Notes and Queries, Number 32, June 8, 1850

Thos. Cox.

Hanging out the Broom (Vol. i., p. 385.).—This custom exists in the West of England, but is oftener talked of than practised. It is jocularly understood to indicate that the deserted inmate is in want of a companion, and is really to receive the visits of his friends. Can it be in any way analogous to the custom of hoisting broom at the mast-head of a vessel which is to be disposed of?

S.S.S.

George Lord Goring, well known in history as Colonel Goring and General Goring, until the elevation of his father to the earldom of Norwich, in Nov. 1644, is said by Lodge to have left England in November, 1645, and after passing some time in France, to have gone into the Netherlands, where he obtained a commission as Lieutenant-General in the Spanish army. Lodge adds, upon the authority of Dugdale, that he closed his singular life in that country, in the character of a Dominican friar, and his father surviving him, he never became Earl of Norwich. A recent publication, speaking of Lord Goring, says he carried his genius, his courage, and his villainy to market on the Continent, served under Spain, and finally assumed the garb of a Dominican friar, and died in a convent cell.

Can any of your readers inform me when and where he died, and whether any particulars are known respecting him after his retirement abroad, and when his marriage took place with his wife Lady Lettice Boyle, daughter of the Earl of Cork, who died in 1643? The confusion that is made between the father and son is very great.

G.

Bands.—What is the origin of the clerical and academical custom of wearing bands? Were they not originally used for the purpose of preserving the cassock from being soiled by the beard? This is the only solution that presents itself to my mind.

Oxoniensis Nondum-Graduatus.

Replies

DERIVATION OF "NEWS" AND "NOISE."

I hasten to repudiate a title to which I have no claim; a compliment towards the close of the letter of your correspondent "CH." (Vol. i., p. 487.) being evidently intended for a gentleman whose christian name, only, differs from mine. The compliment in his case is well-deserved; and it will not lower him in your correspondent's opinion, to know that he is not answerable for the sins laid to my charge. And now for a word in my own behalf.

Indeed, CH. is rather hard upon me, I must confess. In using the simple form of assertion as more convenient,—although I intended thereby merely to express that such was my opinion, and not dreaming of myself as an authority,—I have undoubtedly erred. In the single instance in which I used it, instead of saying "it is," I should have said "I think it is." Throughout the rest of my argument I think the terms made use of are perfectly allowable as expressions of opinion. Your correspondent has been good enough to give "the whole" of my "argument" in recapitulating my "assertions." Singular dogmatism that in laying down the law should condescend to give reasons for it! On the other hand, when I turn to the letter of my friendly censor, I find assertion without argument, which, to my simple apprehension, is of much nearer kin to dogmatism than is the sin with which I am charged.

I cannot help thinking that your correspondent, from his dislike "to be puzzled on so plain a subject," has a misapprehension as to the uses of etymology. I, too, am no etymologist; I am a simple inquirer, anxious for information; frequently, without doubt, "most ignorant" of what I am "most assured;" yet I feel that to treat the subject scientifically it is not enough to guess at the origin of a word, not enough even to know it; that it is important to know not only whence it came, but how it came, what were its relations, by what road it travelled; and treated thus, etymology is of importance, as a branch of a larger science, to the history of the progress of the human race.

Descending now to particulars, let your correspondent show me how "news" was made out of "new." I have shown him how I think it was made; but I am open to conviction.

I repeat my opinion that "news is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language;" and if it were a "noun of plural form and plural meaning," I still think that the singular form must have preceded it. The two instances CH. gives, "goods" and "riches," are more in point than he appears to suppose, although in support of my argument, and not his. The first is from the Gothic, and is substantially a word implying "possessions," older than the oldest European living languages. "Riches" is most unquestionably in its original acceptation in our language a noun singular, being identically the French "richesse," in which manner it is spelt in our early writers. From the form coinciding with that of our plural, it has acquired also a plural signification. But both words "have been adopted bodily into the language," and thus strengthen my argument that the process of manufacture is with us unknown.

Your correspondent is not quite correct in describing me as putting forward as instances of the early communication between the English and the German languages the derivation of "news" from "Neues," and the similarity between two poems. The first I adduced as an instance of the importance of the inquiry: with regard to the second, I admitted all that your correspondent now says; but with the remark, that the mode of treatment and the measure approaching so near to each other in England and Germany within one half century (and, I may add, at no other period in either of the two nations is the same mode or measure to be found), there was reasonable ground for suspicion of direct or indirect communication. On this subject I asked for information.

In conclusion, I think I observe something of a sarcastic tone in reference to my "novelty." I shall advocate nothing that I do not believe to be true, "whether it be old or new;" but I have found that our authorities are sometimes careless, sometimes unfaithful, and are so given to run in a groove, that when I am in quest of truth I generally discard them altogether, and explore, however laboriously, by myself.

Samuel Hickson.

St. John's Wood, May 27. 1850.

I do not know the reason for the rule your correspondent Mr. S. HICKSON lays down, that such a noun as "news" could not be formed according to English analogy. Why not as well as "goods, the shallows, blacks, for mourning, greens?" There is no singular to any of these as nouns.

Noise is a French word, upon which Menage has an article. There can be no doubt that he and others whom he quotes are right, that it is derived from noxa or noxia in Latin, meaning "strife." They quote:—

"Sæpe in conjugiis fit noxia, cum nimia est dos."Ausonius."In mediam noxiam perfertur."Petronius."Diligerent alia, et noxas bellumque moverent."Manilius.

It is a great pity that we have no book of reference for English analogy of language.

C.B.

Why should Mr. Hickson (Vol. i., p. 428.) attempt to derive "news" indirectly from a German adjective, when it is so directly attributable to an English one; and that too without departing from a practice almost indigenous in the language?

Have we not in English many similar adjective substantives? Are we not continually slipping into our shorts, or sporting our tights, or parading our heavies, or counter-marching our lights, or commiserating blacks, or leaving whites to starve; or calculating the odds, or making expositions for goods?

Oh! but, says Mr. Hickson, "in that case the 's' would be the sign of the plural." Not necessarily so, no more than an "s" to "mean" furnishes a "means" of proving the same thing. But granting that it were so, what then? The word "news" is undoubtedly plural, and has been so used from the earliest times; as (in the example I sent for publication last week, of so early a date as the commencement of Henry VIII.'s reign) may be seen in "thies newes."

But a flight still more eccentric would be the identification of "noise" with "news!" "There is no process," Mr. Hickson says, "by which noise could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it!"

Is not Mr. Hickson aware that la noise is a French noun-singular signifying a contention or dispute? and that the same word exists in the Latin nisus, a struggle?

If mere plausibility be sufficient ground to justify a derivation, where is there a more plausible one than that "news," intelligence, ought to be derived from νους, understanding or common sense?

A.E.B.

Leeds, May 5th.

Further evidence (see Vol. i., p. 369.) of the existence and common use of the word "newes" in its present signification but ancient orthography anterior to the introduction of newspapers.

In a letter from the Cardinal of York (Bainbridge) to Henry VIII. (Rymer's Fœdera, vol. vi. p. 50.),

"After that thies Newes afforesaide ware dyvulgate in the Citie here."

Dated from Rome, September, 1513.

The Newes was of the victory just gained by Henry over the French, commonly known as "The Battle of the Spurs."

A.E.B.

THE DODO QUERIES

I beg to thank Mr. S.W. Singer for the further notices he has given (Vol. i., p. 485.) in connection with this subject. I was well acquainted with the passage which he quotes from Osorio, a passage which some writers have very inconsiderately connected with the Dodo history. In reply to Mr. Singer's Queries, I need only make the following extract from the Dodo and its Kindred, p. 8.:—

"The statement that Vasco de Gama, in 1497, discovered, sixty leagues beyond the Cape of Good Hope, a bay called after San Blaz, near an island full of birds with wings like bats, which the sailors called solitaries (De Blainville, Nouv. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat., and Penny Cyclopædia, DODO, p. 47.), is wholly irrelevant. The birds are evidently penguins, and their wings were compared to those of bats, from being without developed feathers. De Gama never went near Mauritius, but hugged the African coast as far as Melinda, and then crossed to India, returning by the same route. This small island inhabited by penguins, near the Cape of Good Hope, has been gratuitously confounded with Mauritius. Dr. Hamel, in a memoir in the Bulletin de la Classe Physico-Mathématique de l'Académie de St. Petersbourg, vol. iv. p. 53., has devoted an unnecessary amount of erudition to the refutation of this obvious mistake. He shows that the name solitaires, as applied to penguins by De Gama's companions, [I should have said, 'by later compilers,'] is corrupted from sotilicairos, which appears to be a Hottentot word."

I may add, that Dr. Hamel shows Osorio's statement to be taken from Castanheda, who is the earliest authority for the account of De Gama's voyage.

H.E. Strickland.

BOHN'S EDITION OF MILTON

Mr. Editor,—I have just seen an article in your "Notes and Queries" referring to my edition of Milton's prose works. It is stated that, in my latest catalogue, the book is announced as complete in 3 vols., although the contrary appears to be the case, judging by the way in which the third volume ends, the absence of an index, &c.

In reply, I beg to say that the insertion of the word "complete," in some of my catalogues, has taken place without my privity, and is now expunged. The fourth volume has long been in preparation, but the time of its appearance depends on the health and leisure of a prelate, whose name I have no right to announce. Those gentlemen who have taken the trouble to make direct inquiries on the subject, have always, I believe, received an explicit answer.

Henry George Bohn.

May 30. 1850.

UMBRELLAS

Although Dr. Rimbault's Query (Vol. i., p. 415.) as to the first introduction of umbrellas into England, is to a certain extent answered in the following number (p. 436.) by a quotation from Mr. Cunningham's Handbook, a few additional remarks may, perhaps, be deemed admissible. Hanway is there stated to have been "the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with one over his head," and that after continuing its use nearly thirty years, he saw them come into general use. As Hanway died in 1786, we may thus infer that the introduction of umbrellas may be placed at about 1750. But it is, I think, probable that their use must have been at least partially known in London long before that period, judging from the following extract from Gay's Trivia, or Art of Walking the Streets of London, published 1712:—

"Good housewives all the winter's rage despise,Defended by the ridinghood's disguise;Or, underneath th' umbrella's oily shade,Safe through the wet on clinking pattens tread.Let Persian dames the umbrella's ribs display,To guard their beauties from the sunny ray;Or sweating slaves support the shady load,When Eastern monarchs show their state abroad;Britain in winter only knows its aid,To guard from chilly showers the walking maid."Book i. lines 209-218.

That it was, perhaps, an article of curiosity rather than use in the middle of the seventeenth century, is evident in the fact of its being mentioned in the "Musæum Tradescantianum, or Collection of Rarities, preserved at South Lambeth near London, by John Tradescant." 12mo. 1656. It occurs under the head of "Utensils," and is simply mentioned as "An Umbrella."

E.B. Price.

[Mr. St. Croix has also referred Dr. Rimbault to Gay's Trivia.]

Jonas Hanway the philanthropist is reputed first to have used an "umbrella" in England. I am the more inclined to think it may be so, as my own father, who was born in 1744, and lived to ninety-two years of age, has told me the same thing, and he lived in the same parish as Mr. Hanway, who resided in Red Lion Square.

Mr. Hanway was born in 1712.

J.W.

The introduction of this article of general convenience is attributed, and I believe accurately so, to Jonas Hanway, the Eastern traveller, who on his return to his native land rendered himself justly celebrated by his practical benevolence. In a little book with a long title, published in 1787, written by "John Pugh," I find many curious anecdotes related of Hanway, and apropos of umbrellas, in describing his dress Mr. Pugh says,—"When it rained, a small parapluie defended his face and wig; thus he was always prepared to enter into any company without impropriety, or the appearance of neglect. And he (Hanway) was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head: after carrying one near thirty years, he saw them come into general use." Hanway died 1786.

J.F.

As far as I remember, there is a portrait of Hanway with an umbrella as a frontispiece to the book of Travels published by him about 1753, in four vols. 4to.; and I have no doubt that he had used one in his travels through Greece, Turkey, &c.

T.G.L.

In the hall of my father's house, at Stamford in Lincolnshire, there was, when I was a child, the wreck of a very large green silk umbrella, apparently of Chinese manufacture, brought by my father from Holland, somewhere between 1770 and 1780, and as I have often heard, the first umbrella seen at Stamford. I well remember also an amusing description given by the late Mr. Warry, so many years consul at Smyrna, of the astonishment and envy of his mother's neighbours at Sawbridgeworth, in Herts, where his father had a country-house, when he ran home and came back with an umbrella, which he had just brought from Leghorn, to shelter them from a pelting shower which detained them in the church-porch, after the service, on one summer Sunday. From Mr. Warry's age at the time he mentioned this, and other circumstances in his history, I conjecture that it occurred not later than 1775 or 1776. As Sawbridgeworth is so near London, it is evident that even there umbrellas were at that time almost unknown.

If I have "spun too long a yarn," the dates, at least, will not be unacceptable to others like myself.

G.C. Renouard.

Swanscombe Rectory, May 1.

Dr. Jamieson was the first who introduced umbrellas to Glasgow in the year 1782; he bought his in Paris. I remember very well when this took place. At this time the umbrella was made of heavy wax cloth, with cane ribs, and was a ponderous article.

R.R.

EMANCIPATION OF THE JEWS

(Vol. i, pp. 474, 475.)

From a scarce collection of pamphlets concerning the naturalisation of the Jews in England, published in 1753, by Dean Tucker and others, I beg to send the following extracts, which may be of some use in replying to the inquiry (Vol. i., p. 401.) respecting the Jews during the Commonwealth.

Dean Tucker, in his Second Letter to a Friend concerning Naturalisation, says (p. 29.):—

"The Jews having departed out of the realm in the year 1290, or being expelled by the authority of parliament (it matters not which), made no efforts to return till the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell; but this negotiation is known to have proved unsuccessful. However, the affair was not dropped, for the next application was to King Charles himself, then in his exile at Bruges, as appears by a copy of a commission dated the 24th of September, 1656, granted to Lt.-Gen. Middleton, to treat with the Jews of Amsterdam:—'That whereas the Lt.-Gen. had represented to his Majesty their good affection to him, and disowned the application lately made to Cromwell in their behalf by some persons of their nation, as absolutely without their consent, the king empowers the Lt.-Gen. to treat with them. That if in that conjunction they shall assist his Majesty by any money, arms, or ammunition, they shall find, when God should restore him, that he would extend that protection to them which they could reasonably expect, and abate that rigour of the law which was against them in his several dominions, and repay them."

This paper, Dean Tucker says, was found among the original papers of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to King Charles I. and II., and was communicated to him by a learned and worthy friend. The Dean goes on to remark, that the restoration of the royal family of the Stuarts was attended with the return of the Jews into Great Britain; and that Lord Chancellor Clarendon granted to many of them letters of denization under the great seal.

From another pamphlet in the same collection, entitled, An Answer to a Pamphlet entitled Considerations on the Bill to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion to be naturalized, the following, is an extract:—

"There is a curious anecdote of this affair," (about the Jews thinking Oliver Cromwell to be the Messiah,) "in Raguenet's Histoire d'Oliver Cromwell, which I will give the reader at length. About the time Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel came to England to solicit the Jews' admission, the Asiatic Jews sent hither the noted Rabbi Jacob Ben Azahel, with several others of his nation, to make private inquiry whether Cromwell was not that Messiah, whom they had so long expected. (Page 33.—I leave the reader to judge what an accomplished villain he will then be.) Which deputies upon their arrival pretending other business, were several times indulging the favour of a private audience from him, and at one of them proposed buying Hebrew books and MSS. belonging to the University of Cambridge4, in order to have an opportunity, under pretence of viewing them, to inquire amongst his relations, in Huntingdonshire, where he was born, whether any of his ancestors could be proved of Jewish extract. This project of theirs was very readily agreed to (the University at that time being under a cloud, on account of their former loyalty to the King), and accordingly the ambassadors set forwards upon their journey. But discovering by their much longer continuance at Huntingdon than at Cambridge, that their business at the last place was not such as was pretended, and by not making their enquiries into Oliver's pedigree with that caution and secresy which was necessary in such an affair, the true purpose of their errand into England became quickly known at London, and was very much talked of, which causing great scandal among the Saints, he was forced suddenly to pack them out of the kingdom, without granting any of their requests."

J.M.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

Wellington, Wyrwast, and Cokam (Vol. i., p. 401.).—The garrison in Wellington was, no doubt, at the large house built by Sir John Topham in that town, where the rebels, who had gained possession of it by stratagem, held out for some time against the king's forces under Sir Richard Grenville. The house, though of great strength, was much damaged on that occasion, and shortly fell into ruin. Cokam probably designates Colcombe Castle, a mansion of the Courtenays, near Colyton, in Devonshire, which was occupied by a detachment of the king's troops under Prince Maurice in 1644, but soon after fell into the hands of the rebels. It is now in a state of ruin, but is in part occupied as a farm-house. I am at a loss for Wyrwast, and should doubt the reading of the MS.

S.S.S.

Sir William Skipwyth (Vol. i., p. 23.).—Mr. Foss will find some notices of Will. Skipwyth in pp. 83, 84, 85, of Rotulorum Pat. & Claus. Cancellariæ Hib. Calendarium, printed in 1828.

R.B.

Trim, May 13. 1850.

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Warton (Vol. i., p. 481.).—Mr. Markland is probably right in his conjecture that Johnson had Warton's lines in his memory; but the original source of the allusion to Peru is Boileau:

                            "De tous les animauxDe Paris au _Pérou_, du Japon jusqu'à Rome,Le plus sot animal, à mon avis, c'est l'homme."

Warton's Poems appeared in March, 1748. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes was published the 9th January, 1749, and was written probably in December or November preceding.

C.

Worm of Lambton (Vol. i., p. 453.).—See its history and legend in Surtees' History of Durham, vol. ii. p. 173., and a quarto tract printed by Sir Cuthbert Sharp.

G.

"A.C." is informed that there is an account of this "Worme" in The Bishoprick Garland, published by the late Sir Cuthbert Sharpe in 1834; it is illustrated with a view of the Worm Hill, and a woodcut of the knight thrusting his sword with great nonchalance down the throat of the Worme. Only 150 copies of the Garland were printed.

W.N.

Shakspeare's Will (Vol. i., pp. 213, 386, 403, 461, and 469.).—I fear if I were to adopt Mr. Bolton Corney's tone, we should degenerate into polemics. I will therefore only reply to his question, "Have I wholly mistaken the whole affair?" by one word, "Undoubtedly." The question raised was on an Irish edition of Malone's Shakspeare. Mr. Bolton Corney reproved the querists for not consulting original sources. It appears that Mr. Bolton Corney had not himself consulted the edition in question; and by his last letter I am satisfied that he has not even yet seen it: and it is not surprising if, in these circumstances, he should have "mistaken the whole affair." But as my last communication (Vol. i., p. 461.) explains (as I am now satisfied) the blunder and its cause, I may take my leave of the matter, only requesting Mr. Bolton Corney, if he still doubts, to follow his own good precept, and look at the original edition.

C.

Josias Ibach Stada (Vol. i., p. 452.).—In reply to G.E.N., I would ask, is Mr. Hewitt correct in calling him Stada, an Italian artist? I have no hesitation in saying that Stada here is no personal appellation at all, but the name of a town. The inscription "Fudit Josias Ibach Stada Bremensis" is to be read, Cast by Josias Ibach, of the town of Stada, in the duchy of Bremen. All your readers, particularly mercantile, will know the place well enough from the discussions raised by Mr. Hutt, member for Gateshead, in the House of Commons, on the oppressive duties levied there on all vessels and their cargoes sailing past it up the Elbe; and to the year 1150 it was the capital of an independent graffschaft, when it lapsed to Henry the Lion.

William Bell.

The Temple, or A Temple.—I have had an opportunity of seeing the edition of Chaucer referred to by your correspondent P.H.F. (Vol. i., p. 420.), and likewise several other black-letter editions (1523, 1561, 1587, 1598, 1602), and find that they all agree in reading "the temple," which Caxton's edition also adopts. The general reading of "temple" in the modern editions, naturally induced me to suspect that Tyrwhitt had made the alteration on the authority of the manuscripts of the poem. Of these there are no less than ten in the British Museum, all of which have been kindly examined for me. One of these wants the prologue, and another that part of it in which the line occurs; but in seven of the remaining eight, the reading is—