simply assume the style of baronet by "legal advice," without further ado. The want of a competent court for deciding such claims is a great hardship to the order, as remarked by Mr. Serjeant Burke in an article on "Doubtful Baronetcies" (Herald and Genealogist, No. xix., Aug. 1866.)

"James V.," if not a misprint, is an error; for it is certain that baronets were not invented till the reign of his grandson, James VI. There was not much "romance" in the origin of the order, which was simply a device to fill the pockets of the British Solomon, under pretence of colonizing Ulster and Nova Scotia ! ANGLO-SCOTUS.

FALSE QUANTITY IN BYRON (3rd S. xii. 127, 197.)- Had MR. BUCKTON, MR. NICHOLSON, R. M. C., H. B. C., and Messieurs "Legion,' looked four lines higher up in the same stanza, they would have found Zoe's name rightly dissyllabled, as rhyming to snowy, or Chloe-whom neither Swift nor Prior ever chronicled as Clo. Not that I should have wondered at Byron's slipslopping a word, carelessly or conveniently. I forget where-and I decline to hunt his lordship's poetry over for its reference-but he actually rhymed real with zeal, or steel, or some such monosyllable even as Sir Walter rhymed Charles with perils, and Tom Moore girl with squirrel. Phoebus forgive them! E. L. S.

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:

own feathers. The knight or other person about to make a vow took advantage of this ceremony and of the concourse of witnesses, arose, drew his sword, and, holding it over the bird, swore by its cross to perform whatever the vow might be. If this be correct, Gibbon's expression should have been "they swore (by the cross) to God and the Virgin, (and in the presence of) the ladies, and the pheasant." Can any of your readers supply the passage? A. A.

Poets' Corner.

In addition to what has been written on this, perhaps the remarkable analogous instance of the royal and knightly vow of Edward I., in 1306, upon the swan, is worthy of notice here. At a feast given by Edward, after his son the Prince of Wales, the Earls of Warenne and Arundel, and nearly three hundred more, had been knighted, according to Mathew of Westminster (p. 454) –

"Tunc allati sunt in pompatica gloria duo Cygni vel olores ante Regem, phalerati retibus aureis vel fibulis deauratis," &c.

Thereupon

"The King vowed to the God of Heaven and to the

Swans, that he would take vengeance on Robert Bruce

for his insult offered to God and the Church; and this duty having been performed, that he would not, for the future, unsheath his sword against Christians, but would haste to Palestine, wage war with the Saracens, and never return from that holy enterprise."-Hailes' Annals of Scotland, 1797, vol. i. pp. 4, 5.

Ashmole, History of the Garter (ch. v. sect. 2, p. 185), says that Edward III. had these words wrought upon his surcoat and shield, provided

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to be used at a tournament

'Hay, Hay, the wythe Swan,

By Goddis soul I am thy man.'"

Which Lord Hailes observes:

"Shews that a white swan was the imprese (' emblem' or 'device, Ital.) of Edward III., and perhaps it was also used by his grandfather, Edward I."

According to this learned authority, the vow of the peacock (which bird, as well as the pheasant, was accounted noble, and peculiarly the food of the amorous and valiant) was one of the most solemn taken by knights. The passage is curious, and worthy of perusal. ANGLO-SCOTUS.

THE WORD "Por" (3rd S. xii. 211.) — There are two senses in which this word does not seem noticed in modern dictionaries:-1. "To make a pot of money,"-this may mean either a pouch or pocket full of money, or an earthenware pot;

66

a crock." "Putting a man under a pot' " would be, I think, to put him under the tiles, the potsherds, to bury him. "With pots on their heads" would, I think, mean a linen cowl, a cerement or cerecloth wound round the head: the skull-caps or head-pieces for men-at-arms were called pots.

de personnes croient qu'elle est sortie de la plume de Napoléon; cependant rien de plus faux. Les journaux anglais ont nommé madame de Staël: cela n'est pas probable; il lui aurait été impossible de ne pas y apposer son cachet. Cet écrit a été fait par un conseiller d'état qui était en service ordinaire dans les années 1800, 1801, 1802, et 1803, mais qui n'était pas en France en 1806 et 1807, et qui s'est occupé particulièrement des affaires d'Espagne. Ce n'est pas un militaire: il n'a jamais assisté à une bataille; il a les plus fausses idées de la guerre."-Mémoires, t. ii. p. 205.'

Birmingham.

THE LAST EPISCOPAL WIG (3rd S. xii. 205.) I do not think that JOSEPHUS is correct in his statement, that the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. J. B. Sumner) was the last prelate who wore a wig; for certainly, during the last few years of his life, he laid it aside. On a recent visit to King's College, Cambridge, I saw in the Combination Room there a very fine portrait of him in his Convocation robes, presented by him to that college, where he had been educated, in which he is depicted as wearing his own hair. My impression is, that the last prelate who continued to his death to wear the wig was James Henry Monk, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, who died in 1856. The last head of a house in Oxford who wore it was the late vener

able President of Magdalen, Dr. Routh, who died in 1854, having nearly attained the patriarchal age of 100 years. OXONIENSIS. Bushey Rectory, near Watford, Herts.

From an anecdote related in the Memoir of Bishop Blomfield, by his son (vol. i. p. 97), it appears that the late Bishop of London, and not the Bishop of Winchester, set the example of the disuse of the wig, having received from King

William IV. the following message by Sir George Sinclair: :

"Tell the Bishop that he is not to wear a wig on my account. I dislike it as much as he does, and shall be glad to see the whole bench wear their own hair." H. P. D.

JOSEPHUS states that the late Archbishop Sumner wore the episcopal wig up to the time of his final appearance in public. Surely this must be a mistake in portraits, I believe, he is always represented without it. I remember reading, some years ago, that the late Bishop Monk was the last prelate who retained its use, but have forgotten where I met with the fact. In "N. & Q." (1st S. xi. 131) it is stated by a correspondent that the Hon. Richard Bagot, late Bishop of Bath and Wells, was the first to abandon the wig by the express permission of George IV. JOSEPHUS will find several communications on this subject in "N.&Q.," 1st S. xi.

ONALED.

"RICH AND POOR: " THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

(3rd S. xii. 79, 155, 172.)—S. BLYTH has not paid attention to my note at p. 156. Subsequently to my first note at p. 79 I had some doubts as to Mr. Barham being the author. I merely supposed that Mr. Barham might have written it, because it originally appeared under one of his noms de plume, and also because it had been ascribed to him in a defunct suburban magazine called The Ratepayer, and in other more important publications. As to its being "like nothing Barham ever wrote," I would remind MR. BLYTH that "Thomas Ingoldsby," alias "Peter Peppercorn, M.D.," alias "Barney Maguire," alias the Rev. R. H. Barham, was a very versatile genius: pass from "grave to gay, from lively to severe," ," from a song to a sermon; he was Democritus and Heraclitus combined. "Misce seria ludo" would have been an appropriate legend for his family coat. The version given by MR. BLYTH is certainly not the original one that appeared in the Globe and Traveller, though I do not dispute that it is a correct transcript from The Paper Money Lyrics; and, as revised by its author,

he could

"under the rose of wealth and station " is much better than "hidden in the pomp of wealth and station." The omission of the word "man" after "poor" in the fourth verse, line three, is no improvement; nor is the substitution of "painted " MR. BLYTH's third for "close-sheet," fifth verse. verse (not in my copy) is a valuable addition. I have a copy of "Rich and Poor," said to have been a cut from the Manchester Guardian, in which the fifth verse of MR. BLYTH'S copy (my seventh verse) was followed by four other stanzas, which I regret my inability to give. The poem has evidently often received additions, and very good ones too. Was Thomas Love Peacock not the author of "The Genius of the Thames, a

Poem "? Was he any relation to Lucy Peacock who wrote some interesting works for children? S. J.

In reading the song of "Rich and Poor; or, Saint and Sinner," in "N. & Q." I was struck to find it in the peculiar metre of old Tom-of-Bedlam songs. It should be noted, then, that the author has added point to his satire by writing it to the tune of "The Distracted Puritane":

"Am I mad, O noble Festus,
When zeal and godly knowledge
Have put me in hope

To deal with the Pope,

As well as the best in the College?"

This well-known effusion of the witty Bishop Corbet was, no doubt, in the mind of the author when he reprobated the being

"Caught in the fact

Of an overt act,

Buying greens on a Sunday morning."
WM. CHAPPELL.

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COAT CARDS, OR COURT CARDS (3rd S. xii. 44.) Archdeacon Nares, in his Glossary (1822), says :The figured cards now corruptly called Court Cards' -knaves, we trust, are not confined to courts, tho' kings and queens belong to them. The proofs of it are abundant. One says

I am a Coat Card indeed.' "He is answered:

Then thou must needs be a knave, for thou art neither king nor queen.'-Rowley, When you see me, &c. 'We called him a Coat Card of the last order.' B. Jonson, Staple of News. She had in her hand the Ace of Hearts, and a coat card.'-Chapman's May Day. "Here is a trick of discarded cards of us,

We were ranked with coats as long as my old master lived.'-Massinger's Old Law, Act III. Sc. 1."

-

That it was on the 13th is proved by the inscription under his portrait at York: "Deo animam reddidit Maii 13, die, ut contigit, consecrationis ejus anniversaria, an. Dni, 1711, ætatis autem 66." He had retired to Wycliffe Hall, Yorkshire, and there he died, May 13, 1711, aged sixty-six, as F. C. H.

above.

•

The change of name from coat to court cards probably dates about 1681, as Robertson's Phrase Book published in that year gives both words. R. F. W. S. CARDINAL D'ADDA (3rd S. xii. 204.)-Dr. Leyburn was Bishop of Adrumetum, not Adramytium. The account of the reception of Monsignor D'Adda, Bishop of Amasia, as the Pope's nuncio, at Windsor, by King James II. is given by Rapin, p. 760, and Burnet, p. 716; but I am not aware of any detailed account of his nunciature in England. A. S. A. inquires who was the consecrator of Philip Michael Ellis, O. S. B., Bishop of Aureliopolis. It was Bishop Leyburn, who had previously consecrated Monsignor D'Adda, Bishop of Amasia. Who consecrated Dr. James Smith, Bishop of Callipolis, is nowhere mentioned; but the Pope's nuncio consecrated Bishop Giffard, Bishop of Madaura, April 22, 1688, and it is most probable that he also consecrated Bishop Smith, as his consecration took place so soon after-on May 13, not the 23rd, as A. S. A. gives the date.

BRIGNOLES (3rd S. xi. 455; xii. 78, 152.)-There can be no reasonable doubt that Brignoles and Sale are both English surnames. There is a very popular solicitor of the name of Brignall in the city of Durham, and a respectable hotel-keeper and capital volunteer bugler in West Hartlepool of the name of Sale. Who, too, has not heard of George Sale, the translator of the Koran, and of the gallant Sir Robert Sale killed in the battle of Moodkee, December 18, 1845? MR. J. H. DIXON says that sale is Italian for salt: be it so. It is also Ang.-Sax. for Hall. As to Titus Salt, that gentleman is altogether out of court, and I do not see the use of alluding to him on a question of sale other than of Alpaca. I can find no mention of P. A. L.'s "distinguished person" in any English biographical works (and I have several) on my book-shelves. How is this? What is the meaning of "M. A. L."? These initials look alarming, but, I trust, are not so; for, as poor Keeley used to say-in Frankenstein, was it not?-"I'm so narvous.' As "King Louis Philippe's reign" is a thing of the past, how "Ct. Brignole-Sale has for years been Sardinian ambassador at the court of France during " that reign, I cannot understand. Perhaps P. A. L. will kindly explain. Qy. Was or had been is in

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tended?

R. W. DIXON.

Seaton-Carew, co. Durham.

"EXCELSIOR: EXCELSIUS" (3rd S. xii. 66, 158.) I think Longfellow, in using "Excelsior," simply adopted for his song what his countrymen had long adopted for their national flag. Hence the "strange device." R. W. DIXON.

In endeavouring to trace this proverb, I find on "COMPARISONS ARE ODIOUS" (3rd S. xii. 206.) reference to a Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs, Bohn,

1857

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'Comparaisons sont odieuses, Toute comparaison est

odieuse. I paragoni son tutti odiosi " (pp. 14, 59, and 104)But amongst the Spanish I find no example. In Mr. Halliwell's fac-simile of Much Adoe about Nothing (4to edition, 1600, at p. 42), "Const. Dog.Comparisons are odorous, palabras, neighbour Verges." Mr. J. Payne Collier, in his edition of Shakespeare, adds a foot-note

"[Palabras, neighbour Verges.] How this Spanish word came into our language, and to be in familiar use with the lower orders, it is difficult to ascertain. Sly, in bras; and the same words are found in the very popular the induction to the Taming of the Shrew, has pocas palaold play of the Spanish Tragedy, where they are spoken

Clapham Park, S.

UGO FOSCOLO (3rd S. xi. 437, 526.)—Only the first volume of Foscolo's Dante was published during his life. This volume contained the "Discorso sul Testo," a copy of which Mrs. Gatty has purchased. If the corrections are Foscolo's, it may perhaps be the very volume which Mazzini used in editing the Discorso when he published the entire work in 1843. La Commedia di Dante Allighieri, illustrata da Ugo Foscolo. Londra, Rolandi. It is in four volumes; the first volume contains a preface by Mazzini, in which he refers to the first edition of the Discorso in the following passage:

"I would strongly recommend to every lover of Italy, of Italian literature, and especially of Dante, the careful perusal of the first of the volumes published in 1842 by Rolandi, La Commedia di Dante Allighieri, illustrata da Ugo Foscolo. The preface to this edition, by an Italian (Mazzini), is worthy of the work, and shows the fervour of that worship of which Foscolo himself was deemed scarcely worthy to be a priest, although he has doubtless done more to illustrate the great object of Italian veneration than any preceding writer. From this preface a just conception may be formed of the character and

TOWN AND COLLEGE (3rd S. xii. 147.)— MR. TRENCH will find every possible information respecting town in the appended extract from Isaac Taylor's Words and Places, pp. 119, 120:

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"The primary meaning of the suffix ton is to be sought in the Gothic tains, the old Norse teinn, and the Frisian téne, all of which mean a twig-a radical signification which survives in the phrase the tine of a fork.' We speak also of the tines of a stag's horns. The root is widely diffused through the Aryan languages. Compare the Sclavonic tuin, a hedge, and even the Armenian tun, a house. In modern German we find the word Zaun, a hedge; and in Anglo-Saxon we have the verb tynan, to hedge. Hence a tun, or ton, was a place surrounded by a hedge, or rudely fortified by a palisade. Originally it meant only a single croft, homestead, or farm, and the word retained this restricted meaning in the time of Wicliffe. He translates Matt. xxii. 5: But thei dis

piseden, and wenten forth, oon into his toun (aypós),

another to his marchaundise.' This usage is retained in Scotland, where a solitary farmstead still goes by the name of the toun; and in Iceland, where the homestead, with its girding, is called a tun. In many parts of England the rickyard is called the barton-that is, the inclosure for the bear, or crop which the land bears: in Iceland, the bartun. There are some sixty villages in England called Barton or Burton-these must have originally been outlying rickyards. There are lone farmsteads in Kent called Shottington, Wingleton, Godington, and Appleton. But in most cases the isolated ton became the nucleus of a village, and the village grew into a town, and, last stage of all, the word town has come to denote, not the one small croft inclosed from the forest by the Saxon settler, but the dwelling-place of a vast population, twice as great as that which the whole of Saxon England could boast."

College, in the sense mentioned by MR. TRENCH, is of course a collection of houses.

E. B. NICHOLSON.

Tonbridge.

Mr. Britton's definition of town, as "any collection of houses too large to be termed a village,"