Notes and Queries, Number 23, April 6, 1850

I presume that "RAHERE" is a young brass-rubber, or the fact of a plate being engraved on both sides would have presented no difficulty to him.

    ARUN.

[We have received several other replies to this Query, referring to Mr. Boutell's Monumental Brasses: one from "W."; another from "A CORNISHMAN," who says,—

"The brass in question, when I saw it last, had been removed from the Rectory and placed in the tomb of Abbot Wheathampstead, in company with the famous one of Thomas Delamere, another Abbot of St. Albans."

Another from "E.V.," who states,—

"Other examples are found at St. Margaret's, Rochester (where the cause of the second engraving is found to be an error in costume in the first), St. Martins at Plain, Norwich, Hedgerly Church, Bucks, and Burwell Church, Cambridgeshire. Of this last, an engraving and description, by Mr. A.W. Franks, is given in the fourteenth part of the Publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society."

One from "WILLIAM SPARROW SIMPSON," who says,—

"It is also described in the Oxford Architectural Society's Manual of Mon. Brasses, No. 6. pp. 6, 7. other examples of which occur at Rochester, Kent, and at Cobham, Surrey. A small plate of brass, in the possession of a friend, has on one side a group of children, and on the reverse the uplifted hands of an earlier figure."

And lastly, one from "A.P.H." (to which we cannot do ample justice, as we do not keep an engraver), from which we extract the following passages:—

"A friend of mine has a shield in his possession, taken from a slab, and which has been enamelled. It is of late date and rudely executed. On the back is seen the hands and breast of a small female figure, very nearly a century earlier in date. I can also remember an inscription in Cuxton Church, Kent, which was loose, and had another inscription on the back in the same manner.

"I am very much impressed with the idea that the destroyed brasses never had been used at all; but had been engraved, and then, from circumstances that of course we cannot hope to fathom, thrown on one side till the metal might be used for some other purpose. This, I think, is a more probable, as well as a more charitable explanation than the one usually given of the so-called palimpsest brasses."]

Chapels (No. 20. p. 333.).—As to the origin of the name, will you allow me to refer Mr. Gatty to Ducange's Glossary, where he will find much that is to his purpose.

As to its being "a legal description," I will not undertake to give an opinion without a fee; but I will mention a fact which may assist him in forming one. I believe that fifty years ago the word Chapel was very seldom used among those who formed what was termed the "Dissenting Interest;" that is, the three "denominations" of Independents, Baptists, and Presbyterians. But I well recollect hearing, from good authority, nearly, or quite, forty years ago, that an eminent barrister (whom I might now describe as a late learned judge), who was much looked up to by the dissenters as one of their body, had particularly advised that in all trust-deeds relating to places of dissenting worship, they should be called "Chapels." I do not know that he assigned any reason, but I know that the opinion was given, or communicated, to those who had influence; and, from my own observation, I believe that from about that time we must date the adoption of the term, which has now been long in general use.

I do not imagine that there was any idea of either assistance or opposition to the Church of England, in the mind of him who recommended, or those who adopted, the alteration, or that either of them expected or sought any thing by this measure but to obtain a greater security for property, or, rather, to avoid some real or imagined insecurity, found or supposed to attach to the form of description previously in use.

    A BARRISTER.

Forlot, Forthlot (No. 20. p. 320.).—A measure of grain used throughout Scotland at present—query fourthlot. See Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language.

"Firlot; Fyrlot; Furlet.—A corn measure in S., the fourth part of a boll.

"Thay ordainit the boll to mat victual with, to be devidit in foure partis, videlicet, foure fyrlottis to contene a boll; and that fyrlot not to be maid efter the first mesoure, na efter the mesoure now usit, bot in middill mesoure betwixt the twa."—Acts Jac. l. 1526. c. 80. edit. 1566.

"—Ane furme, ane furlet,
Ane pott, ane pek."

    Bannatyne Poems, p. 159.
Skinner derives it from A.-S. feower, quatuor; and lot, hlot, portio (the fourth part); Teut. "viertel."

    J.S.

Loscop (No. 20. p. 319).—To be "Louecope-free" is one of the immunities granted to the Cinque Ports in their charters of Liberties.

Jeakes explains the term thus:—

"The Saxon word Cope (in Low Dutch still Kope or Koope), for trade or merchandising, makes this as much as to trade freely for love. So that by no kind of monopoly patent, or company or society of traders or merchants, the portsmen be hindered from merchandising; but freely and for love, be permitted to trade and traffick, even by such company of merchants, whenever it shall happen their concerns lie together."

In my MSS., and in the print of Jeakes, it is "Louecope," with which "Lofcope" may be readily identified; and f may easily be misread for s, especially if the roll be obscured.

If Jeakes's etymology of the word be correct, the inference would rather be that "Lovecope" was a tax for the goodwill of the port at which a merchant vessel might arrive; a "port duty" in fact, independent of "lastage" &c., chargeable upon every trader that entered the port, whatever her cargo might be. And the immunities granted to the portsmen were that they should be "port duty free."

I do not venture to offer this as any thing more than a mere guess. Among your contributors there are many more learned than myself in this branch of antiquarian lore, who will probably be able to give a more correct interpretation, and we shall feel obliged for any assistance that they can give us in elucidating the question.

"Lovecope" might perhaps be the designation of the association of merchants itself, to which Jeakes alludes; and the liberty of forming such association, with powers of imposing port duties, may have been dependent on special grant to any port by royal charter, such as that which forms the subject of your correspondent's communication.

After all, perhaps, "Lovecope" was the word for an association of merchants; and "Louecope-free" is to be freed from privileged taxation by this body.

    L.B.L.

Smelling of the Lamp (No. 21. p. 335.).—"X." will find the expression Ιλλυχνιων οζειν attributed to Pytheas by Plutarch (Vit. Demosth., c. 8.).

    J.E.B. MAYOR.

Anglo-Saxon MS. of Orosius (No. 20. p. 313.).—It may gratify Mr. Singer to be informed that the Lauderdale MS., formerly in the library at Ham House, is now preserved, with several other valuable manuscripts and books, in the library at Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, the seat of the Tollemache family.

    M.

Golden Frog.—Ingenious as is the suggestion of "R.R." (No. 18. p. 282.), that Sir John Poley stuck a golden frog in his ear from his affection for tadpoles, I think "R.R.'s" "Rowley Poley" may be dismissed with the "gammon and spinach" of the amorous frog to which he alludes.

Conceiving that the origin of so singular a badge could hardly fail to be commemorated by some tradition in the family, I have made inquiry of one of Sir John Poley's descendants, and I regret to hear from him that "they have no authentic tradition respecting it, but that they have always believed that it had some connection with the service Sir John rendered in the Low Countries, where he distinguished himself much by his military achievements." To the Low Countries, then, the land of frogs, we must turn for the solution of the enigma.

    Gastras.

Cambridge, March 9.

Sword of Charles I.—Mr. Planché inquires (No. 12. p. 183.), "When did the real sword of Charles the First's time, which, but a few years back, hung at the side of that monarch's equestrian figure at Charing Cross, disappear?"—It disappeared about the time of the coronation of Her present Majesty, when some scaffolding was erected about the statue, which afforded great facilities for removing the rapier (for such it was); and I always understood it found its way, by some means or other, to the Museum, so called, of the notoriously frolicsome Captain D–, where, in company with the wand of the Great Wizard of the North, and other well-known articles, it was carefully labelled and numbered, and a little account appended of the circumstances of its acquisition and removal.

    John Street.

[Surely then Burke was right, and the "Age of Chivalry is past!"—Otherwise the idea of disarming a statue would never have entered the head of any Man of Arms, even in his most frolicsome of moods.]

John Bull.—Vertue MSS.—I always fancied that the familiar name for our countrymen, about the origin of which "R.F.H." inquires (No. 21. p. 336.), was adopted from Swift's History of John Bull, first printed in 1712; but I have no authority for saying so.

If the Vertue MSS. alluded to (No. 20. p. 319.) were ever returned by Mr. Steevens to Dr. Rawlinson, they may be in the Bodleian Library, to which the Doctor left all his collections, including a large mass of papers purchased by him long after Pepys' death, as he described it, "Thus et odores vendentibus."

These "Pepys papers," as far as I can recollect, were very voluminous, and relating to all sorts of subjects; but I saw them in 1824, and had only then time to examine and extract for publication portions of the correspondence.

    Braybrooke.

Audley End, March 25.

Vertue's Manuscripts.—The MS. quoted under this title by Malone is printed entire, or rather all of it which refers to plays, by Mr. Peter Cunningham, in the Papers of the Shakspeare Society, vol. ii. p. 123., from an interleaved copy of Langbaine. Since the publication of that paper, the entries relating to Shakspeare's plays have been given from the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, in Halliwell's Life of Shakspeare, p. 272.

    S.L.

Vertue's MSS. (No. 20. p. 319.) were in Horace Walpole's possession, bought by him, I think, of Vertue's widow; and his Anecdotes of Painting were chiefly composed from them, as he states, with great modesty, in his dedication and his preface. I do not see in the Strawberry-Hill Catalogue any notice of "Vertue's MSS.," though some vols. of his collection of engravings were sold.