Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853

    J. H. P. Leresche.

Manchester.

Milton's Widow (Vol. viii., p. 12.).—The information once promised by your correspondent Cranmore still seems very desirable, because the statements of your correspondent Mr. Hughes are not reconcilable with two letters given in Mr. Hunter's very interesting historical tract on Milton, pages 37-8., to which tract I beg to refer Mr. Hughes, who may not have seen it. These letters clearly show that Richard Minshull, the writer of them, had only two aunts, neither of whom could have been Mrs. Milton, as she must have been if she was the daughter of the writer's grandfather, Randall Minshull. Probably this Elizabeth died in infancy, which the Wistaston parish register may show, and which register would perhaps also show (supposing Milton took his wife from Wistaston) the wanting marriage; or if Mrs. Milton was of the Stoke-Minshull family, that parish register would most likely disclose his third marriage, which certainly did not take place sooner than 1662.

    Garlichithe.

Whitaker's Ingenious Earl (Vol. viii., p. 9.).—It was a frequent saying of Lord Stanhope's, that he had taught law to the Lord Chancellor, and divinity to the Bishops; and this saying gave rise to a caricature, where his lordship is seated acting the schoolmaster with a rod in his hand.

    E. H.

Are White Cats deaf? (Vol. vii., p. 331.).—In looking up your Numbers for April, I observe a Minor Query signed Shirley Hibberd, in which your querist states that in all white cats stupidity seemed to accompany the deafness, and inquires whether any instance can be given of a white cat possessing the function of hearing in anything like perfection.

I am myself possessed of a white cat which, at the advanced age of upwards of seventeen years, still retains its hearing to great perfection, and is remarkably intelligent and devoted, more so than cats are usually given credit for. Its affection for persons is, indeed, more like that of a dog than of a cat. It is a half-bred Persian cat, and its eyes are perfectly blue, with round pupils, not elongated as those of cats usually are. It occasionally suffers from irritation in the ears, but this has not at all resulted in deafness.

    H.

Consecrated Roses (Vol. vii., pp. 407. 480.; Vol. viii., p. 38.).—From the communication of P. P. P. it seems that the origin of the consecration of the rose dates so far back as 1049, and was "en reconnaissance" of a singular privilege granted to the abbey of St. Croix. Can your correspondent refer to any account of the origin of the consecration or blessing of the sword, cap, or keys?

    G.

The Reformed Faith (Vol. vii., p. 359.).—I must protest against this term being applied to the system which Henry VIII. set up on his rejecting the papal supremacy, which on almost every point but that one was pure Popery, and for refusing to conform to which he burned Protestants and Roman Catholics at the same pile. It suited Cobbett (in his History of the Reformation), and those controversialists who use him as their text-book, to confound this system with the doctrine of the existing Church of England, but it is to be regretted that any inadvertence should have caused the use of similar language in your pages.

    J. S. Warden.

House-marks (Vol. vii., p. 594.).—It appears to me that the house-marks he alluded to may be traced in what are called merchants' marks, still employed in marking bales of wool, cotton, &c., and which are found on tombstones in our old churches, incised in the slab during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which till lately puzzled the heralds. They were borne by merchants who had no arms.

    E. G. Ballard.

Trash (Vol. vii., p. 566.).—The late Mr. Scatchard, of Morley, near Leeds, speaking in Hone's Table Book of the Yorkshire custom of trashing, or throwing an old shoe for luck over a wedding party, says:

"Although it is true that an old shoe is to this day called 'a trash,' yet it did not, certainly, give the name to the nuisance. To 'trash' originally signified to clog, encumber, or impede the progress of any one (see Todd's Johnson); and, agreeably to this explanation, we find the rope tied by sportsmen round the necks of fleet pointers to tire them well, and check their speed, is hereabouts universally called 'trash cord,' or 'dog trash.' A few miles distant from Morley, west of Leeds, the 'Boggart' or 'Barguest,' the Yorkshire Brownie is called by the people the Gui-trash, or Ghei-trash, the usual description of which is invariably that of a shaggy dog or other animal, encumbered with a chain round its neck, which is heard to rattle in its movements. I have heard the common people in Yorkshire say, that they 'have been trashing about all day;' using it in the sense of having had a tiring walk or day's work.

"East of Leeds the 'Boggart' is called the Padfoot."

    G. P.

Adamsoniana (Vol. vii., p. 500.).—Michel Adanson (not Adamson), who has left his name to the gigantic Baobab tree of Senegal (Adansonia digitata), and his memory to all who appreciate the advantages of a natural classification of plants—for which Jussieu was indebted to him—was the son of a gentleman, who after firmly attaching himself to the Stuarts, left Scotland and entered the service of the Archbishop of Aix. The Encyclopædia Britannica, and, I imagine, almost all biographical dictionaries and similar works, contain notices of him. His devoted life has deserved a more lengthened chronicle.

    Seleucus.

Your correspondent E. H. A., who inquires respecting the family of Michel Adamson, or Michael Adamson, is informed that in France, the country of his birth, the name is invariably written "Adanson;" while the author of Fanny of Caernarvon, or the War of the Roses, is described as "John Adamson." Both names are pronounced alike in French; but the difference of spelling would seem adverse to the supposition that the family of the botanist was of Scottish extraction.

    Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

Portrait of Cromwell (Vol. viii., p. 55.).—The portrait inquired after by Mr. Rix is at the British Museum. Being placed over the cases in the long gallery of natural history, it is extremely difficult to be seen.

    John Bruce.

Burke's "Mighty Boar of the Forest" (Vol. iii., p. 493.; Vol. iv., p. 391.).—It is not, I hope, too late to notice that Burke's description of Junius is an allusion neither to the Iliad, xiii. 471., nor to Psalm lxxx. 8-13., but to the Iliad, xvii. 280-284. I cannot resist quoting the lines containing the simile, at once for their applicability and their own innate beauty:

"Ἴθυσεν δὲ διὰ προμάχων, συΐ εἴκελος ἀλκὴν
Καπρίῳ, ὅστ' ἐν ὄρεσσι κύνας θαλερούς τ' ἀϊζηοὺς
Ῥηϊδίως ἐκέδασσεν, ἐλιξάμενος διὰ βήσσας.
Ως υἱὸς Τελαμῶνος."

    W. Fraser.
Tor-Mohun.

"Amentium haud Amantium" (Vol. vii., p. 595.).—The following English translation may be considered a tolerably close approximation to the alliteration of the original: "Of dotards not of the doting." It is found in the Dublin edition of Terence, published by J. A. Phillips, 1845.

    C. T. R.

Mr. Phillips, in his edition, proposes as a translation of this passage, "Of dotards, not of the doting." Whatever may be its merits in other respects, it is at all events a more perfect alliteration than the other attempts which have been recorded in "N. & Q."

    Erica.

Warwick.

When I was at school I used to translate the phrase "Amentium haud amantium" (Ter. Andr., i. 3. 13.) "Lunatics, not lovers." Perhaps that may satisfy Fidus Interpres.

    Π. Β.

A friend of mine once rendered this "Lubbers, not lovers."

    P. J. F. Gantillon, B.A.

Talleyrand's Maxim (Vol. vi., p. 575.; Vol. vii., p. 487.).—Young's lines, to which Z. E. R. refers, are:

"Where Nature's end of language is declined,
And men talk only to conceal their mind."

With less piquancy, but not without the germ of the same idea, Dean Moss (ob. 1729), in his sermon Of the Nature and Properties of Christian Humility, says:

"Gesture is an artificial thing: men may stoop and cringe, and bow popularly low, and yet have ambitious designs in their heads. And speech is not always the just interpreter of the mind: men may use a condescending style, and yet swell inwardly with big thoughts of themselves."—Sermons, &c., 1737, vol. vii. p. 402.

    Cowgill.

English Bishops deprived by Queen Elizabeth (Vol. vii., pp. 260. 344. 509.).—The following particulars concerning one of the Marian Bishops are at A. S. A.'s service. Cuthbert Scot, D.D., sometime student, and, in 1553, Master of Christ's Church College, Cambridge, was made Vice-Chancellor of that University in 1554-5; and had the temporalities of the See of Chester handed to him by Queen Mary in 1556. He was one of Cardinal Pole's delegates to the University of Cambridge, and was concerned in most of the political movements of the day. He, and four other bishops, with as many divines, undertook to defend the principles and practices of the Romish Church against an equal number of Reformed divines. On the 4th of April he was confined, either in the Fleet Prison or the Tower, for abusive language towards Queen Elizabeth; but having by some means or other escaped from durance, he retired to Louvain, where he died, according to Rymer's Fœdera, about 1560.

    T. Hughes.

Chester.

Gloves at Fairs (Vol. vii., passim.).—To the list of markets at which a glove was, or is, hung out, may be added Newport, in the Isle of Wight. But a Query naturally springs out of such a note, and I would ask, Why did a glove indicate that parties frequenting the market were exempt from arrest? What was the glove an emblem of?

    W. D—n.