Notes and Queries, Number 39, July 27, 1850

From these extracts the occupation of Long Meg may be readily guessed at. Is it then likely that such a detestable character would have been buried amongst "goodly friars" and "holy abbots" in the cloisters of our venerable abbey? I think not: but I leave considerable doubts as to whether Meg was a real personage.—Query. Is she not akin to Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant-killer, Doctor Rat, and a host of others of the same type?

The stone in question is, I know, on account of its great size, jokingly called "Long Meg, of Westminster" by the vulgar; but no one, surely, before Mr. Cunningham, ever seriously supposed it to be her burying-place. Henry Keefe, in his Monumenta Westmonasteriensa, 1682, gives the following account of this monument:—

"That large and stately plain black marble stone (which is vulgarly known by the name of Long Meg of Westminster) on the north side of Laurentius the abbot, was placed there for Gervasius de Blois, another abbot of this monastery, who was base son to King Stephen, and by him placed as a monk here, and afterwards made abbot, who died anno 1160, and was buried under this stone, having this distich formerly thereon:

"De regnum genere pater hic Gervasius ecce
Monstrat defunctus, mors rapit omne genus."

Felix Summerly, in his Handbook for Westminster Abbey, p. 29., noticing the cloisters and the effigies of the abbots, says,—

"Towards this end there lies a large slab of blue marble, which is called 'Long Meg' of Westminster. Though it is inscribed to Gervasius de Blois, abbot, 1160 natural son of King Stephen, he is said to have been buried under a small stone, and tradition assigns 'Long Meg' as the gravestone of twenty-six monks, who were carried off by the plague in 1349, and buried together in one grave."

The tradition here recorded may be correct. At any rate, it carries with it more plausibility than that recorded by Mr. Cunningham.

    EDWARD F. RIMIBAULT.

[Some additional and curious allusions to this probably mythic virago are recorded in Mr. Halliwell's Descriptive Notices of Popular English Histories, printed for the Percy Society.]

A NOTE ON SPELLING.—"SANATORY," "CONNECTION."

I trust that "NOTES AND QUERIES" may, among many other benefits, improve spelling by example as well as precept. Let me make a note on two words that I find in No. 37.: sanatory, p. 99., and connection, p. 98.

Why "sanatory laws?" Sanare is to cure, and a curing-place is, if you like, properly called sanatorium. But the Latin for health is sanitas, and the laws which relate to health should be called sanitary.

Analogy leads us to connexion, not connection; plecto, plexus, complexion; flecto, flexus, inflexion; necto, nexus, connexion, &c.; while the termination ction belongs to words derived from Latin verbs whose passive participles end in ctus as lego, lectus, collection; injecio, injectus, injection; seco, sectus, section, &c.

    CH.

Minor Notes

Pasquinade on Leo XII.—The Query put to a Pope (Vol. ii., p. 104.), which it is difficult to believe could be put orally, reminds me of Pope Leo XII., who was reported, whether truly or not, to have been the reverse of scrupulous in the earlier part of his life, but was remarkably strict after he became Pope, and was much disliked at Rome, perhaps because, by his maintenance of strict discipline, he abridged the amusements and questionable indulgences of the people. On account of his death, which took place just before the time of the carnival in 1829, the usual festivities were omitted, which gave occasion to the following pasquinade, which was much, though privately, circulated—

"Tre cose mat fecesti, O Padre santo:
Accettar il papato,
Viver tanto,
Morir di Carnivale
Per destar pianto."

    J. Mn.
Shakspeare a Brass-rubber.—I am desirous to notice, if no commentator has forestalled me, that Shakspeare, among his many accomplishments, was sufficiently beyond his age to be a brass-rubber:

"What's on this tomb
I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax."

Timon of Athens, v. 4.

From the "soft impression," however, alluded to in the next scene, his "wax" appears rather to have been the forerunner of gutta percha than of heel-ball.

    T.S. LAWRENCE.

California.—In the Voyage round the World, by Captain George Shelvocke, begun Feb. 1719, he says of California (Harris's Collection, vol. i. p. 233.):—

"The soil about Puerto, Seguro, and very likely in most of the valleys, is a rich black mould, which, as you turn it fresh up to the sun, appears as if intermingled with gold dust; some of which we endeavoured to purify and wash from the dirt; but though we were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mingled with common earth, yet we endeavoured to cleanse and wash the earth from some of it; and the more we did the more it appeared like gold. In order to be further satisfied I brought away some of it, which we lost in our confusion in China."

How an accident prevented the discovery, more than a century back, of the golden harvest now gathering in California!

    E.N.W.

Southwark.

Mayor of Misrule and Masters of the Pastimes.—the word Maior of Misrule appears in the Harl. MSS. 2129. as having been on glass in the year 1591, in Denbigh Church.

"5 Edw. VI., a gentleman (Geo. Ferrars), lawyer, poet, and historian, appointed by the Council, and being of better calling than commonly his predecessors, received his commission by the name of 'Master of the King's Pastimes.'"—Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, 340.

"1578. Edward Baygine, cursitor, clerk for writing and passing the Queen's leases, 'Comptroller of the Queen's pastimes and revels,' clerk comptroller of her tents and pavilions, commissioner of sewers, burgess in Parliament."—Gwillim, Heraldry, 1724 edit.

    A.C.

Roland and Oliver.—Canciani says there is a figure in the church porch at Verona which, from being in the same place with Roland, and manifestly of the same age, he supposes may be Oliver, armed with a spiked ball fastened by a chain to a staff of about three feet in length. Who are Roland and Oliver? There is the following derivation of the saying "a Roland for your Oliver," without any reference or authority attached, in my note-book:—

"—Charlemagne, in his expedition against the Saracens, was accompanied by two 'steeds,' some writers say 'pages,' named Roland and Oliver, who were so excellent and so equally matched, that the equality became proverbial—'I'll give you a Roland for your Oliver' being, the same as the vulgar saying, 'I'll give you tit for tat,' i.e. 'I'll give you the same (whether in a good or bad sense) as you give me.'"

    JARLTZBERG.

QUERIES

THE STORY OF THE THREE MEN AND THEIR BAG OF MONEY

Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, relates, in connection with Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper Ellesmere, a very common story, of which I am surprised he did not at once discern the falsehood. It is that of a widow, who having a sum of money entrusted to her by three men, which she was on no account to return except to the joint demand of the three, is afterwards artfully persuaded by one of them to give it up to him. Being afterwards sued by the other two, she is successfully defended by a young lawyer, who puts in the plea that she is not bound to give up the money at the demand of only two of the parties. In this case this ingenious gentleman is the future chancellor. The story is told of the Attorney-General Noy, and of an Italian advocate, in the notes to Rogers' Italy. It is likewise the subject of one of the smaller tales in Lane's Arabian Nights; but here I must remark, that the Eastern version is decidedly more ingenious than the later ones, inasmuch as it exculpates the keeper of the deposit from the "laches" of which in the other cases she was decidedly guilty. Three men enter a bath, and entrust their bag of money to the keeper with the usual conditions. While bathing, one feigns to go to ask for a comb (if I remember right), but in reality demands the money. The keeper properly refuses, when he calls out to his companions within, "He won't give it me." They unwittingly respond, "Give it him," and he accordingly walks off with the money. I think your readers will agree with me that the tale has suffered considerably in its progress westward.

My object in troubling you with this, is to ask whether any of your subscribers can furnish me with any other versions of this popular story, either Oriental or otherwise.

    BRACKLEY.

Putney, July 17.

THE GEOMETRICAL FOOT

In several different places I have discussed the existence and length of what the mathematicians of the sixteenth century used, and those of the seventeenth talked about, under the name of the geometrical foot, of four palms and sixteen digits. (See the Philosophical Magazine from December 1841 to May 1842; the Penny Cyclopædia, "Weights and Measures," pp. 197, 198; and Arthmetical Books, &c, pp. 5-9.) Various works give a figured length of this foot, whole, or in halves, according as the page will permit; usually making it (before the shrinking of the paper is allowed for) a very little less than 9-3/4 inches English. The works in which I have as yet found it are Reisch, Margarita Philosophica, 1508; Stöffler's Elucidatio Astrolabii, 1524; Fernel's Monolosphærium, 1526; Köbel, Astrolabii Declaratio, 1552; Ramus, Geometricæ, 1621. Query. In what other works of the sixteenth, or early in the seventeenth century is this foot of palms and digits to be found, figured in length? What are their titles? What the several lengths of the foot, half foot, or palm, within the twentieth of an inch? Are the divisions into palms or digits given; and, if so, are they accurate subdivisions? Of the six names above mentioned, the three who are by far the best known are Stöffler, Fernel, and Ramus; and it so happens that their subdivisions are much more correct than those of the other three, and their whole lengths more accordant.

    A. DE. MORGAN.

Minor Queries

Plurima Gemma.—Who is the author of the couplet which seems to be a version of Gray's

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene," &c.?
"Plurima gemma latet cæca tellure sepulta,
Plurima neglecto fragrat odore rosa."