Notes and Queries, Number 45, September 7, 1850

"To owe" is frequently used by Shakspeare in the sense of to possess, to own, as in Act i. Sc. 5. where Lucio says:

"But when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them."

So also in the following instances:—

"The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown."

    Richard III., Act. iv. Sc. 4.
"What art thou, that keepst me out from the house I
owe?"

    Comedy of Errors, Act iii. Sc. 1.
"Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe."

    Sonnet lxx.
Further examples will be found in A Lover's Complaint, the last line but two; Pericles, Act v. Sc. 1.; Twelfth Night, Act. i Sc. 5., Love's Labour's Lost, Act i. Sc. 2.; King John, Act ii. Sc. 1.; King Lear, Act i. Sc. 4.

As the passage is allowed to be obscure, this attempt to explain its meaning is submitted with great deference to the opinions of your readers.

    Arun.

Mildew in Books (Vol. ii., p. 103.).—In answer to B. I mention that the following facts connected with mildew in books have been elicited.

The mildew referred to is that which shows itself in the form of roundish or irregular brown spots.

It is usually most abundant in those parts which are most exposed to the air.

In making a microscopic examination of the spots, I ascertained that there was no new structure present; but in manipulating I found that these spots absorbed water more rapidly than the rest of the paper.

On applying litmus, these spots were found to have a powerful acid reaction.

On submitting the matter to a chemical friend, he ascertained that the acid in question was the sulphuric, or oil of vitriol. Experiments were then made with a dilute solution of this acid on clean paper, and spots were produced similar to those of mildew.

The acid does not naturally exist in paper, and its presence can only be accounted for by supposing that the paper has been bleached by the fumes of sulphur. This produces sulphurous acid, which, by the influence of atmospheric air and moisture, is slowly converted into sulphuric, and then produces the mildew. As this may be shown to be an absolute charring of the fibres of which the paper is composed, it is to be feared that it cannot be cured. After the process has once commenced, it can only be checked by the utmost attention to dryness, moisture being indispensable to its extension, and vice versâ.

I do not know whether these facts are generally known, but they would seem to be very important to paper-makers.

    T.I.

Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury (Vol. ii., p. 199.).—Your correspondent PHILO-CHAUCER, I presume, desires to know the old route to Canterbury. I should imagine that at the time of Chaucer a great part of the country was uncultivated and uninclosed, and a horse-track in parts of the route was probably the nearest approximation to a road. At the present day, crossing the London road at Wrotham, and skirting the base of the chalk hills, there is a narrow lane which I have heard called "the Pilgrims' road," and this, I suppose, is in fact the old Canterbury road; though how near to London or Canterbury it has a distinct existence, and to what extent it may have been absorbed in other roads, I am not able to say. The title of "Pilgrims' road" I take to be a piece of modern antiquarianism. In the immediate vicinity of this portion there are some druidical remains: some at Addington, and a portion of a small circle tolerably distinct in a field and lane between, I think, Trottescliffe and Ryarsh. In the absence of better information, you may perhaps make use of this.

    S.H.

Abbé Strickland (Vol. ii, p. 198.), of whom I.W.H. asks for information, is mentioned by Cox, in his Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, t. i. p. 442., and t. iii. p. 174.

    D. ROCK.

Etymology of Totnes.—The Query of J.M.B. (Vol. i., p 470.) not having been as yet answered, I venture to offer a few notes on the subject; and, mindful of your exhortation to brevity, compress my remarks into the smallest possible compass, though the details of research which might be indulged in, would call for a dissertation rather them a Note.

That Totnes is a place of extreme antiquity as a British town cannot be doubted; first, from the site and character of its venerable hill fortress; secondly, from the fact that the chief of the four great British and Roman roads, the Fosse-way, commenced there—"The ferthe of thisse is most of alle that tilleth from Toteneis … From the south-west to north-east into Englonde's end;" and, thirdly, from the mention of it, and the antiquity assigned to it by our earliest annals and chronicles. Without entering into the question of the full authenticity of Brute and the Saxon Chronicle, or the implicit adoption of the legendry tales of Havillan and Geoffry of Monmouth, the concurring testimony of those records, with the voice of tradition, the stone of the landing, and the fact that the town is seated at the head of an estuary the most accessible, the most sheltered, and the best suited of any on the south-western coast for the invasion of such a class of vessels as were those of the early navigators, abundantly warrant the admission that it was the landing-place of some mighty leader at a very early period of our history.

And now to the point of the etymology of Totenais, as it stands in Domesday Book. We may, I think, safely dismiss the derivation suggested by Westcote, on the authority of Leland, and every thing like it derived from the French, as well as the unknown tongue which he adopts in "Dodonesse." That we are warranted in seeking to the Anglo-Saxon for etymology in this instance is shown by the fact, that the names of places in Devon are very generally derived from that language; e.g. taking a few only in the neighbourhood of Totnes—Berry, Buckyatt, Dartington, Halwell, Harberton, Hamstead, Hempstin, Stancombe.

First, of the termination ais or eis. The names of many places of inferior consequence in Devon end in hays, from the Ang.-Saxon heag, a hedge or inclosure; but this rarely, if ever, designates a town or a place beyond a farmstead, and seems to have been of later application as to a new location or subinfeudation; for it is never found in Domesday Book. In that ancient record the word aisse is often found alone, and often as a prefix and as a terminal; e.g., Aisbertone, Niresse, Aisseford, Aisselie, &c. This is the Ang.-Saxon Aesc, an ash; and it is uniformly so rendered in English: but it also means a ship or boat, as built of ash. Toten, the major of the name, is, I have no doubt, the genitive of Tohta, "dux, herzog," a leader or commander. Thus we have Tohtanoesc, the vessel of the leader, or the commander's ship,—commemorating the fact that the boat of some great invader was brought to land at this place.

    S.S.S

Ædricus qui Signa fundebat (Vol. ii., p. 199), must surely have been a bell-founder: signum is a very common word, in mediæval writings, for a "bell."

    D. ROCK

Fiz-gig (Vol. ii, p. 120).—I had expected that your Querist C.B. would have received an immediate reply to his Query as to the meaning of fiz-gig, because the word is in Johnson's Dictionary, where he may also see the line from Sandys' Job, in which it caught his attention.

You may as well, therefore, tell him two things,—that fiz-gig means a fish-cart and that Querists should abstain from soliciting your aid in all cases where a common dictionary would give them the information they want.

    H.W.

Guineas (Vol. ii., p. 10.).—The coin named in the document quoted by A.J.H. is the Guiennois a gold piece struck at Guienne by Edward III., and also by his son the Black Prince. It is not likely that the Guiennois was the original of the name given to the new gold coin of Charles II., because it could have had no claim to preference beyond the Mouton, the Chaise, the Pavillon, or any other old Anglo-Gallic coin. I think we may rest contented with the statement of Leake (who wrote not much more than half a century after the event), and who says that the Guinea was so called from the gold of which it was made having been brought from Guinea by the African Company, whose stamp of an elephant was ordered to be impressed upon it.

    J.C. Witton.

Numismatics.—My thanks are due to Mr. J.C. Witton (Vol. ii., p. 42.) for his replies to my Numismatic Queries, though I cannot coincide with his opinion on Nos. 1. and 3.

No ancient forger would have taken the pains to cut a die to strike lead from; and my specimen, from its sharpness, has clearly never been in circulation: why may it not have been a proof from the original die?

Of No. 2. I have since been shown several specimens, which had before, I suppose, escaped my notice.

On the coin of Macrinus, the letter below the S.C. now clearly appears to be an η, but the one above is not a Δ, but rather an L or inverted T. It cannot stand for [Greek: Lykabas], as on the Egyptian coinage, as Macrinus was slain by his soldiers the year after his accession.

The Etruscilla, even under a powerful magnifier, betrays no trace of ever having been plated and has all the marks by which numismatists determine the genuineness of a coin. The absence of S.C., I must remind Mr. W., is not uncommon on third brass, though of course it always appears on the first and second.

I need go no farther than the one just mentioned of Tiberius, which has no S.C., and I possess several others which are deficient in this particular, a Severus Alexander, Elagabalus, &c. After Gallienus it never appears.

    E.S.T.

Querela Cantabrigiensis (Vol. ii, p. 168.).—Dr. Peter Barwick, in the life of his brother, Dr. Jno. Barwick (Eng. Edit. Lond. 1724, 8vo.), after describing the treatment of the University by Cromwell, adds (p. 32.) "But Mr. Barwick, no inconsiderable part of this tragedy, together with others of the University, groaning under the same yoke of tyranny, and each taking a particular account of the sufferings of his own college, gave a distinct narrative of all these barbarities, and under the title of Querela Cantabrigiensis, or the University of Cambridge's Complaint, got it printed by the care of Mr. R– B–, bookseller of London who did great service to his King and country, by printing, and dispersing in the most difficult times, books written in defence of the royal cause." See also Biog. Brit., article "Barwick".

    John I. Dredge.

Ben Johnson (Vol. ii., p. 167.)—So the name was spelt by most of his contemporaries. The poem mentioned by N.A.B. is printed in the Underwoods, Gifford's edition, ix., 68; but the MS. may contain variations worthy of notice. I should doubt its being autograph, not merely because the poet spelt his name without the h, but because the verses in question are only part of his Eupheme.

    J.O. Halliwell.

Barclay's "Argenis".—Since I sent you a Query on this subject, I have heard of one translation, by Miss Clara Reeve, the authoress of The Old English Baron and other works. She commenced her literary career, I believe, by a translation of this work, which she published in 1772, under the title of The Phoenix.

    Jarltzberg.