Notes and Queries, Number 50, October 12, 1850

    MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A.

7. College Street, Westminster

J.Z.P. will find a fully satisfactory answer to his Query, in regard to the real difference between the crozier and the pastoral staff, on referring to the article headed "Crozier," in the Glossary of Architecture. It is there stated, that "the crozier of an archbishop is surmounted by a cross; but it was only at a comparatively late time, about the 12th century, that the archbishop laid aside the pastoral staff, to assume the cross as an appropriate portion of his personal insignia." From which it may be inferred, that the only existent real difference between the crozier and the pastoral staff is, that the former is surmounted by a cross, and the latter is as it was before the 12th century, viz., surmounted by "a head curled round something in the manner of a shepherd's crook;" and the difference in regard to their use, that the crozier pertains to the archbishops, and the pastoral staff to the bishops.

    R.W. ELLIOT

Cheltenham, Sept. 16. 1850.

PARSONS, THE STAFFORDSHIRE GIANT

(Vol. ii., p. 135.)

Harwood's note in Erdeswick's Staffordshire, quoted by your correspondent C.H.B., is incorrect, inasmuch as the writer has confused the biographies of two distinct "giants"—WALTER PARSONS, porter to King James I., and WILLIAM EVANS, who filled the same office in the succeeding reign.

The best account of these two "worthies" is that found in Fuller, and which I extract from the original edition now before me:—

WALTER PARSONS, born in this county [Staffordshire], was first apprenticed to a smith, when he grew so tall in stature, that a hole was made for him in the ground to stand therein up to the knees, so to make him adequate with his fellow-workmen. He afterwards was porter to King James; seeing as gates generally are higher than the rest of the building, so it was sightly that the porter should be taller than other persons. He was proportionable in all parts, and had strength equal to height, valour to his strength, temper to his valour, so that he disdained to do an injury to any single person. He would make nothing to take two of the tallest yeomen of the guard (like the Gizard and Liver) under his arms at once, and order them as he pleased.

"Yet were his parents (for aught I do understand to the contrary) but of an ordinary stature, whereat none will wonder who have read what St. Augustine (De Civitate Dei, lib. xv. cap. 23.) reports of a woman which came to Rome (a little before the sacking thereof by the Goths), of so giant-like a height, that she was far above all who saw her, though infinite troopes came to behold the spectacle. And yet he addeth, Et hoc erat maximæ admirationis, quod ambo parentes ejus, &c. This made men most admire, that both her parents were but of ordinary stature. This Parsons is produced for proof, that all ages afford some of extraordinary height, and that there is no general decay of mankind in their dimensions, which, if there were, we had ere this time shrunk to be lower than Pigmyes, not to instance in a lesse proportion. This Parsons died Anno Dom. 1620."—Fuller's History of the Worthies of England, 1662 (Staffordshire), p. 48.

"WILLIAM EVANS was born in this county [Monmouthshire], and may justly be accounted the Giant of our age for his stature, being, full two yards and a half in height. He was porter to King Charles I., succeeding, Walter Persons [sic] in his place, and exceeding him two inches in height, but far beneath him in an equal proportion of body; for he was not onely what the Latines call compernis, knocking his knees together, and going out squalling with his feet, but also haulted a little; yet made a shift to dance in an antimask at court, where he drew little Jeffrey, the dwarf, out of his pocket, first to the wonder, then to the laughter, of the beholders. He dyed Anno Dom. 1630." Ibid. (Monmouthshire), p. 54.

From these extracts it will be seen that the Christian name of Parsons was Walter, not William, as stated by Harwood. William was the Christian name of Evans, Parsons' successor. The bas-relief mentioned by the same writer represents William Evans and Jeffrey Hudson, his diminutive fellow-servant. It is over the entrance of Bull-head Court, Newgate Street; not "a bagnio-court," which is nonsense. On the stone these words are cut: "The King's Porter, and the Dwarf," with the date 1660. This bas-relief is engraved in Pennant.

There is a picture of Queen Elizabeth's giant porter at Hampton Court but I am not aware that any portrait of Parsons is preserved in the Royal Collections.

    EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

EISELL AND WORMWOOD WINE

(Vol. ii., p. 249.)

If Pepys' friends actually did drink up the two quarts of wormwood wine which he gave them, it must, as LORD BRAYBROOKE suggests, have been rendered more palatable than the propoma which was in use in Shakspeare's time. I have been furnished by a distinguished friend with the following, among other Notes, corroborative of my explanation of eisell:

"I have found no better recipe for making wormwood wine than that given by old Langham in his Garden of Health; and as he directs its use to be confined to 'Streine out a little spoonful, and drinke it with a draught of ale or wine,' I think it must have been so atrociously unpalatable, that to drink it up, as Hamlet challenged Laertes to do, would have been as strong an argumentum ad stomachum as to digest a crocodile, even when appetised by a slice of the loaf."

It is evident, therefore, that but small doses of this nauseously bitter medicament were taken at once, and to take a large draught, to drink up a quantity, "would be an extreme pass of amorous demonstration sufficient, one would think, to have satisfied even Hamlet." Our ancestors seem to have been partial to medicated wines; and it is most probable that the wormwood wine Pepys gave his friends had only a slight infusion of the bitter principle; for we can hardly conceive that such "pottle draughts" as two quarts could be taken as a treat, of such a nostrum as the Absinthites, or wormwood wine, mentioned by Stuckius, or that prescribed by the worthy Langham.

    S.W. SINGER.

Mickleham, Sept. 30. 1850.

Eisell (Vol. ii., p. 242.).—The attempt of your very learned correspondent, MR. SINGER, to show that "eisell" was wormwood, is, I fear, more ingenious than satisfactory. It is quite true that wormwood wine and beer were ordinary beverages, as wormwood bitters are now; but Hamlet would have done little in challenging Laertes to a draught of wormwood. As to "eisell," we have the following account of it in the "Via Recta ad Vitam longam, or a Plaine Philosophical Discourse of the Nature, Faculties, and Effects of all such Things as by way of Nourishments, and Dieteticale Observations make for the Preservation of Health, &c. &c. By Jo. Venner, Doctor of Physicke at Bathe in the Spring and Fall, and at other Times in the Burrough of North-Petherton, neere to the Ancient Haven Towne of Bridgewater in Somersetshire. London, 1620."

"Eisell, or the vinegar which is made of cyder, is also a good sauce, it is of a very penetrating nature and is like to verjuice in operation, but it is not so astringent, nor altogether so cold," p. 97.

    J.R.N.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

Feltham's Works (Vol. ii., p. 133.).—In addition to the works enumerated by E.N.W., Feltham wrote A Discourse upon Ecclesiastes ii. 11.; A Discourse upon St. Luke xiv. 20.; and A Form of Prayer composed for the Family of the Right Honourable the Countess of Thomond. These two lists, I believe, comprise the whole of his writings. The meaning of the passage in his Remarks on the Low Countries, appears to be this, that a person "courtly or gentle" would receive as little kindness from the inhabitants, and show as great a contrast to their boorishness, as the handsome and docile merlin (which is the smallest of the falcon tribe, anciently denominated "noble"), among a crowd of noisy, cunning, thievish crows; neither remarkable for their beauty nor their politeness. The words "after Michaelmas" are used because "the merlin does not breed here, but visits us in October." Bewick's British Birds, vol. i. p. 43.

    T.H. KERSLEY.

King William's College, Isle of Man.

Harefinder (Vol. ii., p. 216.).—The following lines from Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 23., sufficiently illustrates this term:—

"The man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport
The Finder sendeth out, to seeke out nimble Wat,—
Which crosseth in the field, each furlong every flat,
Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found:
Then viewing for the course which is the fairest ground,
The greyhounds forth are brought, for coursing then in case,
And, choycely in the slip, one leading forth a brace;
The Finder puts her up, and gives her coursers' law,"
&c.

In the margin, at the second line, are the words, The Harefinder. What other instances are there of Wat, as a name of the hare? It does not occur in the very curious list in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 133.

    K.

Fool or a Physician—Rising and Setting Sun (Vol. i., p. 157.).—The inquiry of your correspondent C. FORBES, respecting the authorship of the two well-known sayings on these subjects, seems to have received no reply. He thinks that we owe them both to that "imperial Macchiavel, Tiberius." He is right with respect to the one, and wrong with regard to the other. The saying, "that a man after thirty must be either a fool or a physician," had, as it appears, its origin from Tiberius; but the observation that "more worship the rising than the setting sun," is to be attributed to Pompey.

Tacitus says of Tiberius, that he was "solitus eludere medicorum artes, atque eos qui post tricesimum ætatis annum ad internoscenda corpori suo utilia vel noxia alieni consilia indigerent." Annal. vi. 46. Suetonius says: "Valetudine prosperrimâ usus est,—quamvis a tricesimo ætatis anno arbitratu eam suo rexerit, sine adjumento consiliove medicorum." Tib. c. 68. And Plutarch, in his precepts de Valetudine tuendâ, c. 49., says—

[Greek: "Aekousa Tiberion pote Kaisara eipein, hos anaer huper hexaekonta [sic vulgò, sed bene corrigit Lipsius ad Tac. loc. cit. triakonta] gegonos etae, kai proteinon iatro cheira, katagelastos estin."]

These passages sufficiently indicate the origin of the saying; but who first gave it the pointed form in which we now have it, by coupling fool with physician, I am not able to tell.

The authority for giving the other saying to Pompey, is Plutarch, who says that when Pompey, after his return from Africa, applied to the senate for the honour of a triumph, he was opposed by Sylla, to whom he observed, [Greek: "Oti ton aelion anatellonta pleiones ae duomenon proskunousin,"] that more worship the rising than the setting sun—intimating that his own power was increasing, and that of Sylla verging to its fall. (Vit. Pomp. c. 22.)

    J.S.W.

Stockwell, Sept. 7.

Papers of Perjury (Vol. ii., p. 182.).—In the absence of a "graphic account," it may interest your correspondent S.R. to be referred to the two following instances of "perjurers wearing papers denoting their crime." In Machyn's Diary, edited by the accomplished antiquary, John Gough Nichols, Esq., and published by the Camden Society, at p. 104. occurs the following:—

"A.D. 1556, April 28th.... The sam day was sett on the pelere in Chepe iij. [men; two] was for the preuerment of wyllfull perjure, the iij. was for wyllfull perjure, with paper sett over their hedes."

In the same works at p. 250., we have also this additional illustration:

"A.D. 1560—I. The xij. day of Feybruary xj. men of the North was of a quest; because they gayff a wrong evyde [nee, and] thay ware paper a-pon their hedes for perjure."

    J. GOODWIN.

Birmingham.