Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851

Origin of Harlequins (Vol. iii., p. 165.).—Your correspondent and querist E. L. N. wishes for an account of the Origin of Harlequins. I beg to refer E. L. N. to an account of the Hellequines, or "La Mesnie Hellequin," given by M. Paul Paris, in his work on the Manuscripts François de la Bib. du Roi, vol. i. p. 322. M. Paris says:

"On donnoit ce nom (Hellequines) à des espèces de feux follets ou génies plutôt malfaisants que favorables, et plutôt moqueurs que malfaisants.... L'origine de la tradition de la Mesnie Hellequin se perd dans l'obscurité des temps. On l'entendoit surtout bruire dans les environs de la ville d'Arles.... J'ignore la première origine de cette locution; mais ce qui me semble incontestable, c'est qu'on confondit facilement la Mesnie Hellequin avec celle 'de la Mort,' famille bariolée de rouge et de noir, et dont le manteau de cérémonie devoit être un grand pan de toile ou linceul. Déjà le lecteur a devancé la conséquence qu'il faut tirer de tout cela; la Mesnie Hellequin, partie nécessaire des cortéges effrayants ou grotesques dans le moyen-âge, est devenue insensiblement, sous la main des arrangeurs, notre famille d'Arlequin. Le costume bariolé d'Arlequin n'est rien autre que le fantastique costume du représentant de la Mort.... Et, si ce que je viens de dire est fondé, on ne répètera plus après Ménage (Gilles), que le mot Arlequin fut pris d'abord, sur la fin du XVI siècle, par un certain bouffon italien que le Président Harlay avoit accueilli. Il est certain que le mot Arlequin se trouve très-anciennement dans un grand nombre de mystères.

"'Numquid me velis,' ecrivoit Jean Raulin, mort en 1514, 'antiquam illam familiam Harlequini, revocare, ut videatur mortuus inter mundanæ curiæ nebulas et caligines equitare?'"

By the above extracts, which I fear you will find too long, harlequinades would seem rather to be derived from the wanton pranks of sprites than the coarse gambols of buffoons; and this derivation would certainly best agree with the accepted character of the modern harlequin.

    H. C. C.

"Predeceased" and "Designed" (Vol. iii., p. 143.).—The former word is used in an active sense by Shakspeare, in his "Rape of Lucrece:"

"If children predecease progenitors,
We are their offspring, and they none of ours."

"Designed," in the sense of "designated," is employed by Locke:

"'Tis not enough to make a man a subject, to convince him that there is regal power in the world; but there must be ways of designing and knowing the person to whom the regal power of right belongs."

    Cowgill.

"Quadrijugis invectus equis," &c. (Vol. ii., p. 391.).—These lines, in which "veriis" and "antesolat" are, of course, misprints for "variis" and "antevolat," apply with such peculiar exactness to Guido's celebrated Aurora, at the Rospigliosi Palace, that I cannot but think the painting has given rise to the lines. Besides, in the ancient mythology, the Horæ are said to be three in number, daughters of Jupiter and Themis, and one of their offices was harnessing the horses of the Sun. It is unlikely, therefore, that any classic author would mention them as being seven in number.

    C. I. R.

St. John's Bridge Fair (Vol. iii., p. 88.).—Perhaps in the county of Northampton, and in the city of Peterborough, where a fair, commencing October 2d, is still called "Bridge Fair." The parish church of Peterborough is dedicated to St. John Baptist; but a fair on the saint's day would be too near the other, and probably more ancient fair, which is held on old St. Peter's Day, to whom the cathedral church is dedicated.

    Arun.

Anticipations of Modern Ideas by Defoe (Vol. iii., pp. 137. 195.).—It is a singular fact, to which I do not remember a reference has hitherto been made, that Defoe, in his Life and Adventures of Captain Singleton, has foreshadowed the discovery by recent travellers of a great inland lake in the South of Africa. He describes his adventurous hero and companions, during their attempt to cross this vast continent from Mozambique to Angola, as having, on the ninth day of their journey, come in "view of a great lake of water."

"The next day," he adds, "which was the tenth from our setting out, we came to the edge of this lake, and happily for us, we came to it at the south point of it, for to the north we could see no end of it; so we passed by it, and travelled three days by the side of it."—Life, Adventures, and Piracies of Captain Singleton, chap. vi.

According to a rough calculation by one of the party, they were, a few days before reaching it, 700 miles from the coast of Mozambique, and 1500 from the Cape of Good Hope. Now Messrs. Murray and Oswell, the enterprising travellers to whom we owe the discovery of this vast South African lake, describe it as being in longitude 24° East, latitude 19° South; a position not very wide apart from that indicated in Defoe's amusing fiction.

    T. C. Smith.

Lord Howard of Effingham (Vol. iii., p. 244.).—I submit that the passages quoted by your correspondent are not sufficient evidence to lead us to conclude that that nobleman ever was a Protestant. As to the "neglect of reverence to the Holy Sacrament," it is only said that the priests might pretend that as a cause; and it is not to be supposed that an ambassador would so far forget himself as to show any disrespect to the religion of the prince he was sent to. Besides, it is likely that Lord Howard was chosen for the embassy as being a Catholic, and therefore more acceptable to a prince of the same religion.

2nd. Fuller's words only refer to testimony on a disputed fact, on which Catholic evidence the effect quoted by him would have peculiar weight.

3rd. The words to Garnet, who had declared his innocence and abhorrence of the imputed crime, are such as a Catholic would be most likely to use.

4th. The word "our," in the royal instructions, is the word of form, and resembles the editorial "we." In royal instructions to Mr. Shiel at Florence, Mr. Wyse at Naples, or Mr. More O'Ferrall at Malta, her Majesty would use the words "our religion;" would that imply that any or all of those gentlemen were Protestants?

After all, Lord Howard may have conformed to the court religion after the period of the Armada: occasional conformity was frequent at the period.

    Kerriensis.

Separation of the Sexes in Church (Vol. ii., p. 94.; Vol. iii., p. 94.).—In Collectanea Topographica, &c., vol. iii. p. 134., is printed the "Account of the Proctors of the Church of Yeovil, co. Somerset, 36 Hen. VI. 1457-8." The learned editor says:

"The first item is remarkable, as affording an instance of seats being made subject to sale at so early a period;" and proceeds: "it may be observed that the two sexes must have sat in different parts of the church, as, with only one exception, the seats are let to other persons of the same sex as before."

    Llewellyn.

Separation of the Sexes in Time of Divine Service (Vol. ii., p. 94.).—A proof of the correctness of the remark advanced in this note is afforded by the practice followed in the little church of Covington, Huntingdonshire, where a few of the old open seats remain towards the western end, in which each sex still sits on its proper side, although the custom does not hold with respect to the pews which some of the farmers and others have erected for themselves at the eastern end.

    Arun.

Separation of the Sexes at Church.—Many of your correspondents have taken up the separation of the living at church, but none have alluded to the dead. I extract the following from a deed of the 34th of Elizabeth:—

"But also in the two severall vawtes or towmbes in the sayd chappell, and in the sowthe syde of the same, and in the wall of the sayd church, ffor themselves only to bury in; that is to say, in the upper of the same, standing eastwards, to bury the deade bodyes of the men, being ancestors of the sayd A. B.; and in the lower, standing westwards, to bury the deade bodies of the women, being wyves or children female of his, the said A. B.'s ancestors."

Perhaps some of your correspondents can tell us whether such separate vaults were customary?

Vox Populi Vox Dei (Vol. i., p. 370.).—Your correspondent Daniel Rock states these words to have been chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Mepham, as his text for the sermon he preached when Edward III. was called to the throne; and in your Notices to Correspondents, Vol. iii., p. 254., you repeat the statement.

The prelate by whom the sermon was preached was not Simon Mepham, but his predecessor, Walter Reynolds, who was Archbishop of Canterbury when the second Edward was deposed, and when Edward III. was crowned, on February 1, 1327. This Walter Reynolds died on November 16, 1327, and Simon Mepham was appointed his successor on December 11, 1327. John Toland, in his Anglia Libera, p. 114., has this reference to the sermon which was preached by the Archbishop Reynolds on the occasion of the king's coronation:

"To Edward I. succeeded his son Edward II., who growing an intolerable tyrant, was in a parliament summoned by himself formally accused of misgovernment, and on his own acknowledging the truth of this charge, solemnly deposed. When his son, Edward III., was elected with universal consent, Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the coronation sermon, and took these words for his text, "Vox populi Vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God,"—so little did they dream in those days of the divine right of monarchy, or that all power did not originally derive from the people, for whom and by whom all governments are erected and maintained."

Sir Harris Nicolas in his Synopsis of the Peerage, and Dugdale in his Monasticon, give the name of this Archbishop as Walter Reynolds. Sir Richard Baker, in his Chronicle, describes him as Walter Reginald; and in Hume's England he is called Walter de Reynel.

    St. Johns.

Mazer Wood (Vol. iii., p. 239.).—The Querist asks, "Has the word Mazer any signification in itself?"

It is used to signify a cup. Vide Walter Scott's Lord of the Isles, where Robert Bruce is speaking:

"Bring here, he said, the Mazers four,
My noble fathers loved of yore."

And it is probably derived from the Irish "Maeddher," a standing cup, generally of wood, of a quadrangular form, with a handle on each of the sides. The puzzle was how to drink out of it, which was done from the angles. A silver "Maeddher" was presented to Lord Townshend when leaving Ireland, who puzzled many of his English friends by placing it before them filled with claret. Uninitiated persons usually attempted to drink from the flat side, and poured the wine over their clothes. I think another was presented to Lord Normanby when in Ireland. We see gutta percha cups and buckets everywhere now-a-days. Perhaps such an utensil might have been among the dishes, &c. mentioned in the Catalogue of the Tradescant Museum.

    Kerriensis.

[See a curious note on Mazers, used as large drinking-cups, or goblets, in Walter Scott's Poetical Works, p. 488., edit. 1848.]

Traditions from remote Periods through few Hands (Vol. iii., p. 237.).—The following facts may not be uninteresting on this subject.

The late Maurice O'Connell of Derrynane, co. Kerry, died early in 1825, and would have completed 99 years on the 31st of March in that year. The writer hereof has heard him tell anecdotes derived from the conversation of Daniel M

Carthy, of the same co., who died about 1740, aged at least 108 years. This Daniel M

Carthy was commonly known by the nick-name of "Dhonald Bhin," or "Yellow Dan," and was the first man that ran away from the battle of Aughrim. There is a short account of him in Smith's History of Kerry, in which he is mentioned as lately deceased. You have thus a period of over 200 years, the traditions of which might be derived through three persons, the survivor of whom, your correspondent, is but middle aged. I remember being told in the co. Clare, circiter 1828, of an individual then lately deceased, who remembered the siege of Limerick by General Ginkle, and the news of the celebrated treaty of Limerick. It is to be wished that your readers who reside in, or may visit Ireland, would take an interest in this subject. I am certain that in remote parts of the country much curious tradition could be thus brought to light; and it would be interesting to compare the accounts of great public events, as remembered and handed down by the peasantry, with those which we take on the faith of historians.

As relating to this subject, I may refer to the allusion made in page 250. of the same Number to the Countess of Desmond, who was said to have lived to so great an age. I have seen the picture alluded to at Glanlearne in Valencia, the seat of the knight of Kerry; and it must have been taken at a comparatively early period of life, as the Earl of Desmond was outlawed, and his estates confiscated, in the reign of Elizabeth. Some record of how this old lady's jointure was provided for might yet be discovered, and the period of her decease thus ascertained.

    Kerriensis.