Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853

    W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A.

14. Grove Road,

North Brixton, Surrey.

MINOR QUERIES

Dimidiation.—Is the practice of dimidiation approved of by modern heralds, and are examples of it common?

    W. Fraser.

Tor-Mohun.

Early Christian Mothers.—Can any of your correspondents inform me whether the Christian mothers of the first four or five centuries were much in the habit of using the rod in correcting their children; and whether the influence acquired by the mother of St. Chrysostom, and others of the same stamp, was not greatly owing to their having seldom or never inflicted corporal punishment on them?

    Pater.

The Lion at Northumberland House.—One often hears the anecdote of a wag who, as alleged, stared at the lion on Northumberland House until he had collected a crowd of imitators around him, when he cried out, "By Heaven! it wags, it wags," and the rest agreed with him that the lion did wag its tail. If this farce really took place, I should be glad to know the date and details.

    J. P.

Birmingham.

The Cross in Mexico and Alexandria.—In The Unseen World; Communications with it, real and imaginary, &c., 1850, a work which is attributed to an eminent divine and ecclesiastical historian of the English Church, it is stated that—

"It was a tradition in Mexico, before the arrival of the Spaniards, that when that form (the sign of the cross) should be victorious, the old religion should disappear. The same sign is also said to have been discovered on the destruction of the temple of Serapis at Alexandria, and the same tradition to have been attached to it."—P. 23.

The subject is very curious, and one in which I am much interested. I am anxious to refer to the original authorities for the tradition in both cases. It is known that the Mexicans worshipped the cross as the god of rain. We have the following curious account thereof in The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of West India, now called Newe Spayne, translated out of the Spanish tongue by T. N., anno 1578:

"At the foote of this temple was a plotte like a churchyard, well walled and garnished with proper pinnacles; in the midst whereof stoode a crosse of ten foote long, the which they adored for god of the rayne; for at all times whe they wanted rayne, they would go thither on procession deuoutely, and offered to the crosse quayles sacrificed, for to appease the wrath that the god seemed to have agaynste them: and none was so acceptable a sacrifice, as the bloud of that little birde. They used to burne certaine sweete gume, to perfume that god withall, and to besprinkle it with water; and this done, they belieued assuredly to haue rayne."—P. 41.

    Edward Peacock.

Bottesford Moors, Kirton Lindsey.

Passage in St. James.—I hope you will not consider the following Query unsuited to your publication, and in that case I may confidently anticipate the removal of my difficulty.

In reading yesterday Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, I came to this passage (p. 308. Bohn's edition):

"St. James, in his epistle, notes the folly of some men, his contemporaries, who were so impatient of the event of to-morrow, or the accidents of next year, or the good or evils of old age, that they would consult astrologers and witches, oracles and devils, what should befall them the next calends—what should be the event of such a voyage—what God had written in his book concerning the success of battles, the election of emperors, &c.... Against this he opposes his counsel, that we should not search after forbidden records, much less by uncertain significations," &c.

Now my Query is, To what epistle of St. James does the eloquent bishop refer? If to the canonical epistle, to what part? To the words (above quoted) "forbidden records" there is a foot-note, which contains only the well-known passage in Horace, lib. i. od. xi., and two others from Propertius and Catullus.

    S. S. S.

"The Temple of Truth."—Who was the author of an admirable work entitled The Temple of Truth, published in 1806 by Mawman?

    T. B. H.

Santa Claus.—Reading The Wide Wide World recalled to my mind this curious custom, which I had remarked when in America. I was then not a little surprised to find so strange a superstition lingering in puritanical New England, and which, it is needless to remark, was quite novel to me. Santa Claus I believe to be a corruption of Saint Nicholas, the tutelary saint of sailors, and consequently a great favourite with the Dutch. Probably, therefore, the custom was introduced into the western world by the compatriots of the renowned Knickerbocker.

It is unnecessary to describe the nature of the festivity, as it is so graphically pourtrayed in Miss Wetherell's, or rather Warner's work, to which I would refer those desirous of further acquaintance with the subject; the object of this Query being to learn, through some of the American or other correspondents of "N. & Q.," the original legend, as well as the period and events connected with the immigration into "The States" of that beneficent friend of Young America, Santa Claus.

    Robert Wright.

Donnybrook Fair.—This old-established fair, so well known in every quarter of the globe, and so very injurious to the morality of those who frequent it, is said to be held by patent: but is there any patent for it in existence? If there be, why is it not produced? I am anxious to obtain information upon the subject.

    Abhba.

Saffron, when brought into England.—In a footnote to Beckmann's History of Inventions, &c., vol. i. p. 179. (Bohn's), is the following, purporting to be from Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 164.:

"It is reported at Saffron Walden that a pilgrim, proposing to do good to his country, stole a head of saffron, and hid the same in his palmer's staff, which he had made hollow before on purpose, and so he brought this root into this realm, with venture of his life; for if he had been taken, by the law of the country from whence it came, he had died for the fact."

Can any of your readers throw any light upon this tradition?

    W. T.

Saffron Walden.

Isping Geil.—In a charter of Joanna Fossart, making a grant of lands and other possessions to the priory of Grosmont in Yorkshire, is the following passage as given in Dugdale's Monasticon (I quote from Bohn's edition, 1846, vol. vi. p. 1025.):

"Dedi eis insuper domos meas in Eboraco; illas scilicet quæ sunt inter domos Laurentii clerici quæ fuerunt Benedicti Judæi et Isping Geil, cum tota curia et omnibus pertinentiis."

Can any of your readers, and in particular any of our York antiquaries, inform me whether the "Isping Geil" mentioned in this passage is the name of a person, or of some locality in that city now obsolete? In either case I should be glad of any information as to the etymology of so singular a designation, which may possibly have undergone some change in copying.

    Θ.

Humbug.—When was this word introduced into the English language? The earliest instance in which I have met with it is in one of Churchill's Poems, published about the year 1750.

    Uneda.

Philadelphia.

Franklyn Household Book.—Can any reader inform me in whose keeping, the Household Book of Sir John Franklyn now is?[2 - [Sir John Franklyn's Household Book was in the possession of Sir John Chardin Musgrave, of Eden Hall, co. Cumberland, who died in 1806. Some farther extracts, consisting of about thirty items, relating to archery (not given in the Archæologia) will be found in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 6316. f. 30. Among other items is the following: "Oct. 20, 1642. Item, for a pound of tobacco for the Lady Glover, 12s." Sir John Franklyn, of Wilsden, co. Middlesex, was M.P. for that county in the beginning of the reign of Charles I., and during the Civil Wars.—Ed.]] Extracts were published from it in the Archæologia, vol. xv.

    J. K.

James Thomson's Will.—Did the author of the Seasons make a will? If so, where is the original to be seen?

    D.

Leamington.

"Country Parson's Advice to his Parishioners."—Could you inquire through your columns who the author of a book entitled The Country Parson's Advice to his Parishioners is? It was printed for Benjamin Tooke, at the Ship, in St. Paul's Church Yard, 1680.

I have a singular copy of this book, and know at present of no other copy. The booksellers all seem at a loss as to who the author was; some say Jeremy Taylor, others George Herbert; but my date does not allow the latter,—at least it makes it very improbable, unless it was published after his death. The book itself is like George Herbert's style, very solid and homely; it is evidently by some masterly hand. Should you be able to give me information, or get it for me, I should be obliged. I think of reprinting the book.

    Geo. Nugée.