Notes and Queries, Number 53, November 2, 1850

5. In the Bibliographer's Manual, by Lowndes, there occurs this entry: "Life and death of Major Clancie, the grandest cheat in this age," 1680, and the full catalogue of the Hon. Mr. Nassau is referred to. Can any of your readers state where a copy of this production may be found? A brief account of Clancie is contained in the Memoirs of Gamesters and Sharpers, by Theophilus Lucas. He wrote, or there was written, under this name, various other works not noticed by Lowndes. Can any information be given as to the assumed or real author of these works?

Lowndes also mentions Clancie's Cheats, or the Life and Death of Major Clancie, 1687. Where can access to this work be obtained?

    J. MT.

Edinburgh.

MINOR QUERIES

History of Newspapers.—

"The materials for a satisfactory history of newspapers, lie scattered in facts known one to this person, and one to that. If each London or provincial journalist, each reader, and each critic, who has an anecdote and a date, would give it publicity, some future volume might be prepared from the combined supply, much more complete than any to be fairly expected from a comparatively unaided writer who ventures upon an almost untrodden ground."

The foregoing extract from the interesting volumes recently published by Mr. Knight Hunt, under the unpretending title of The Fourth Estate: Contributions towards a History of Newspapers, and of the Liberty of the Press, has been very kindly recommended to our attention by The Examiner. We gladly avail ourselves of the suggestion, and shall be pleased to record in our columns any facts of the nature referred to by Mr. Hunt.

Steele's Burial-place.—Sir Richard Steele died in the house now the "Ivy Bush" Inn, at Carmarthen, on the 1st of September, 1729.

Where was he buried?

Is there a monument or inscription to his memory in any church in or near Carmarthen?

    LLEWELLYN.

Socinian Boast.—In an allocution recently held by Dr. Pusey, to the London Church Union, in St. Martin's Hall, reported in The Times of Oct. 17, the following passage occurs:

"The Socinian boast might be a warning to us against such declarations. The Socinian pictured Calvin as carrying on the protest against Rome more vigorously than Luther, himself than Calvin:

"Tota jacet Babylon; destruxit tecta Lutherus,
Calvinus muros, sed fundamenta Socinus."

Query, By what Socinian writer are these two hexameter verses used?

    L.

Descent of Edward IV.—Professor Millar, in his Historical View of the English Government (ii. 174.), in discussing the claim of Edward IV. to the English throne, speaks of "a popular though probably a groundless tradition, that by his mother he was descended from Henry III. by an elder brother of Edward I., who, on account of his personal deformity, had been excluded from the succession to the crown." Where may I find this tradition? or where meet with any information on the subject?

    S.A.Y.

Viscount Castlecomer.—Sir Christopher Wanderforde, who succeeded poor Strafford as Lord Deputy of Ireland, in April, 1640, was created, between that date and his death, which occurred in December of the same year, Baron Mowbray and Musters, and Viscount Castlecomer. I should be glad to know the date of the patent of his creation, whether Sir Christopher himself ever took up the title, and what became of the title afterwards?

    S.A.Y.

Judge Cradock, afterwards Newton.—MR ELLACOMBE (Vol. ii., p. 249.), in his notice of a monument in Yatton Church to "Judge Newton, alias Cradock," says, "the arms of Cradock are Arg. on chevron az. three garbs or." Richard Cradock, he adds, "was the first of his family who took the name of Newton." Does MR. ELLACOMBE mean that the above arms were those of the Cradock family, or that this Richard Cradock assumed the coat as well as the name of Newton? The above was the bearing of the family of Newton, of East Newton, in the North Riding of York. The eldest daughter and coheir of John Newton of East Newton was married to William Thornton, which family thus became possessed of the estate of East Newton, and quartered the coat assigned by MR. ELLACOMBE to Cradock. I should be glad to know the occasion on which Richard Cradock assumed the name and arms of Newton, as well as the connexion between these Newtons and those settled at East Newton.

    S.A.Y.

Totness Church.—In Totness Church, the N. angle of the chancel is cut off in the lower part of the building, in order to allow an arched passage from one side of the church to the other outside.

The upper part of the building is supported by a very strong buttress or pier, leaving the diagonal passage between it and the internal wall. Can any one tell whether this was done merely to afford a gangway for want of room outside?

The graveyard has been recently enlarged in that direction, for all the tombstones beyond the line of the chancel appear to be of late date. An old woman informed me, with an air of solemn authenticity, that this arched passage was reserved as a place of deposit for the bodies of persons seized for debt, which lay there till they were redeemed.

    H.G.T.

Meaning of "Harissers."—It is customary in the county of Dorset, after carrying a field of corn, to leave behind a sheaf, to intimate to the rest of the parish that the families of those who reaped the field are to have the first lease. After these gleaners have finished, the sheaf is removed, and other parties are admitted, called "barissers." I have been told that the real title is "arishers," from "arista." I should feel obliged if any of your correspondents could inform me whether this name is known in any other county, and what is the derivation of the word.

    CLERICUS RUSTICUS.

Ringelbergius—Drinking to Excess.—Ringelbergius, in the notes to his treatise De Ratione Studii, speaking of great drinkers, has this passage:

"Eos qui magnos crateras haustu uno siccare possunt, qui sic crassum illud et porosum corpus vino implent, ut per cutem humor erumpat (nam tum se satis inquiunt potasse, cùm, positis quinque super mensam digitis, quod ipse aliquando vidi, totidem guttæ excidunt) laudant; hos viros esse et homines dicunt."

He says that he himself has seen this. Does any reader of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" know of any other author who says that he has seen such an exhibition? Or can Ringelbergius's assertion be confirmed from any source?

    J.S.W.

Stockwell, Oct. 15.

Langue Pandras.—In the Life of Chaucer prefixed to the Aldine edition of his poetical works, there is published, for the first time, "a very interesting ballad," "addressed to him by Eustache Deschamps, a contemporary French poet," of which I beg leave to quote the first stanza, in order to give me the opportunity of inquiring the meaning of "la langue Pandras," in the ninth line:

"O Socrates, pleins de philosophie,
Seneque en moeurs et angles en pratique,
Ovides grans en ta poeterie,
Bries en parier, saiges en rethorique,
Aigles tres haulte qui par ta theorique
Enlumines le regne d'Eneas
L'isle aux geans, ceulx de Bruth, et qui as
Semé les fleurs et planté le rosier
Aux ignorans de la langue Pandras;
Grant translateur, noble Geoffroy Chaucier."

May I ask, further, whether any particulars are known of this contemporary and admirer of Chaucer?

I hope I shall not be deemed presumptuous if I add that I should have doubted of the genuineness of the poem quoted from, if Sir Harris Nicolas had not stated that it had been communicated to him by "Thomas Wright, Esq., who received it from M. Paulin Paris," gentlemen in every way qualified to decide on this point, and being sanctioned by them, I have no wish to appeal from their judgment.

    J.M.B.

The Coptic Language.—I read in The Times of this morning the following:

"The Coptic is an uncultivated and formal tongue, with monosyllabic roots and rude inflexions, totally different from the neighbouring languages of Syria and Arabia, totally opposite to the copious and polished Sanscrit."

Do you think it worth while to try if some Coptic scholar among your learned correspondents can give us some clearer account of the real position of that tongue, historically so interesting? The point is this, Is it inflected, or, does it employ affixes, or is it absolutely without inflections and affixes?

If the first, it cannot be "totally opposite" to the Sanscrit: if the second, it cannot be "totally different" from Syriac and Arabic: if the third, it cannot have "rude inflections."

    J.E.

Oxford, October 23. 1850.