Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853

As the following extract from Gorr's Liverpool Directory appears to bear upon the point, and as it does not seem to have yet attracted the attention of any of your correspondents, I beg to forward it:—

"Its (i.e. Liverpool's) fair-days are 25th July and 11th Nov. Ten days before and ten days after each fair-day, a hand is exhibited in front of the Town-hall, which denotes protection; during which time no person coming to or going from the town on business connected with the fair can be arrested for debt within its liberty."

I have myself frequently observed the "hand," although I could not discover any appearance of a fair being held.

    R.

St. Dominic (Vol. vii., p. 356.).—Your correspondent Bookworm will find in any chronology a very satisfactory reason why Machiavelli could not reply to the summons of Benedict XIV., unless, indeed, the Pope had made use of "the power of the keys," to call him up for a brief space to satisfy his curiosity.

    J. S. Warden.

Names of Plants (Vol. viii., p. 37.).—Ale-hoof means useful in, or to, ale; Ground-ivy having been used in brewing before the introduction of hops. "The women of our northern parts" (says John Gerard), "especially about Wales or Cheshire, do tunne the herbe Ale-hoof into their ale … being tunned up in ale and drunke, it also purgeth the head from rhumaticke humours flowing from the brain." From the aforesaid tunning, it was also called Tun-hoof (World of Words); and in Gerard, Tune-hoof.

Considering what was meant by Lady in the names of plants, we should refrain from supposing that Neottia spiralis was called the Lady-traces "sensu obsc.," even if those who are more skilled in such matters than I am can detect such a sense. I cannot learn what a lady's traces are; but I suspect plaitings of her hair to be meant. "Upon the spiral sort," says Gerard, "are placed certaine small white flowers, trace fashion," while other sorts grow, he says, "spike fashion," or "not trace fashion." Whence I infer, that in his day trace conveyed the idea of spiral.

    A. N.

Specimens of Foreign English (Vol. iii. passim.).—I have copied the following from the label on a bottle of liqueur, manufactured at Marseilles by "L. Noilly fils et C

." The English will be best understood by being placed in juxtaposition with the original French:

"Le Vermouth

est un vin blanc légèrement amer, parfumé avec des plantes aromatiques bienfaisantes.

"Cette boisson est tonique, stimulante, fébrifuge et astringente: prise avec de l'eau elle est apéritive et raffraichissante: elle est aussi un puissant préservatif contre les fièvres et la dyssenterie, maladies si fréquentes dans les pays chauds, pour lesquels elle a été particulièrement composée."

"The Wermouth

is a brightly bitter and perfumed with aromatical and good vegetables white wine.

"This is tonic, stimulant, febrifuge and costive drinking; mixed with water it is aperitive, refreshing, and also a powerful preservative of fivers and bloody-flux; those latters are very usual in warmth countries, and of course that liquor has just been particularly made up for that occasion."

    Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

Blanco White (Vol. vii., pp. 404. 486.).—Your correspondent H. C. K. is right in his impression that the sonnet commencing

"Mysterious Night! when our first parents knew," &c.

was written by Blanco White. See his Life (3 vols., Chapman, 1845), vol. iii. p. 48.

    J. K. R. W.

Pistols (Vol. viii., p. 7.).—In Strype's Life of Sir Thomas Smith, Works, Oxon. 1821, mention is made of a statute or proclamation by the Queen in the year 1575, which refers to that of 33 Hen. VIII. c. 6., alluded to by your correspondent J. F. M., and in which the words pistol and pistolet are introduced:

"The Queen calling to mind how unseemly a thing it was, in so quiet and peaceable a realm, to have men so armed; … did charge and command all her subjects, of what estate or degree soever they were, that in no wise, in their journeying, going, or riding, they carried about them privily or openly any dag, or pistol, or any other harquebuse, gun, or such weapon for fire, under the length expressed by the statute made by the Queen's most noble father.... [Excepting however] noblemen and such known gentlemen, which were without spot or doubt of evil behaviour, if they carried dags or pistolets about them in their journeys, openly, at their saddle bows," &c.

Here the dag or pistolet seems to answer to our "revolvers," and the pistol to our larger horse-pistol.

    H. C. K.

—– Rectory, Hereford.

Passage of Thucydides on the Greek Factions (Vol. viii., p. 44.).—If L., or any of your readers, will take the trouble to compare the passage quoted, and the one referred to by him, in the following translation of Smith, with Sir A. Alison's supposititious quotation[7 - Europe, vol. ix. p. 397., 12mo.] (Vol. vii., p. 594.), they will find that my inquiry is still unanswered. The passage quoted by L. in Greek is, according to Smith:

"Prudent consideration, to be specious cowardice; modesty, the disguise of effeminacy; and being wise in everything, to be good for nothing."

The passage not quoted, but referred to by L., is:

"He who succeeded in a roguish scheme was wise; and he who suspected such practices in others was still a more able genius."—Vol. i. book iii. p. 281. 4to.: London, 1753.

In this "counterfeit presentment of two brothers," L. may discern a family likeness; but my inquiry was for the identical passage, "sword and poniard" included.

If L. desires to find Greek authority for the general sentiment only, I would refer him to passages, equally to Sir A. Alison's purpose, in Thucydides, iii. 83., viii. 89.; Herodotus, iii. 81.; Plato's Republic, viii. 11., and Aristotle's Politics, v. 6. 9. I beg to thank L. for his attempt, although unsuccessful.

    T. J. Buckton.

Birmingham.

The earliest Mention of the Word "Party" (Vol. vii., p. 247.).—In a choice volume, printed by "Ihon Day, dwelling over Aldersgate, beneath St. Martines," 1568, I find the word occurring thus:

"The party must in any place see to himselfe, and seeke to wipe theyr noses by a shorte aunswere."—A Discovery and playne Declaration of the Holy Inquisition of Spayne, fol. 10.

Permit me to attach a Query to this. Am I right in considering the above-mentioned book as rare? I do so on the assumption that "Ihon Day" is the Day of black-letter rarity.

    R. C. Warde.

Kidderminster.

Creole (Vol. vii., p. 381.).—It is curious to observe how differently this word is applied by different nations. The English apply it to white children born in the West Indies; the French, I believe, exclusively to the mixed races; and the Spanish and Portuguese to the blacks born in their colonies, never to whites. The latter, I think, is the true and original meaning, as its primary signification is a home-bred slave (from "criar," to bring up, to nurse), as distinguished from an imported or purchased one.

    J. S. Warden.

Miscellaneous

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC

We have before us a little volume by Mr. Willich, the able Actuary of the University Life Assurance Society, entitled Popular Tables arranged in a new Form, giving Information at Sight for ascertaining, according to the Carlisle Table of Mortality, the Value of Lifehold, Leasehold, and Church Property, Renewal Fines, &c., the Public Funds, Annual Average Price and Interest on Consols from 1731 to 1851; also various interesting and useful Tables, equally adapted to the Office and the Library Table. Ample as is this title-page, it really gives but an imperfect notion of the varied contents of this useful library and writing-desk companion. For instance, Table VIII. of the Miscellaneous Tables gives the average price of Consols, with the average rate of interest, from 1731 to 1851; but this not only shows when Consols were highest and when lowest, but also what Administration was then in power, and the chief events of each year. We give this as one instance of the vast amount of curious information here combined; and we would point out to historical and geographical students the notices of Chinese Chronology in the preface, and the Tables of Ancient and Modern Itinerary Measures, as parts of the work especially deserving of their attention. In short, Mr. Willich's Popular Tables form one of those useful volumes in which masses of scattered information are concentrated in such a way as to render the book indispensable to all who have once tested its utility.

Mormonism, its History, Doctrines, and Practices, by the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, is a small pamphlet containing the substance of two lectures on this pestilent heresy, delivered by the author before the Kennington Branch of the Church of England Young Men's Society, and is worth the attention of those who wish to know something of this now wide-spread mania.

On the Custom of Borough-English in the County of Sussex, by George R. Corner, Esq. This well-considered paper on a very curious custom owes its origin, we believe, to a Query in our columns. We wish all questions agitated in "N. & Q." were as well illustrated as this has been by the learning and ingenuity of Mr. Corner.

A Narrative of Practical Experiments proving to Demonstration the Discovery of Water, Coals, and Minerals in the Earth by means of the Dowsing Fork or Divining Rod, &c., collected, reported, and edited by Francis Phippen. A curious little pamphlet on a fact in Natural Philosophy, which we believe no philosopher can either understand or account for.

Serials Received.—Murray's Railway Reading: History as a Condition of Social Progress, by Samuel Lucas. An able lecture on an interesting subject.—The Traveller's Library, No. 46.: Twenty Years in the Philippines, by De la Gironière. One of the best numbers of this valuable series.—Cyclopædia Bibliographica, Part XI., August. This eleventh Part of Mr. Darling's useful Catalogue extends from James Ibbetson to Bernard Lamy.—Archæologia Cambrensis, New Series, No. XV.: containing, among other papers of interest to the inhabitants of the principality, one on the arms of Owen Glendwr, by the accomplished antiquary to whom our readers were indebted for a paper on the same subject in our own columns.