Chicago, U.S.

EUGENE FAIRFIELD MCPIKE.

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 sent to them direct.

PLUNDERED PICTURES. In one of the admirable "Murrays," which seldom nod, though sometimes, as in the case of the charges of what was the dearest hotel in the world, they become out of date by reason of change, I find a paragraph which is worth a query. It is in the handbook which includes Lyons. The account of that provincial museum needs some alteration. There are at least four pictures of great literary interest which are not named, probably because the writer of the handbook despised the nineteenth century. The lives of George Sand and of Madame de Staël are conspicuously illustrated by two of them; the Romantic movement by a third; and the Napoleonic story by a fourth. Moreover, the frescoes of Puvis de Chavannes now need notice.

The query is called for by an allusion to the "Lyons Perugino" as having been "presented to the city of Lyons in 1815, by Pius VII." Is not this one of the hundred pictures, mostly Peruginos, which were "commandeered " from the city of Perugia and its inhabitants by the French revolutionary forces? Is it not the case that when the Duke of Wellington marched the Highlanders into the Louvre to see that the Pope got back his pictures, which Louis XVIII. was most unwilling to give him, there were only two Peruginos there? I always heard that the excellent taste which dictated the robbery at Perugia of exactly the right things was at that time in advance of the taste manifested in Paris by the art authorities. The result was that, of all the admirable pictures by Perugino captured, only two were thought good enough for the Louvre, and all the others had been scattered to the provinces. The Duke of Wellington had trouble enough over getting back the pictures in the Louvre, without bothering to repeat the process in every provincial museum. The Pope did not send back the two to

giving to France the others which he did not retain for his own glory? How were they his to give?

D.

TARLETON, THE SIGN OF "THE TABOR," AND ST. BENNET'S CHURCH. -- In 'Twelfth Night,' III. i., we have :

Viola. Save thee, friend, and thy music: dost thou live by thy tabor?

Clown. No, sir, I live by the church.

Viola. Art thou a churchman?

Clown. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.

In Act V. i. 42, the Clown says: "The bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind."

Malone stated that "The Tabor" was the sign of an eating-house kept by Tarleton, the celebrated clown or fool of the theatre before Shakespeare's time. Boswell said that Malone was mistaken, and that the sign of Tarleton's house was "The Saba," meaning the Queen of Sheba. See Boswell's 'Malone's Variorum,' 1821.

In a recent pamphlet it is stated that Malone was right; that Tarleton's house was at "The Sign of the Tabor"; and that, moreover, it was next to St. Bennet's Church in Gracechurch or Gracious Street. If this is true the two passages quoted would seem to be most interesting topical allusions, and tend to fix a much earlier date for the play than is usually assigned it. What are the facts, so far as can be ascertained? Was it "The Tabor"? And was there a St. Bennet's Church in Gracious Street? QUIRINUS. New York.

of 'The Form of Solemnization of MatriMARRIAGE SERVICE. - What is the origin mony' in the Book of Common Prayer? Who

was the author of the service as it now

stands? If it is a translation, from what Roman office is it translated? There is no corresponding office now existing in the Roman liturgy.

B.

BRIDGES, A WINCHESTER COMMONER.-In 1833 William Thomas Bridges, only son of Capt. Philip Henry Bridges, R.N., entered Winchester College as a Scholar. His record is as follows: C.C.C., Oxon., В.А. 1843, Μ.Α. 1846, D.C.L. 1856; barrister, Middle Temple, 1847; Acting Att. Gen. at Hongkong, 1854-7; m., 1856, Frances Gertrude, widow of Carrow, and d. of -- Broderip; d. 30 Sept., 1894. Names to fill in the above blanks will be welcomed; but the purpose of this query

with "Bridges, son of Capt. Bridges, of Court House, Overton," who became a Commoner at Winchester in Short Half, 1837. If not, who was the latter? JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. OF QUOTATIONS WANTED.-I am

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA. The cult of this saint is often referred to as a recent development in the Roman Catholic Church, notably in France and in Ireland. But in 'Lavengro' (vol. i. chap. ix., edition 1851) George Borrow makes an Orangeman of Clonmel in the year 1815 drink "to Boyne water and to the speedy downfall of the Pope and St. Anthony of Padua." Can any

one furnish information as to the nature of the cult of the saint at that period? Was his invocation then used, as now, as a means of recovering lost property? and why did an Orangeman nearly ninety years ago single him out for execration, together with the Pope? B.

COUNT A. DE PANIGNANO: HOLLOWAY.On 15 and 16 December, 1853, a collection of autographs and MSS. belonging to the former was sold by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson at their Great Room, 191, Piccadilly. In the catalogue is "Lot 94, Letters of Charles I."

They were bought by a person named Holloway. Who was this count, and where did he live in 1853? Also, who was Holloway, the purchaser? what were his initials? is he alive now? and, if so, where does he live? C. MASON.

29, Emperor's Gate, S.W.

COMET с. 1580.--In the registers of the French Church in Southampton is mentioned a public fast, 6 April, 1581, to deprecate the Divine wrath "threatened in the appearance of the Comet which began to show itself on the 8th of October and which lasted until the 12th of December" ('Relics of Old Southampton,' 1904, p. 75). Has this comet been identified? C. S. WARD.

EARL OF MONTROSE. - Mr. Andrew Lang, in his 'St. Andrews' (London, 1893), mentions (p. 228) an account-book kept by the tutors of the young Earl of Montrose while he was studying there in 1627 to 1629. Have these accounts

Dramas." This very miscellaneous volume includes an epitaph on Mrs. Katharine Skip, who died in 1630, and also the following:

"Of Mr. Thomas Skipp her husband, since deceased, and buried in the same Tombe, whose Statue is plac't in a circle of Bookes, for the great love he bore to learning.

What stronger circle can Art-magick find
Wherein a Scholers spirit can be confind,
Than this of Bookes? next how he spent his time,
Scorning earths drosse to look on things sublime.
So long thy love to learning shall be read,

Whilst fame shall last, or Statues for the dead." This verse naturally provokes the inquiry if this statue "in a circle of books" is still extant; if so, where?

Manchester.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

WALKER FAMILY. --Peter Walker married Rebecca Woolner, in Suffolk (probably at Ipswich), about 1770. He held some scholastic appointment at Oxford or Cambridge. Their daughter Charlotte married Lieut. Francis McLean, R.N., at St. George's, Hanover Square, 25 December, 1802.

John Walker, vicar of Bawdsley, Suffolk, and a minor canon of Norwich Cathedral, died at Norwich in 1807, aged fifty-two.

I shall be very glad if any reader will kindly give me information regarding the parentage of either Peter or John.

ALASDAIR MACLEAN.

2, Willow Mansions, Fortune Green, Hampstead.

SOLITARY MASS - The Roman Church, I understand, does not permit a priest to say Mass without at least the attendance of a server. Is this rule ever relaxed? or has it ever been? For instance, if a priest is alone in a heathen land can he celebrate quite alone? I read somewhere that Dr. Pusey used to celebrate every morning in his college rooms at Oxford. If this is true, did he always have a server?

Libau, Russia.

FRED. G. ACKERLEY.

STATUTES OF MERTON. - Which is the correct version of the famous saying in connexion with the above: "Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare," or "Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari"? I have seen both, in my numerous references. The first mentioned would seem

Replies.

"WASSAIL."

(10th S. ii. 503.)

I FEAR no one can possibly accept the proposal to regard the Icel. veizla as the original of wassail; for it would obviously have only given some such form as waitsel. It does not explain the ai in the second syllable.

I see that the passage from Robert of Gloucester which is already quoted in my dictionary is again quoted in 'N. & Q.' But my reference to "Hearne's Glossary, p. 731," has been wholly neglected. It seems hard that such indifference should lead to a new and unjustifiable etymology.

As I fear your readers will not take the trouble to refer to this "p. 731," I take the opportunity of doing so on their behalf. On that page Hearne gives "a remarkable fragment," as he calls it, from an old MS.; and he also refers us to the word queme in his Glossary. There he gives yet another passage, which is of great interest. I give it here in

prose:- "Lord king, Wassaille, said she [Rowena]. The king asked what that might mean; for he knew nothing of that language [English]. A knight had learnt their language in youth. His name was Breg [or Brey], and he was born a Briton; he had learnt the language of the Saxons. This Brey was the interpreter of what she had told Vortigern. Sir,' said Brey, 'Rowen greets you, and calls you king, and addresses you as lord. This is their custom and their manner, when they are at the ale or feast. Each man that loves wherever it may seem good to him shall say Wasseille, and drink to him. The other shall say again Drinkhaille. He

FLORIDA.-" In 1763 it was ceded to Great Britain by the Spaniards in return for Havana. Vigorous efforts were made by the British Government to promote settlements by liberal grants of land to settlers." The above is a quotation from an encyclopædia, which also states that a Mr. Drake, I believe, has written a 'History of Florida from the Earliest Days.' Unfortunately I could not find this in the Free Reading Room in

Liverpool. An ancestor of mine died possessed of a large tract there, and if I could see the original grants of land and the grantees, I could fill in one or two important gaps in the family pedigree. Where in London can I find names, &c, of grantees? I suppose duplicates of grants were made.

Μ.Α.ΟΧΟΝ.

his companion, gives it up to him. Drinkheille, says he, and drinks thereof, kissing him in jest and play.' The king said, as the knight had taught him, 'Drinkheille, smiling on Rowen. Rowen drank as pleased her, and gave it to the king, and afterwards kissed him. This was, indeed, the first Wassaille, and that first one became famous. Of that Wassaille men talked a good deal, and [said] Wassaille when they were drinking their ale. Many times that young maiden wassailed and kissed the king," &c.

I fear I owe an apology to those who consult my dictionary. It never occurred to me that any one would cast a doubt upon this extremely well-known story, and so I quoted from Robert of Gloucester only. Of

course, I ought also to have quoted the much older account in Layamon, which simply settles the question. See vol. ii. pp. 175, 176. I give the earlier and later texts side by side,

but modernized:Dear friend, wæs hail; The other saith, drinc

And again :-
The custom came to this

land,

The custom came to the land, Was hail and drinchail. Wassayl and dring-hayl. As the older and better text has wæs hail, i.e., "be thou hale," where the later one, written by a Normanscribe with frequent mistakes (observe his dring!), has wassail, I can see no more to be said. We thus have the most sure evidence in a first-rate authority (from a philological point of view) that the phrase which was intelligently written as wæs hail by an Englishman was stupidly turned into wassail by a Norman scribe who had something to learn.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

The wassail song, of which MR. ADDY quotes a very corrupt version from Sheffield, is well known in many parts of the country, and is published, with music, as No. 37 of Novello's 'Christmas Carols, price 1d. In the Bradford district I have heard the children sing:

Here we come a-wesselling
Among the leaves so green;
An' here we bring our wesley-bob,
The fairest to be seen.

For it is the Christmas time,
When we travel far an' near;
So God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year.

In Novello's version the third line is weak,
Here we come a-wandering;

and the Bradford version, though its wassail bowl is corrupted to "wesley - bob," points to the real original. In Bradford the wassailers are usually girls, and their "bob" consists of an elaborately dressed doll, sitting under an arch of flowers, ribbons, and "green"; the whole covered with a fair white linen cloth, which is raised from time to time for spectators who are likely to contribute. Presumably the doll was originally the Virgin and Child.

Hadlow, Kent.

H. SNOWDEN WARD.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS: WAITS: GUISERS (10th S. ii. 504) -Mumming or guising was a custom maintained down to a comparatively late time, and it would be of much interest to know whether the custom still survives in Oxfordshire or other counties. A note in Brand's 'Antiquities, 1853 (Sir Henry Ellis), says that it was in that year common in Oxfordshire, where at Islip the mummers either blacked their faces or wore masks, and dressed themselves up with haybands tied round their arms and bodies. Thesmaller boys blacked their faces and went about singing: A merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Your pockets full of money, and your cellars full of

beer.

To this day, I believe, the (dis)guisers go about in the north of Scotland visiting their friends on both Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. The new-comer is, of course, on account of his disguise, treated as a stranger, but the hospitality of the host never fails on this account. A poor girl begging, a pedlar selling little wares, a farmer's wife who has lost her way, or any other personation which is at once likely to be credible and to afford occasion for clever acting or ready wit, is resorted to. Generally the guest reveals his or her true self before departing; and in the remote islands of Shetland, where through the long winter the people are wholly dependent on "home-made" interests and amusements, this idea is worked out moreelaborately. The plan is for some of the young people of a neighbourhood to band themselves together disguised, and then, in a troop, to visit the houses of the lairds or the large farmers. See further The Osborne Magazine of some few years ago; and there is a good deal of information on this curious subject in Brand's 'Antiquities,' 1853 (Ellis), vol. i. pp. 461-6. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

OLD WOMAN WENT TO MARKET

دو

"AN (10th S. ii. 502). -An account of the sources whence have come the stories of 'The House that Jack Built' and of 'The Old Woman

be found in Edward Clodd's 'Childhood of Religions,' pp. 126-7, and a bibliography of the subject in Note E, p. 262. Mr. Clodd quotes the poem at the end of the Passover subjects used by the Jews, which some of them "regard as a parable of the past and future of the Holy Land." H. A. STRONG. University, Liverpool.

to be unable to do so, and call for help. Some of the others join them, and make awkward attempts to draw Dun out of the mire, in the course of which the log is made to fall on the toes of some of the players. "As dull as Dun in the mire" occurs in Ray's 'Proverbs' (Bohn), and Douce, in his 'Illustrations of Shakespeare,' also alludes to it. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

[In the West Riding we heard in boyhood the

Olive-coloured dun,
Ugliest colour under t' sun.

p. 28.

YGREC.

BRINGING IN THE YULE "CLOG" (10th S. ii. 507).-Probably MR. RATCLIFFE is aware that there is an old proverb "Dun's in the mire"

or "As dull as Dun in the mire." "Dun"

is evidently the name of a horse, and the saying no doubt had its origin in the dreadful state of the roads in early times, although one knows many a country by-road, to this day, where "Dun" might easily be stuck in the mire. The old English custom consisted in dragging the Yule "clog," or "log," through the mud to its resting-place on the brandirons, preparatory to its consumption on Christmas Day. It was done with the monies alluded to, of dancing and other accompaniments of any kind of noise and ebullitions of joy. In Herrick's 'Hesperides' one of the 'Ceremonies for Christmasse' is

Come bring, with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing;

While my good dame she
Bids ye all be free,

And drink to your hearts' desiring.

cere

I think it is worthy of note that "dun," or dark red or brown, was often interchangeable with the sanguine colour, a symbol of the sun; and I would ask whether it is not possible that the Yule log, being, as it is thought by Brand, a winter counterpart of the Midsummer fires, made within doors because of the cold, is not a relic of sacrifice to the sun-god. What is certain is that objects even approaching the sanguine colour, like "dun," were sacred to the sun, whose rays were certainly typified by horses. In a note to Ben Jonson's masque of Christmas, Gifford says of this joyful pastime that a log of wood, called Dun the cart-horse, is brought into the middle of the room, and some one cries out, "Dun is stuck in the mire!" Two of the players then come forward, and, with or without ropes, commence to try to drag it out. They pretend

says:

"At Rippon in Yorkshire, on Christmas Eve, the chandlers sent large mold candles and the coopers logs of wood, generally called Yule Cloys,

are always used Christmas Eve; but should it be so large as not to be all burnt that night, which is frequently the case, the remains are kept till old Christmas Eve." A writer in the same magazine for February, 1784, says:

"That this rejoicing on Christmas Eve had its rise from the Juul, and was exchanged for it, is evident from a custom practised in the Northern Counties of putting a large clog of wood on the fire this evening, which is still called the Yule clog."

Southey, in 'The Doctor' (1834), says:"Clogg was the English name, whether so called from the word log, because they were generally made of wood, and not so commonly of oak or fir as of box, or from the resemblance of the larger ones to clogs, wherewith we restrain the wild, extravagant, mischievous notions of some of our dogs, he knew not."

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.