Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851

Rotherhithe, Jan. 21. 1851.

Lama Beads (Vol. iii., p. 115.).—It is a pretty bold assertion that Lama beads are derived from the Lamas of Asia. Lamma, according to Jamieson, is simply the Scotch for amber. He says Lamertyn steen means the same in Teutonic. I do not find it in Wachter's Lexicon.

Your correspondent's note is a curious instance of the inconvenience of half quotation. He says the Lamas are an order of priests among the Western Tartars. I was surprised at this, since their chief strength, as everybody knows, is in Thibet. On referring to Rees's Cyclopædia, I found that the words are taken from thence; but they are not wrong there, since, by the context they have reference to China.

    C. B.

Language given to Men, &c. (Vol. i., p. 83.).—The saying that language was given to men to conceal their thoughts is generally fathered upon Talleyrand at present. I did not know it was in Goldsmith; but the real author of it was Fontenelle.

    C. B.

Daresbury, the White Chapel of England (Vol. iii., p. 60.).—This jeu-d'esprit was an after-dinner joke of a learned civilian, not less celebrated for his wit than his book-lore. Some stupid blockhead inserted it in the newspapers, and it is now unfortunately chronicled in your valuable work. It is not at all to be wondered at that "the people in the neighbourhood know nothing on the subject."

    Echo.

Holland Land (Vol. ii., pp. 267. 345.; Vol. iii., pp. 30. 70.).—Were not the Lincolnshire estates of Count Bentinck, a Dutch nobleman who came over with William III., and the ancestor of the late Lord George Bentinck, M.P. for Lynn Regis, denominated Little Holland, which he increased by reclaiming large portions in the Dutch manner from the Wash?

    E. S. Taylor.

Passage in the Tempest (Vol. ii., p. 259, &c.).—I do not profess to offer an opinion as to the right reading; but with reference to the suggestion of A. E. B. (p. 338.) that it means—

"Most busy when least I do it,"

or—

"Most busy when least employed,"

allow me to refer you to the splendid passage in the De Officiis, lib. iii. cap. i., where Cicero expresses the same idea:—

"Pub. Scipionem,… eum, qui primus Africanus appellatus sit, dicere solitum scripsit Cato,… Nunquam se minus otiosum esse, quam cum otiosus; nec minus solum, quam cum solus esset. Magnifica vero vox, et magno viro, ac sapiente digna; quæ declarat, illum et in otio de negotiis cogitare, et in solitudine secum loqui solitum: ut neque cessaret unquam, et interdum colloquio alterius non egeret."

    Ache.

Damasked Linen (Vol. iii., p. 13.).—I believe it has always been customary to damask the linen used by our royal family with appropriate devices. I have seen a cloth of Queen Anne's, with the "A. R." in double cypher, surrounded by buds and flowers; and have myself a cloth with a view of London, and inscribed "Der Konig Georg II.," which was purchased at Brentford, no doubt having come from Kew adjoining.

    H. W. D.

Straw Necklaces (Vol. ii., p. 511.).—Having only lately read the "Notes and Queries" (in fact, this being the first number subscribed for), I do not know the previous allusion. It makes me mention a curious custom at Carlisle, of the servants who wish to be hired going into the marketplace of Carlisle, or as they call it "Carel," with a straw in their mouths. It is fast passing away, and now, instead of keeping the straw constantly in the mouth, they merely put it in a few seconds if they see any one looking at them. Anderson, in his Cumberland Ballads, alludes to the custom:—

"At Carel I stuid wi' a strae i' my mouth,
The weyves com roun me in clusters:
'What weage dus te ax, canny lad?' says yen."

    H. W. D.
Library of the Church of Westminster (Vol. iii., p. 152.).—The statement here quoted from the Délices de la Grande Bretagne is scarcely likely to be correct. We all know how prone foreigners are to misapprehension, and therefore, how unsafe it is to trust to their observations. In this case, may not the description of the Bibliothèque Publique, which was open night and morning, during the sittings of the courts of justice, have originated merely from the rows of booksellers' stalls in Westminster-hall?

    J. G. N.

The Ten Commandments (Vol. iii., p. 166.).—Waterland (vol. vi. p. 242., 2nd edition, Oxford, 1843) gives a copy of the Decalogue taken from an old MS. In this the first two commandments are embodied in one. Leighton, in his Exposition of the Ten Commandments, when speaking on the point of the manner of dividing them, refers in a vague manner to Josephus and Philo.

    R. V.

Sitting crosslegged to avert Evil (Vol. ii.,p. 407.).—Browne says:—

"To set crosselegg'd, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together, is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same conceit religiously possessed the ancients, as is observable from Pliny: 'Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim;' and also from Athenæus, that it was an old veneficious practice."—Vulg. Err., lib. v. cap. xxi. § 9.

    Ache.

George Steevens (Vol. iii., p. 119.).—A. Z. wishes to know whether a memoir of George Steevens, the Shakspearian commentator, was ever published, and what has become of the manuscripts.

I believe the late Sir James Allen Park wrote his life, but whether for public or private circulation I cannot tell.

The late George Steevens had a relative, a Mrs. Collinson, and daughters who lived with him at Hampstead, and with him when he died, in Jan. 1800. Miss Collinson married a Mr. Pyecroft, whose death, I think, is in the Gentleman's Magazine for this month: perhaps the Pyecroft family may give information respecting the manuscripts.

"The house he lived in at Hampstead, called the Upper Flask, was formerly a place of public entertainment near the summit of Hampstead Hill. Here Richardson sends his Clarissa in one of her escapes from Lovelace. Here, too, the celebrated Kit-Cat Club used to meet in the summer months; and here, after it became a private abode, the no less celebrated George Steevens lived and died."—Vide Park's Hampstead, pp. 250. 352.

I just recollect Mr. Steevens, who was very kind to us, as children. My mother, who is an octogenarian, remembers him well, and says he always took a nosegay, tied to the top of his cane, every day to Sir Joseph Banks.

    Julia R. Bockett.

Southcote Lodge, near Reading.

The Waistcoat bursted, &c. (Vol. ii., p. 505.).—The general effect of melancholy: digestion is imperfectly performed, and melancholy patients generally complain of being "blown up." Bodvar's "blowing up," on the contrary, is the mere effect of the generation of gases in a dead body, well illustrated by a floating dead dog on the river side, or the bursting of a leaden coffin.

    H. W. D.

Love's Labour's Lost (Vol. iii., p. 163.).—Your correspondent has very neatly and ably made out how the names of the ladies ought to have been placed; but the error is the poet's, not the printer's. It is impossible to conceive how, in printing or transcribing, such a mistake should arise; the names are quite unlike, and several lines distant from one another. Such forgetfulness is not very uncommon in poets, especially those of the quickest and liveliest spirit. It is the old mistake of Bentley and other commentators, to think that whatever is wrong must be spurious. These, too, we must recollect, are fictitious characters.

    C. W. B.

Miscellaneous

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC

Agreeing with Mr. Lower, that they who desire to know the truth as to the earlier periods of our national history, will do wisely to search for it among the mists and shadows of antiquity, and rather collect it for themselves out of the monkish chronicles than accept the statements of popular historiographers, we receive with great satisfaction the addition to our present list of translations of such chronicles, which Mr. Lower has given us in The Chronicle of Battel Abbey from 1066 to 1176, now first translated, with Notes, and an Abstract of the subsequent History of the Establishment. The original Chronicle, which is preserved among the Cottonian MSS., though known to antiquaries and historians, was never committed to the press until the year 1846, when it was printed by the Anglia Christiana Society from a transcript made by the late Mr. Petrie. Mr. Lower's translation has been made from that edition; and though undertaken by him as an illustration of local history, will be found well deserving the perusal of the general reader, not only from the light it throws upon the Norman invasion and upon the history of the abbey founded by the Conqueror in fulfilment of his vow, but also for the pictures it exhibits of the state of society during the period which it embraces.

Books Received.—The Embarrassment of the Clergy in the Matter of Church Discipline. Two ably written letters by Presbyter Anglicanus, reprinted, by request, from the Morning Post;—Ann Ash, or the Foundling, by the Author of 'Charlie Burton' and 'The Broken Arm.' If not quite equal to Charlie Burton, and there are few children's stories which are so, it is a tale well calculated to sustain the writer's well-deserved reputation;—Burns and his Biographers, being a Caveat to Cavillers, or an Earnest Endeavour to clear the Cant and Calumnies which, for half a Century, have clung, like Cobwebs, round the Tomb of Robert Burns.

Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, of 93. Wellington Street, Strand, will sell on Monday next, and five following days, the valuable Library of the late Mr. Andrews of Bristol, containing, besides a large collection of works of high character and repute, some valuable Historical, Antiquarian, and Heraldic Manuscripts.

Catalogues Received.—John Gray Bell's (17. Bedford Street, Covent Garden) Catalogue of Autograph Letters and other Documents; John Alex. Wilson's (20. Upper Kirkgate, Aberdeen) Catalogue of Cheap Books, many Rare and Curious; E. Stibbs' (331. Strand) Catalogue Part III. of Books in all Languages.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE

Madame D'aulnoy's Fairy Tales, a small old folio. At the end of the Edition sought for, there are some Spanish Romances: it is in one vol.

Rural Walks—Rambles Farther, by Charlotte Smith. A Child's Book in 4 Vols. (of the last Century).

[However ragged and worn the above may be, it does not signify.]