (arranged for students of Celtic, and a literal translation), gives the story of the Stone of Fate and of Eochaidh, King of Erin, as follows.

The tribe of Danann, on leaving Greece, where they had learnt necromancy and other arts, went to Norway, where they settled professors in four cities to teach the Norwegians, and from there went to the North of Alban, taking with them from Norway

are collected sixty-nine extracts upon the coronation stone, from the above and other authors.

A. B. G.

"four precious jewels," namely, the Stone of Virtue, also called the Stone of Fate, Lia Fail, so called from the city of Falias, whence it was brought, the spear and the sword of Lugh, and the There is a long article by an Indian subscriber, caldron of Dagda. These they took to Erin, where they settled, having conquered the Firbolgs at the accompanied by an editorial note, on the history of Battle of South Moytura. The Stone of Fate had the coronation stone, in 'N. & Q.,' 1" S. ix. 123–4; for its particular virtue that in whatever country it a similar query to that of MR. E. MALAN occurs at 2nd S. v. 316; its geological character is investigated, with an editorial reference to Dean Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey,' pp. 499-500,

should be, a man of the Scottish or Irish race, "of the seed of Milidh of Spain," would be king.

In The History of Alban,' by Hector Boetius, is at 4th S. i. 101; and at p. 209 of the same volume

the rhyme :

Cinuidh Scuit, noble the tribe,
Unless the prophecy was a falsehood,
Where they find the Lia Fail.

MR. S. REDMOND remarks :—

During the last quarter of century many elaborate and learned articles have been published in reference to the Liah Fhayl (so pronounced), or "stone of destiny," and much logic has been expended on both sides of the vexed question, but the mystery of the tradition attached to the stone has not received any illumination."

They have a right to take sovereignty. Fergus Mor, King of Alban, having conquered that country, sent to borrow Lia Fail to be crowned upon, being of the Scottish tribe; Muirtach Mac And he closes his note with "a hope that these Earca, King of Erin, lent the stone, but it was never facts" (such, that is, as are stated in the note) returned, and fell into the hands of Edward I., " may elicit some further information on this interwho sent it to England from the monastery of esting question." So the subject remains as far as Scone, so that the prophecy of that stone N. & Q.' has taken part in the discussions was verified in the king we have now, namely, the respecting it. ED. MARSHALL. first King Charles, and in his father King James, who both came from the Cinuidh Scuit, who took the title of King of the Saxons on the stone aforesaid."

Eochaidh, son of Erc, was the last king of the Firbolgs, and was defeated at Moytura by the Dananns, after he had reigned ten years; his wife Taillte, daughter of Madhmor, King of Spain, married, after his death, Eochaidh Garbh, son of Donach Dall, a chief of the Tuatha De Danann.

It is a pity the reign of Eochaidh was disturbed, for Keating says:—

"There was no destructive rain nor tempestuous weather during his time, nor a year without great produce and fruit. It is in his time that all the injustice and unlawfulness of Erin were suppressed, and sure and excellent laws were ordained in it."

It is satisfactory to learn that "injustice and unlawfulness" were indigenous to the soil of Erin, and are not, as we have been since told, a later importation of "the Saxon." B. F. SCARLETT.

The amplest and best account is probably in Stanley's Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey' (London, 1868). A very long and interesting account will be found in Neale's History of S. Peter's, Westminster' (1818). An historical and critical résumé of the subject, especially as to the stone's antiquity, may be seen in Skene's 'The Coronation Stone' (Edinburgh, 1869), which is reviewed in Banner of Israel (Guest, London, 1877), Nos. 6, 7. See also Planché's 'Royal Records' (1838), and the Gentleman's Magazine (1779), p. 452. The most singular and original suggestions concerning this famous stone are found in Glover's 'England the Remnant of Judah.' In a periodical by Hine, the Glory Leader (London, Guest, 1875-7),

Probably MR. EDWARD MALAN will find all he requires about the Lia Fail and coronation chair in theDict. of Miracles,' pp. 206-8.

E. COBHAM Brewer.

The Lia Fail, the celebrated coronation stone of the ancient Irish kings, is composed of granular limestone, and is at present about six feet above the ground; but its real height is said to be twelve feet. At its base it is four feet in circumference, and is not unlike in shape the Round Towers. At p. 124 of the late Sir W. R. Wilde's delightful 'The Beauties of the Boyne' is an engraving of the supposed Lia Fail, and from the same book the following is quoted :

"Between the house of Cormac and the rath of the

Forrath existed, it is supposed, the ruins of Tea-Mur. from which Temur, or Tara, takes its name, in memory of a Milesian queen called Tea. In the centre of the internal mound of the Forrath stands an upright stele, or circular pillar-stone, which was formerly on the top of the Mound of Hostages, but was removed to this spot in the year 1798, and erected as a headstone to the grave of thirty-seven of the insurgents who were killed in a skirmish with the military in this neighbourhood. Dr. on which the early Irish kings were crowned, and which Petrie supposes this stone to be the celebrated Lia Fail, has been generally believed to have been carried to Scotland for the coronation of Fergus Mac Eark, and afterwards removed by Edward I. from Scone to Westminster Abbey. The Lia Fail was the stone so famed the Irish kings at the time of their inauguration. For in ancient history, which was said to have roared beneath the various authorities bearing upon this point we must refer our readers to the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill.' We fully acknowledge the force of the reasoning of Dr. Petrio on this subject, and admit the of the Stone of Destiny, and we must believe that it is Ivalidity of his arguments with respect to the history not that now in Westminster Abbey; but at the same

both in his inquisition and in Sir H. Nicolas's 'Calendar of Heirs.' His wife was Elizabeth, d. of Sir Matthew Bruce of Gower; she m. secondly Sir Henry Percy of Athole, and d. Jan. 21, 1440. That Lord Scales was the first husband is plainly shown by the ages of her children-Robert, sixth Lord Scales, b. in 1396; Thomas, seventh Lord, b. in 1400; Elizabeth Percy, b. 1412/3; and Margaret Percy, b. 1415/6.

Bardolf, nor that William, fifth Lord Bardolf, had a daughter of the name of Elizabeth or Joan. It is, however, quite possible that there was such a contract, if not a marriage, in the childhood of both, and the bride may have died so young as to account for her non-appearance in the Bardolf pedigree. HERMENTRUDE.

to attend the Parliament which met on Saturday, 1. Robert de Scales, Chivaler, was summoned Sept. 30, 1402, and was adjourned to Monday,

Oct. 2.

BURGOMASCO : F.S. BUMBO FAIR: CONDUCTOR (6th S. xii. 468).-1. Burgomasco-Bur-I can see no evidence that Lord Scales married a gomaster, is the etymological blunder of an ignoramus. The Burgomask (dance), 'Mids. N. D.,' V. i. 350, Ital. bergamasca, was a grotesque rustic dance, adopted from the inhabitants of Bergamasco, a canton or district of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, of which Bergamo was, or it may be is, the chief city. The Italian buffoons also, as stated by Hanmer, imitated and burlesqued the clownishness and uncouth dialect of these Bergamascos. Marston's Balurdo,-Ital. balordo, “ a fool or noddy, or giddy-pated fellow," as Matzagente is a man queller "the fool of the play, represents himself as the son and heir of a wealthy mountebanking buffoon; or, if one likes to take it literally, though "mountebanking is against this, the son of a mountebanking Bergamasco clown. 2. F. S.-Letters are commonly affixed as private marks of the price; but as an outsider is not supposed to know these, even if they were used at that day, it is more likely, as the gloves were delicate and "whipt about with silk," that F. stood for fine, or for some other word, and S. for silk, and that 38. 2d. was known to the girl of the period and to many of the audience to be the selling price

of such.

"

3. Bumbo Fair I take to be a feigned name, for bombo in Italian is " a humming, a buzzing, a resounding hoarse noise (Florio), an excellent epithet for a fair. Bumbo, a snail or cockle, would hardly suit.

4. Conductor I can only guess at. From "His Majesty's service," from the unfrequency of his journeys, and from the name Chester [Castle], I would conjecture that he was the guide or commander of a convoy of military or other stores. The rank or title still exists, or until very lately did exist, in the Royal Artillery.

BR. NICHOLSON.

2. An inquisition was held at Stoke Ferry on Feb. 19, 1403, before Escheator for the county of Norfolk, when the Will. Appleyard, the jury found that Sir Robert Scales died on Dec. 7, 1402, and that Robert, his son, was his heir, aged six years et amplius.

3. By an inquisition held at Lynn Episcopi, before Sir John Ingaldesthorp, Knt., on Friday, April 26, 1415, it was found that Joanna, late wife of Sir Roger Scales, died on Jan. 7, 1415, and that Robert, son of Robert Scales (i. e., grandson of Sir Roger), was her heir, aged eighteen years et amplius.

Wednesday, July 14, 1418, it was found that by 4. By an inquisition held at Lynn Episcopi on

the death of Johanna aforesaid the reversion of

certain manors, &c., belonged to Robert, son of Sir Robert Scales, Knt., as heir of Sir Roger, his grandfather; that is, Robert Scales, son of Sir Robert, was still alive.

5. By a precipe of Henry V., dated Feb. 28, 1421, the Escheator of the county of Norfolk is ordered to give seisin of certain estates to Thomas, brother and heir of Robert, son of Robert Scales, Chivaler, who had lately died dum infra etatem et in custodia nostra fuit.

6. By an inquisition held at Lynn Episcopi on Thursday, Oct. 1, 1460, it was found that Thomas, Dominus de Scales, Miles, died July 25 of that year, and that Elizabeth, late wife of Henry Bourghier, Esq., was his daughter and heir, aged twenty-four years et amplius.

7. By the Patent Roll of 2 Ed. IV., dated Leicester, May 27, 1462, a grant of the wardship of certain lands, &c., in South Lynn is made to Anthony Woodville and Elizabeth his wife, daughter and heir of Thomas, late Lord Scales. 8. By an inquisition held at Hertford, Oct. 28,