Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851

Replies to Minor Queries

William Chilcott (Vol. iii., pp. 38. 73.).—The few notes which follow are very much at the service of your correspondent. William Chilcott, M.A., was rector of St. George's, Exeter, where he died on May 30, 1711, at the age of forty-eight. The coat of arms on the tablet to his memory indicates that he married a Coplestone. His daughter Catherine died in August, 1695. The first edition of the Practical Treatise concerning Evil Thoughts was printed at Exeter in 1690, and was dedicated to his parishioners. Robert Chilcott, whom I take to be the brother of William, was rector of St. Mary-Major in Exeter, and died Feb. 7, 1689.

There does not appear to be any evidence that the persons above mentioned, were descended from the Chilcotts of Tiverton, though the identity of the Christian names renders it probable. If the object were to trace their ancestors or their descendants, much might be added to the suggestions of E.A.D. by searching the registers at Tiverton, and by comparing Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1810, p. 213., and Polwhele's Devon, vol. iii. p. 351., with Harding's Tiverton; in various parts of which eight or nine individuals of the name are mentioned; especially vol. i. book ii. p. 114.; vol. ii. book iii. pp. 101, 102. 167. 183., and book iv., p. 20., where the connexion of the Chilcotts with the families of Blundell, Hooper, Collamore, Crossing, Slee, and Hill, is set forth. Failing these, the object might be attained by reference to the registers at Stogumber, co. Somerset, and of Northam, near Bideford, with the inscribed floorstones in the church there. Something might perhaps be learned of their descendants by reference to the registers at Exeter, and those at Morchard-Bishop, where a John Chilcott resided in 1700; Nympton St. George, where a family of the same name lived about 1740; North Molton, where C. Chilcott was vicar in 1786; and Dean Prior, where Joseph Chilcott was vicar about 1830. A Mr. Thomas Chilcott, who was an organist at Bath, married Ann, daughter of the Rev. Chichester Wrey. This lady died in 1758, and was buried at Tavistock, near Barnstaple. The coat of arms on the tablet to her memory is almost identical with the coat of the Rev. William Chilcott of Exeter first above mentioned.

    J. D. S.

Fossil Elk of Ireland (Vol. iii., p. 121.).—In the Edinburgh Journal of Science, New Series, vol. ii., 1830, p. 301., is a curious paper by the late Dr. Hibbert Ware, under the title of "Additional Contributions towards the History of the Cervus Euryceros, or Fossil Elk of Ireland." It is illustrated with a copy of an engraving of an animal which Dr. H. W. believes to have been the same as the Irish elk, and which was living in Prussia at the time of the publication of the book from which it is taken, viz. the Cosmographia Universalis of Sebastian Munster: Basiliæ, 1550.

Dr. H. W. in this paper refers to a former one in the third volume of the first series of the same journal, in which he advanced proofs that the Cervus was a race which had but very recently become extinct.

    W. C. Trevelyan.

Edinburgh, Feb. 19. 1851.

Canes Lesos (Vol. iii. p. 141.).—In a note to Beckwith's edition of Blount's Jocular Tenures, 4to. 1815, p. 225., Mr. Allan of Darlington anticipates your correspondent C. W. B., and says, respecting Blount's explanation of "Canes lesos," "I can meet with no such word in this sense: why may it not be dogs that have received some hurt? læsos from lædo." Clancturam should be clausturam, and so it is given in the above edition, and explained "a tax for fencing."

    S. W. Singer.

"By Hook or by Crook" (vol. iii. p. 116.).—However unimaginative the worthy Cit may be for whose explanation of this popular phrase J. D. S. has made himself answerable, the solution sounds so pretty, that to save its obtaining further credence, more than your well-timed note is needed. I with safety can contradict it, for I find that "Tusser," a Norfolk man living in the reign of Henry VIII., in a poem which he wrote as a complete monthly guide and adviser for the farmer through the year, but which was not published till 1590, in the thirty-second year of Queen Elizabeth, has the following advice for March 30:

"Of mastiues and mongrels, that many we see
A number of thousands, to many there be:
Watch therefore in Lent, to thy sheepe go and looke,
For dogs will have vittels, by hooke and by crooke."

This must be a Norfolk phrase; for in January he advises farmers possessing "Hollands," rich grass lands, to only keep ewes that bear twins, "twinlins."

    Blowen.

This appears as a well-known proverbial expression long before the time pointed out by J. D. S. Thus, in Devout Contemplations, by Fr. Ch. de Fonseca, Englished by J. M., London, 1629, we read that the Devil

"Overthroweth monasteries; through sloth and idleness soliciting religious men to be negligent in coming to Church, careless in preaching, and loose in their lives. In the marriage bed he soweth tares, treacheries, and lightness. With worldly men he persuadeth that he is nobody that is not rich, and therefore, bee it by hooke or by crooke, by right or wrong, he would have them get to be wealthy."

    W. D—n.

Suem.—Allow me to suggest to your correspondents C. W. G. (Vol. iii., p. 7.) and Δ. (Vol. iii., p. 75.), that suem is probably a form of the A.-S. word seam, a horse-load, and generally a burden. For cognates, see Bosworth's A.-S. Dict. I may add, that the word is written swun in a charter of Edward the Confessor, printed by Hickes in his Thesaurus, vol. i. p. 159., as follows:

"—ic ann

ðridde treow.

ðridde swun of ævesan ðæs nextan wudes ðe liþ to kyngesbyrig," &c.

Which Hickes thus renders:

"Dono tertiam quamque arborem, et tertiam quamque sarcinam jumentariam fructuum, qui nascuntur in sylva proxime ad kyngesbyrig sita," &c.

    R. M. W.

Sir George Downing (Vol. iii., p. 69.).—The following extract of a letter in Cartes' Letters, ii. 319., confirms the accuracy of the memorandum as to Sir G. Downing's parentage, sent you by J. P. C. The letter is from T. Howard to Charles II., written April 5, 1660, on the eve of the Restoration. Downing had offered to Howard to serve the King,—

"alleging to be engaged in a contrary party by his father, who was banished into New England, where he was brought up, and had sucked in principles that since his reason had made him see were erroneous."

    CH.

Miching malicho (Vol. iii., p. 3.).—Your correspondent Mr. Collier is probably not aware that his suggestion respecting the meaning of Malicho had been anticipated upwards of twenty years since. In the unpretending edition of Shakspeare by another of your correspondents, Mr. Singer, printed in 1825, I find the following note:—

"Miching malicho is lurking mischief, or evil doing. To mich, for to skulk, to lurk, was an old English verb in common use in Shakspeare's time; and Malicho, or Malhecho, misdeed, he has borrowed from the Spanish. Many stray words of Spanish and Italian were then affectedly used in common conversation, as we have seen French used in more recent times. The Quarto spell the word Mallicho. Our ancestors were not particular in orthography, and often spelt according to the ear."

I have since looked at Mr. Collier's note to which he refers, and find that he interprets miching by stealing, which will not suit the context; and abundant examples may be adduced that to mich was to skulk, to lurk, as Mr. Singer has very properly explained it. Thus Minsheu:—

"To Miche, or secretly hide himself out of the way, as TRUANTS doe from Schoole, vi. to hide, to cover."

and again—

"A micher, vi. Truant."

Mr. Collier's text, too, is not satisfactory, for he has abandoned the old word Malicho, and given Mallecho, which is as far from the true form of the Spanish word as the old reading, which he should either have preserved or printed Malhecho, as Minsheu gives it.

I am glad to see from your pages that Mr. Singer has not entirely abandoned Shakspearian illustration, for in my difficulties I have rarely consulted his edition in vain; and, in my humble opinion, it is as yet the most practically useful and readable edition we have.

    Fiat Justitia.

Cor Linguæ, &c. (Vol. iii., p. 168.).—The lines quoted by J. Bs. occur in the poem "De Palpone et Assentatore," printed in the volume of Latin Poems, commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, edited by Mr. T. Wright for the Camden Society, 1841, at p. 112., with a slight variation in expression, as follows:—

"Cor linguæ fœderat naturæ sanctio,
Tanquam legitimo quodam connubio;
Ergo cum dissonant cor et locutio,
Sermo concipitur ex adulterio."

Mr. Wright's only source quoted for the poem is MS. Cotton, Vespas, E. xii. Of its authority he remarks (Preface, p. xx.), that the writer's name was certainly Walter, but that he appears to have lived at Wimborne, with which place Walter Map is not traced to have had any connexion; and if Mr. Wright's conjecture be correct, that the young king alluded to in it is Henry III., it must of course have been written some years after Walter Map's death.

    J. G. N.

Under the Rose (Vol. i., pp. 214. 458.; Vol. ii., pp. 221. 323.).—I am surprised that no one has noticed Sir T. Browne's elucidations of this phrase. (Vulg. Err. lib. v. cap. 21. § 7.) Besides the explanation referred to by Archæus (Vol. i., p. 214.), he says:

"The expression is commendable, if the rose from any naturall propertie may be the symbole of silence, as Nazienzene seems to imply in these translated verses—

'Utque latet Rosa verna suo putamine clausa,
Sic os vinela ferat, validisque arctetur habenis,
Indicatque suis prolixa silentia labris.'"

He explains "the Germane custome, which over the table describeth a rose in the seeling" (Vol. ii., pp. 221. 323.), by making the phrase to refer only to the secrecy to be observed "in society and compotation, from the ancient custome in Symposiacke meetings to wear chapletts of roses about their heads."

    Ache.

"Impatient to speak and not see" (Vol. ii., p. 490.).—There is no doubt of the fine interpretation of your correspondent; but it is not illustrated by the Latin. Also, I apprehend, "indocilis pati" is not put for "indocilis patiendi." It is a common use of to—proud to be praised; angry to be so ill-treated.