was built, and which is full of interesting written about Sir John in that storehouse of historical fact and original opinion, View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,' twelfth edition, 1868 (Murray), pp. 470-2:"This very eminent man had served in the war of Edward III., and obtained his knighthood from that sovereign, though originally, if we may trust common fame, bred to the trade of a tailor. His name is worthy to be remembered as that of the "BRIDGE" (9th S. iv. 497).-The real name first distinguished commander who had appeared in Europe since the destruction of the Roman is "britch," and the game is supposed to have empire. He appears to me to be the first real a Russian origin, which may help philologists general of modern times; the earliest master, how-to trace the source of the term, if it is unever imperfect, in the science of Turenne and known. Skat and bridge have little in comWellington. Every contemporary Italian historian mon. Skat is a three-handed game, a kind of cross between gleek and hombre, with borrowHawkwood, Hallam states, was not only the ings from other quarters; bridge is an imgreatest, but the last of the foreign condot-proved dummy-whist for four players, with sundry details likewise borrowed elsewhere. tieri, or captains of mercenary bands. Byron The only semblance between them is that alludes to Henry Hallam in his 'English the trump is named by the players, and suits speaks with admiration of his skilful tactics in battle, his stratagems, his well-conducted retreats." Bards' as THE MINT (9th S. iv. 348, 403, 506).-I do not pretend to be infallible, but I fail to see in what respect my information was inaccurate, unless it be that I referred to Mint Street as still existing, whereas, according to your correspondent BRUTUS, it is now called Marshalsea Road. In one of the latest London maps in my possession, that which accompanied the newest reissue of 'Old and New London' in 1897-8, Mint Street is still shown, while Marshalsea Road runs into it at an angle, and only usurps the old title at the easternmost end. The change of name must therefore be of very recent date,* and I can only regret the disappearance of the last memorial of a district which filled so large a place in the satiric literature of the last century. It is almost impossible for any one to keep abreast of the London County Council in its extraordinary mania for changing the names of old and historic streets. I believe the latest victim of this craze, unless sound and saner counsels prevail, will be James Street, Buckingham Gate, which was called after the last of the Stuarts, in whose time it I think it will be found that Mint Street still holds a place in the Post Office London Directory,' and that St. Saviour's Workhouse is situated in it. have an order of preference, with the trace Can any THE STAFFORD FAMILY (9th S. iv. 477).-See the many members of it noticed in 'Dict. Nat. A. F. P. Biog.' "LOWESTOFT CHINA" (9th S. iv. 498).-MR. RATCLIFFE will find an able discussion upon the subject of his query in 'Marks and Monograms on European and Oriental Pottery and Porcelain,' by Wm. Chaffers (new edition, revised and edited by Frederick Litchfield, 1897). The author has, seemingly, disposed of the theory that the "Lowestoft ware was simply Oriental porcelain, painted only at Lowestoft": "Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, in an interesting paper on Lowestoft china, in the Art Journal of July, 1863, has fallen into the same error. He says: The best of the productions of the Lowestoft works are painted on Oriental body, but there are many good examples in existence, where the body is of Lowes- in regard to heritage or real estate by a toft make, which are of very fine quality. collector will be able to distinguish immediately ratified by her before a magistrate, outwith The married woman requires to be judicially between the examples painted at Lowestoft on Oriental body, and those which are potted and the presence of the husband. In the form of painted there.' ratification she gives her great oath that she was noways seduced or compelled to grant or concur in the conveyance, but did so of her own free will and motive, and that she will never quarrel or impugn the same, directly or indirectly. A. G. REID. Auchterarder. Mr. Chaffers continues : There are three persons now living [1865] who can testify to the fact that nothing passed out of the factory but what was made in it......Let us also ask those visionary theorists whether they ever saw or heard of such unfinished Oriental white porcelain? When the Lowestoft works ceased in 1802, what became of it all? The country would have been inundated with the supply so suddenly rendered useless, and waiting to be painted......It is certain that a vast quantity of Lowestoft china still exists, not only in England, but on the Continent; but from its similarity to the Oriental, it has been generally confounded with it......With Lowestoft, no mark was ever used, rarely even a painter's mark......Old inhabitants ridicule the idea of Oriental china ever having been brought into it [Lowestoft] to be painted for the purpose of sale. Mr. Studley Martin, nephew of Sir James E. Smith, who resided at Lowestoft, writes: I believe no Oriental china was ever painted, even by adding initials or crests, at Lowestoft, certainly never with flowers, or anything else."" However, the editor (Mr. Litchfield) appends a note: "The question of the place of manufacture of a large number of specimens which have been called Lowestoft' is a difficult one to settle. Prof. Church has gone so far in the opposite direction to Mr. Chaffers, as to omit from his work on English porcelain any mention of Lowestoft, and in the catalogue of the Schreiber Collection, such specimens as are generally called Lowestoft are classified as Oriental porcelain decorated in England.' Sir A. W. Franks has a very limited belief in Lowestoft, and thinks that most of the china so called by Chaffers was of Chinese manufacture......The Editor is inclined to believe that......nearly all the services, with coats of arms, monograms, and heraldic devices, were not only made but decorated in China. See also 'The Ceramic Art of Great Britain,' by Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A. (London, 1887). HERBERT B. CLAYTON. THE GREAT OATH (9th S. iv. 438).-This term, used in Scotland, appears to apply to the solemnity of the act, and not in contradistinction to a minor or subsidiary form of taking the oath. In ancient writings the great aith" is frequently referred to. Thus Wyntoun says: He swore the great aith bodely, That he suld hald alle lelely, That he had said in to that quhile, But ony cast of fraud or gyle. IX. 20, 85. In Retours, under Brieves of Inquest, issued from Chancery for the service of heirs, recently abolished, the words of form were "Qui jurati dicunt magno sacramento interveniente." In Scotch conveyancing a deed "TIFFIN" (9th S. iv. 345, 425, 460, 506).-I beg leave to point out the fact that, at the first of the above references, I gave in full the title of the work from which I quoted, Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.' It is therefore not the fact that I obscured the issue by omitting to do that. If I did not repeat the title in extenso in my second note, I only refrained from so doing out of consideration for the space of 'N. & Q.,' and because I thought it unnecessary, after having recited it in full in my former note. JULIAN MARSHALL. EDGETT (9th S. iii. 407; iv. 177). This surname is susceptible of several explanations. It may be from edge and gate, as suggested by MR. HARRISON, but scarcely from hedge-gate, for in local names the rules as to h are well observed, and in America this letter is not likely to go etymologically wrong. MR. HARRISON is in error in saying that "edge-gate would make no sense." In Old English ecg meant, in local names, "bluff," "ridge of land," N.E.D.' 'under Edge,' vi. This meaning is or cliff," as explained by Mr. Bradley in preserved in Alderley Edge, co. Chester, Weston-under-Edge, Aston-under-Edge, and Wootton - under Edge, co. Gloucester, in addition to the instances given in the N.E.D.' Cf. also Edgehill, co. Warwick. For its existence in O.E. I may cite 'Cartularium Saxonicum,' i. 496, 13; iii. 151, 2; 155, 1; 587, 40; 590, 14. A Middle-English instance occurs in the Gloucester 'Chartulary,' iii. 45, 1, land "super le egge" at Randwick, co. Glouc. In O.E. geat meant, in local names, a gap or opening in high ground, a narrow pass, as in Symond's Yat (*Sigemundes geat), co. Glouc., now erroneously transferred to a point of the rock. It is conceivable that such a gap might be called Ecg-geat, which would yield a modern Edgett quite regularly. But the word ecg was used in forming compound personal names, and hence appears in local names formed from personal names. In the hypocoristic forms Ecg and Ecga (or the corresponding fem. Ecge) it would in modern names have become undistinguishable horse W. H. STEVENSON. in the form of cordiner, is applied to the craft "CORDWAINER" (9th S. iv. 436).--This word, of shoemakers in Scotch burghs. It is said to be derived from Cordova, in Spain, noted for leather is known in Scotland as cordovan. its leather manufactures. Tanned Jamieson says that the name of cordwainer wrought in foreign leather. French cordonwas generally given in Europe to one who nier, corduannier; Swedish corduwansmakere, a leather-dresser. A. G. REID. Auchterarder. from the common noun. But in Edgware, can only be settled by documentary evidence, co. Middlesex, and Edgeworth, co. Glou- which possibly does not exist. cester,* we have records of the masc. ending -es, so that these names must be from men's names, the gen. sing. of the common noun being ecge. I suspect that a personal name occurs in the Domesday Book_name for the hundred of Christ Church, co. Hants. It is written Ege-iete (i. 516, col. 1), Eghe-iete (i. 386, col. 2, 43b, col. 1, 44, col. 2), and Eghe-iet (46, col. 2). The latter part of the name is undoubtedly O.E. geat, dat. geate, and the first part is ecg plus a vowel (Eghe, 264, col. 2, 264b, col. 1, now Edge, co. Chester, represents the dat. sing. Ecge). By the time of the Survey the weak-ending -an had sunk down in compounds to -e, so that this may be an O.E. *Ecgan-geat (cf. Wigheiete, i. 166b, col. 2= Wiggangeat, Wyegate, co. Glouc., Cart. Sax., iii. 585, 23). It might represent an Ecges-geat, for the gen. sing. masc. is frequently given as e in Domesday and in later records. Later forms do not throw any light upon the origin. It occurs as Eggieta (Latinized) in Pipe Roll, 14 Hen. II., 182; Eggiet(h)e in the rolls 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Hen. II. But whatever the original form of this local name may have been, we have in it a form that would regularly yield Edgett. A natural feature that could give its name to a hundred might easily be recorded in a family name. Edgett is, moreover, derivable from the niasc. name Ead-geat (written Eddiet in Domesday), since hundreds of these O.E. personal names are still preserved as family names. Nor does this exhaust the possibilities, for, by the processes referred to above, *Eadun-geat, *Eades-geat, compounds of geat with hypocoristic forms of names beginning with Ead, might also produce a modern Edgett. Probabilities are in favour of the Hampshire local name or the personal name Ead-geat, and the question which it really is *The former, an O.E. *Ecges-wer (written Egceswer in an eleventh-century Westminster charter dated 978, 'Cart. Sax.,' iii. 605, 12), occurs in the Pipe Roll, 15 Hen. II., p. 173, as Eggeswera; in 1168-1173 as Egges-were (Cat. of Ancient Deeds,' A 2097); Eges-were, A 2146: in 1266, Egges-were, A 1737, &c. The Gloucestershire village, O.E. * Ecgesword, appears in Domesday, i. 166b, col. 1, 167b, col. 2, as Egeis-uurde, Eges-worde. It is noteworthy that there was an Eces-geat, possibly miscopied for Ecges-geat, in Bicingtun, or Bickton, par. of Fordingbridge, co. Hants ('Cart. Sax.,'iii. 252, 3, from the Liber de Hyda,' where it is wrongly identified by Dr. Birch with Bighton, which is phonologically improbable), in the vicinity of the hundred in question. The geat of this name has nothing to do with geat, but represents either the deity Geat or the BOUDICCA REPULSED AT VERULAM (9th S. iv. 457).-There is no ground for supposing that Verulam was the scene of the defeat of Boudicca (Boadicea). Tacitus ('Ann.,' xiv. 31-37), in relating the battle, does not mention any place. Merivale ('History of the Romans,' ch. li.) conjectures that it was fought near Camulodunum (Colchester); for this view he refers to Mr. Jenkins in Archaeologia, 1842, and to the Quarterly Review, vol. xcvii. Orelli on Tacitus, 'Ann.,' xii. 32, mentions the opinion that Camulodunum was Maldon, near Colchester; but this view is decidedly disapproved by Hübner in Pauly's 'Real Encyclopädie,' new ed., art. 'Camulodunum.' Verulam was taken by the Britons and the population slaughtered in the insurrection. B. H. I cannot agree with MR. HOOPER that it is a mere duty" to use "Boudicca" instead of "Boadicea" as the more correct name." He may not know that the MS. evidence is very conflicting. In the Annals,' xiv., it is as "Boudicca" (37). On the other hand, both follows: Boodicia" (31), "Bouducca" (35), the MSS. of the Agricola of Tacitus Voadicca." Orelli, the best editor, reads (16) have the a, reading "Voaduca" and "Boudicea but there seems to me quite sufficient evidence to warrant in current speech a retention of the form which has been fixed as English. Such changes in names are often attempted, but hardly ever carried through where a word has become a national English possession apart from its use by the learned. HIPPOCLIDES. " MAY ROAD WELL, ACCRINGTON (9th S. iv. 396, 464).-I do not like to destroy the pious inferences which the theories of your correGermanic tribal name Gautōz, the Gautar whose name is preserved in the Swedish province of Götland (O.N. Gaut-land), Germanic au having developed into O.E. ea. spondent prompt, but I am afraid they are not correct. I know the neighbourhood and the well intimately. I have known many who have gone on the first Sunday in May to dilute their potations with its water. I think the practice has entirely died out. In Lancashire the use of the "apostrophes" when speaking in the possessive case is largely ignored. Not far from the well is a hill known as John Hoyle coppice"-the coppice of John Hoyle. The well is known as "Mary Hoyle well"-no doubt, in my mind, meaning the well of Mary Hoyle. Who John Hoyle was I cannot ascertain, but I opine that John and Mary were of one family, and that while to the one is assigned the "coppice," to the other is assigned the well. B. S. "A PICKLED ROPE" (9th S. iv. 479).-In the phrase in Fletcher's Bonduca," "A pickled rope will choke ye," Petillius, who has previously told his soldiers, ungraciously enough, to eat turf, timber, old mats, or shoes, exhorts them further to fall in love,, a state which in war is assumed to stimulate bravery, and calculated to make them forget all about eating, failing to do which they may expect a rope's-ending for cowardice. Hence the phrase appears to mean a castigation (with a pickled rope) will correct the cowardice that is assumed to characterize one who has neither this incentive to courage nor that of having enough to eat. Compare a "rod in pickle," i. e., soaked in brine to keep it supple for chastening purposes, and the phrase to rope's-end," i. e., to chastise with the whipped" end of a rope, formerly a punishment much resorted to illegally at sea : Buy a rope's end; that will I bestow 'Comedy of Errors,' IV. i. 16. "To choke" here means to correct, reprove. A "choke-pear" is figuratively a reproof, correction, a check by which one is put to silence; and to "choke a person off," . e., to stop his garrulity, is still a vulgar expression. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE (9th S. iv. 164, 231, 312, 338, 426, 502). With regard to the above song, I have always understood it was written in honour of the "Allied Armies during the Crimean War. At all events, I distinctly remember it then, as a child of some ten years old; and the cover of the song was adorned with the Union Jack and the French tricolour flags. Wherever the word "Columbia" occurs in the song as printed in your issue of December 16, it was Britannia" in the version I remember in the year 1854. The first verse ran thus: The the Britannia, the pride of the ocean, The home of the brave and the free, When borne by the Red, White, and Blue. (And?) Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue. I do not think there can be any doubt that your correspondent S. J. A. F. is right about its having been originally an English song. F. W. H. I am emboldened to make a suggestion which may settle this controversy. Your coincidence of the above song, at the time of correspondent T. A. O. mentions (iv. 338) the and following the Crimean War, with the equally well-known Cheer, Boys, Cheer!? My own recollection is to the same effect; and if reference could be made by any of your correspondents who may be in a position to do so to the veteran author of the lastnamed song, Mr. Henry Russell, whose residence is 18, Howley Place, W., I have little doubt his well-stored memory could authoritatively intervene. I well remember hearing Mr. Henry Russell sing 'Cheer, Boys, Cheer in his entertainment at some date prior to May, 1856, and my recollection is that I was familiar with that song and 'The Red, White, and Blue' in about an equal degree for a good while before then. Some time since I read Mr. Russell's book of with America and the friends he made there; reminiscences, a good part of which deals and whether the origin of the song is British or American I am pretty certain he would know. W. B. H. [Further contributions on this subject not invited.] PREFACES (9th S. iv. 479).-Isaac D'Israeli, in his 'Curiosities of Literature,' says "that long before the days of Johnson it had been a custom with many authors to solicit for this department of their work the ornamental confriend Atticus that he had a volume of prefaces or tribution of a man of genius. Cicero tells his introductions always ready by him to be used as circumstances required." A correspondent in 'N. & Q.' (6th S. xii. 427) asked, "When were prefaces first introduced?" and stated that Howell, in his preface to An Institution of General History,' asserted that "the French first introduced this custom into the work of writing prefaces before the works of others." To this query no reply has appeared. EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. Jersey." The "reappearance," likely enough, was at some charitable performance or the like, but the Era's paragraph seems to imply that our English novelist had previously played as a regular actress. J. W. M. GIBBS. In The Antiquary's Portfolio,' vol. i. HANNAH LEE (9th S. iv. 477).-I believe p. 97, I find that "the haughty Wolsey con- that this "pretty," or, to speak by the descended to write a recommendatory pre-card, most affecting story, is narrated in face" to William Lily's "well-known Latin Grammar." ALFRED J. KING. 101, Sandmere Road, Clapham, S. W. THE SURNAME MORCOM (9th S. iv. 148, 312, 406, 467). If SIR HERBERT MAXWELL will refer to iv. 312, he will see that he is not quite justified in saying that I hazarded a remarkable "assertion" regarding the derivation of Malcolm. An assertion I take to be a plain declaration of fact or belief. I made no such declaration. I thank him for his reply, which is highly interesting to me, and probably to others who know no Gaelic; but his letter would have been just as valuable without the first six lines. Fort St. George. FRANK PENNY, LL.M. are Marguerite Blount published several stories at about the dates 1855-59 in Reynolds's Miscellany. They were, however, I think, short stories mostly. No doubt this reply, with that before given by MR. BRISCOE, will convince BRUTUS that he was wrong in assuming that she and Miss Braddon the same." Nevertheless, it has often been said that some of Miss Braddon's earliest work appeared in Reynolds's Miscellany, as it has likewise been said that before the first of her great successes ('Lady Audley,' 1862) Miss Braddon appeared on the stage. Both statements have been denied, and yet I have read in the Era, under a date in 1876, that "Miss Braddon reappeared on the stage at 'The Snowstorm,' one of the tales in 'Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,' by Prof. Wilson, and may be found in vol. xi. p. 48 of his collected Works,' edited by his son-inlaw, Prof. Ferrier, Edinburgh, 1865. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. "HOASTIK CARLES" (9th S. iv. 477).-"Hoastik carles" are Austwick men. Austwick is in Craven, and its folk have a reputation akin to that which has made the wisdom of those of Gotham proverbial for all time. They, too, tried to hedge in a cuckoo; and several other absurd stories are told of them. They are said to have had but one knife or whittle, which they kept under a tree. Once, when some labourers wished to save themselves the trouble of carrying it back, they stuck it in the ground, and, seeing a black cloud immediately overhead, thought that the place was sufficiently marked; but the tool was never found again. A farmer, wishing to get a bull out of a field, asked nine neighbours to help him to lift it over the gate, and they being unequal to the task, one of the number went through the gateway to look for further aid. It then struck somebody that the bull might leave the field by the same way. Another carle lifted a wheelbarrow over twenty-two stiles rather than take it by a road which was about a hundred yards further round than the path across the fields. See Clouston's 'Book of Noodles,' pp. 53, 54. ST. SWITHIN. It is a pity that Lucas did not know better than to begin guessing that the carles "are no doubt spirits of the woods." They are simply the people of Austwick, a village near Clapham, in Yorkshire, who are credited by their neighbours with having been the originals of the "wise men of Gotham." The walling-in of the cuckoo arose from their attempt to secure perpetual summer by building a wall around the bird. Just as the wall was finished the cuckoo flew away, and "they had never thought o' that." The favourite name for these folk is "mooin-rakers," because they tried to rake the reflection of the moon out of a pond, thinking it was a big cheese. By the way, has any one collected all the places |