and the said Mr. Reading having promised to amend ye same for the future:-Agreed that upon_condition he performs his promise of amendment he be chosen organist of this Parish for ye year ensuing." Ap. 4, 1727.-That Mr. John Reading be continued in his place for three months from this date, and that Samuel Sadler our clerk do forthwith give him notice of this order that he may provide himself with a situation in that time." "July 29, 1727.-That Mr. Richard Morris the churchwarden do forthwith pay John Reading the organist in proportion to his annual salary for ye time he hath played upon the organ from the time he recd. notice from Samuel Sadler our Clerk, and to forbid him either in person or by Deputy playing any more upon the organ belonging to this parish. Upon the application of Mr. Thos. Anner that he might succeed Jno. Reading in the foresaid office; agreed that he do begin to play upon ye said organ tomorrow morning and continue upon tryal till Michaelmas next at the usual allowance." certain anthems of his which were afterwards printed in his Book of New Anthems. Now as to "Adeste Fideles." The statement that Reading composed it does not rest on the "dictum of a daughter of Novello " as MR. JULIAN MARSHALL says, but on Novello's own words, printed in Home Music, edited by Vincent Novello, p. 14. He dates the air 1680, and supposes that the John Reading, the composer of it, was the pupil of Blow. Of course the date of the birth of Blow's pupil, 1677, makes that an impossibility. Novello makes no claim to having discovered the air; he distinctly says that it was in use at the chapel of the Portuguese Embassy, and having been heard there by the Duke of Leeds, it was introduced by him, about the year 1785, at the "Antient Concerts," under the title of the "Portuguese Hymn." In 1785 Novello was four years old. The foregoing extracts conclusively show that Reading was organist of St. John's, Hackney, from 1708 (new style) to 1727. I have omitted the entries I have had unusual opportunities of perusing giving his annual election at Easter. John Read-music composed by the Reading of Dulwich and ing gave to Dulwich College several volumes of Hackney, and I cannot think he was the composer manuscript music, why, it is impossible to con- of "Adeste Fideles." I have not found a single jecture. Eleven of these volumes are now in the piece of his set to Latin words, nor any music library of the college, and another, purchased at a bearing the slightest resemblance to the air of sale, is in my own library. In each of the volumes" Adeste Fideles." On the other hand, the older Reading has written, "This book I give to the Colledg of Dulledg. John Reading." The books are valuable and interesting. Some of the titles read thus : "Mr. John Reading's great book of lessons for the harpsichord, (the lady's entertainment) being a choice collection of the most celebrated Aires and favourit songs out of all the opera's set, and compos'd into lessons for the harpsichord by John Reading Organist of St. John's Hackney." Reading, of Winchester, did compose graces and a "Dulce domum" with Latin words, and, judging. by the music, it seems to me that the man who composed the latter might well have been the author of " Adeste Fideles." In connexion with its reputed English origin it may be noted that the hymn with Reading's tune was first introduced into Rome by the choir of the English College in that city. At least, it is so stated in an old MS. of the hymn, music and words, in my possession. As a matter of curiosity it may be well to add that the opening bars of a presto by Sebastian Bach in his Sonata in в minor, for violin and clavier, bear a curious resemblance to the beginning of the tune of "Adeste Fideles." This is, of course, quite accidental. In my recent visits to Dulwich College I was so fortunate as to find a fine portrait in oils of John Reading-I presume the Reading of Dulwich and Hackney. WILLIAM H. CUMMINGS. "The psalms set full for the organ or harpsichord as they are plaid in churches and chappels in the maner given them out; as also with their interludes of great variety by John Reading Organist of St Johns Hackney." One volume has inscribed, "John Reading his book May ye 29 1716 being ye Restauration day of K. C. y 2." Another volume is important, as it refers to an appointment of Reading's thus: "Composed by John Reading Organist of St Mary Woolnoth Lombard St London." Another MS. volume in my own library, containing organ voluntaries and psalm tunes, has these entries:"This book I give for the use of the children of his Majestys Chappels Royal, as witness my hand May 7th 1750 John Reading. James St Westminster." "SOOTHEST" IN "COMUS," 823 (6th S. iii. 248). "John Reading Organists of the parishes of St Mary-I do not find the verb to soothe earlier than 1553, Woolnoth and St Mary Woolchurchaw in Lombard street and of St Dunstans in the West in Fleet Street London." In the same volume I find his deputies named, "Hugh Cox, John Buswell, Thos. S. Dupuis." The Gentleman's Magazine gives John Reading's death "Sept. 2, 1764, aged 87." My surmise that this last John Reading went from Dulwich to Lincoln is strengthened by the fact that there are in the manuscript books of Lincoln Cathedral A con but after that date it occurs frequently. "Then must I sooth it, what euer it is: For what he sayth or doth can not be amisse." Next in Holinshed's Chronicle, 1576, vol. vi. p. 38: "I could neuer find this estrange propertie Soothed by anie man of credit in the whole countrie"; and Lyly's Euphues, p. 125 (Arber's reprint), "What my mother saith my father sootheth," and p. 149, "These be they that sooth young youths in all their sayings, that uphold them in all their doings." Daniel in his Civile Wares, bk. vii. st. 79, has :"Kings gladly give eare to none But such as smooth their ways, and sooth their will.” Then, in the transition to the sense of mollifying, we find it in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589, p. 183 (Arber's reprint): “The yeoman thinking it good manner to soothe his Sergeant, said," &c. In Pasquil and Kathrine, 1616, act v. 1. 80, there is a very good instance of the use of the word : "Now, I thought he was mad in putting me To such an enterprise; and therefore sooth'd him vp Instances might be multiplied easily, but I will only add one, to show how late the idea of flattery survived: "By rendering it an Argument for Presumption to sooth us up in Impenitence and Sloth" (Stanhope's Paraphrase, 1705, vol. ii. p. 238). XIT. In the poet Fenton's curious piece of verse entitled "A Tale devised in the plesaunt manere of gentil Maister Jeoffrey Chaucer," which may be found among his Poems on Several Occasions, Lond., 1717, p. 171, this couplet occurs: "Ore Muscadine, or spiced Ale She carrold soote as Nightingale." The poem is an imitation of Chaucer's style and dialect, and so may not be of much value as showing the use of words at the beginning of the eighteenth century. But is there any reason why sooth, in the sense of sweet, should not be held analogous with sote, soote, &c., A.-S.=sweet, as used in Chaucer's time and repeated by Fenton ? Conf. the glossary in Bell's ed. of Chaucer as to other forms. ALEX. FERGUSSON, Lieut.-Col. Compare Chaucer, Prologue, 1:- GENERAL SIR SYDENHAM POYNTZ (6th S. iii. ACOUSTIC JARS (6th S. iii. 168).—These jars are for the purpose of improving the resonance of the a puzzle. They are supposed to have been used edifice, after the manner of the brazen echeia noticed theatres. In England these earthenware jars or by Vitruvius as used in some ancient Roman pots have been found at Fountains Abbey; St. Peter's Mancroft Church, Norwich; All Saints' Church, Norwich; St. Mary's, Youghal; Fairwell, Staffordshire, found whilst the church was being pulled down in 1747; Denford Church, Northampbesides St. Clement's Church, Sandwich, as tonshire; St. Peter's Upton Church, near Newark; noticed by your correspondent, in the very unusual position of high up in the chancel. They occur usually under the choir seats, and in the lower part of the walls. They have also been found abroad; as in Strasbourg Cathedral; in the vaulting of St. Martin's at Angers; and in the walls of St. Jacques et les Innocents, at Paris. Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionnaire, s.v. "Pot," says they were chiefly used in Normandy. Some further account of these jars will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1863, by Abbé Cochet; and enlarged upon in the Builder, 1863, vol. xxi. p. 820, also 1864, p. 17; and in Didron's Annales Archéologiques, vol. xxii. p. 294. WYATT PAPWORTH. 33, Bloomsbury Street. A paper on this subject was read by Mr. Gordon Hills before the members of the British Archaeological Association, and published in the Journal of that Society [for 1879], vol. xxxv. p. 95. Mr. Hills In Comus, 823, the sense of "true" or "trust-records at length two finds of acoustic jars. The worthy" is obviously required by the context. But even admitting that "sweetest" would make sense of the passage, where is the authority for reducing the two distinct words, sooth = true, and sote, an old form of "sweet," to one original? The one is surely A.-S. só, Sansc. satya, L. suavis; the other is A.-S. swet, swes, Sansc. svad (=taste). | The connexion of either of them with satis is quite out of the question. Soothe is generally connected with sote, sweet, &c., though Wedgwood, according to his favourite theory, connects it with the Lowdand Scotch south, a murmuring or lulling sound. C. S. JERRAM. first is at East Harling Church, Norfolk, where four jars were discovered during repairs of the roof, arranged at about equal spaces along the north side of the chancel, and resting upon the top of the wall above the wall plate. The other discovery mentioned by Mr. Hills was at the church of Leeds, near Maidstone, Kent, where from fortyeight to fifty-two earthenware pots were discovered in August, 1878, embedded in the top of the nave wall on both sides of the church, immediately under the wall plate. Below the jars in the north wall was discovered a very remarkable arrangement, consisting of two sound holes, made apparently for the purpose of carrying the effect of the jars into the north aisle. The most remarkable fact connected with the latter find is that the jars have been pronounced by competent judges to be of Roman-British make. Similar discoveries of vases built into the walls of churches have been made in Ireland and on the continent. As to the use, if any, of these jars, Mr. Hills says : "Through the chronicle of the Celestins, at Metz, we know that in one case, in 1439, the jars were expressly made to be put up in their church; that they were put up for the improving of the chanting by the Prior, Ode Le Roy; that they remained many years after, and were not only deemed useless but a great disfigurement to the building; the marvel of all beholders, and the jest of fools." Mr. Hills sums up by telling us that "most of the instances never had an acoustic purpose in view." "Their purposes were several," he concludes; but what those purposes were he does not inform us. Andover. H. C. M. BARTON. [Reference should also be made to the Journal for 1873, p. 306, for a notice of the East Harling discovery, by Mr. H. Watling.] "It is certain that the ancients had devices for improving the acoustics of large buildings, besides their better knowledge of the requisite proportions, which we have lost altogether; for in the days of the vast ancient theatres, such as the Coliseum at Rome, ten times as many people could see and hear as in any modern church; and they had a peculiar contrivance of horizontal pots along the seats, which are understood to have augmented the sound in the same way as a short and wide tube presented to a hemispherical bell when struck augments its sound."-Sir E. Beckett's Book on Building, p. 281, Crosby Lockwood & Co., 1880. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. "TRAM" (6th S. ii. 225, 356, 498; iii. 12, 218).— The view put forward by PROF. SKEAT, and previously advocated, though much less clearly, by DR. CHARNOCK (ii. 356), is very plausible, and I must confess that I should have done well, before writing my note, to refer to the books named by PROF. SKEAT, all of which I possess with the exception of Reitz. At the same time, I still think that my own view (I derived the word from the French train sledge, and also the framework of a carriage, including the wheels) should not be summarily dismissed. In the first place, in all but one instance* the German and Scandinavian words quoted by PROF. SKEAT seem to mean nothing more than a beam, the rung of a ladder, or the handle of a wheel-barrow,t and the transition from these meanings to a truck running on four wheels is not a very easy one, and PROF. SKEAT might be puzzled to show that in any language such a transition has ever taken place. It may be said, however, that there is a similiar transition in French in the case of the word brancard, which means both a litter (for the removal of sick or injured persons) and the shaft of a carriage. in this case the two meanings are, I believe, perfectly independent, and are separately derived from branche (branch), which is given by Littré as the origin of the word. So far as meaning goes, it is evident, therefore, that my French word train has greatly the advantage. And in the second place it is indisputable, I take it, that the French word train (or its corresponding English word train) did actually become tram in English, for how else can we explain the third meaning given to tram by Halliwell,‡ viz., " a train or succession In Fountains Abbey a number of large earthen-But ware jars were found embedded in the base of the screen at the entrance to the choir, a few inches below the level of the floor. See the Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects for May 29, 1854. Vitruvius describes brazen vases as used in the Greek theatres for acoustic purposes, but Wilkins doubted the actual practice. S. J. NICHOLL. Of course MR. SANDBERG knows all about Sir Thomas Browne's famous essay Hydriotaphia, about the jars which were found in St. Peter's Mancroft, where he was buried, in another Norwich church, I forget which, and in Fountains Abbey. F. G. S. In the Proceedings and Transactions of the Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archæological Society, vol. iii. (1854-5), p. 303, there is an teresting account, by Mr. E. Fitzgerald, of acoustic vases found in the walls of the church St. Mary, Youghal. W. H. PATTERSON. Belfast. of is said to mean a summer-sledge. PROF. SKEAT has added two other meanings, the shaft and frame of a carriage, but these (unless they are also to be found in Reitz) seem to be steps supplied by himself. PROF. SKEAT quotes Halliwell in his favour; I quoted in-him in my last note in mine. The fact is he is more or less in favour of both derivations. His first meaning (a small bench) favours PROF. SKEAT's view, but is not incompatible with mine; his third (a train or succession of things) much more distinctly favours mine; whilst the second (a sort of sledge running on four wheels, used in coal mines) is at least as much in my favour as in In the south aisle of Newington Church, Kent, PROF. SKEAT'S; indeed I think much more in mine. 414 of things." Surely this meaning cannot come from beam, rung, handle of a wheelbarrow, or sledge. It is unfortunate that Halliwell does not tell us in what county or part of England this meaning of tram is or has been used; perhaps some one else may be able to enlighten me upon this point. Chester suggests that the registers from which I Since writing my first note I have seen a note in the Intermédiaire, the French "N. & Q." (No. 304, p. 4), in which it is stated that tran-tran was formerly, and is still sometimes, though rarely, used for the familiar French expression traintrain. Now tran forms a step between train and tram. Curiously enough, in the Bremen Wörter-Wentworth was baptised the second of Februarie 1612." buch, quoted by PROF. SKEAT, we are told that traam is sometimes incorrectly pronounced traan. In conclusion, it is at all events remarkable that two words so entirely different in origin as that given in its various German and Scandinavian forms by PROF. SKEAT and the French train should have come to signify very nearly the same thing, and should have actually coalesced in HalliAnd is not this coaleswell's Dict., s.v. tram. cence the true solution of the question? Are not both words contained in our tram? Sydenham Hill. F. CHANCE. THE LORDS WENTWORTH OF NETTLESTED: MRS. PALMER, DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND (6th S. iii. 227, 271, 333).-Having had some correspondence with Col. Chester on the above subject, I am inclined to agree with him that the date, Oct. 6, 1643, has been erroneously added to the copy of the inscription on the coffin-plate by the transcriber. In all other respects this transcript agrees word for word with that in the Topographer, vol. iii. pp. 62-3, issued July, 1790. We may, then, safely assume that the inscription (ante, p. 227) refers to the Thomas, Baron Wentworth of Nettlested, who died February 28, and was buried on March 7 following, 1664/5. With regard to SIR HENRY F. PONSONBY'S statement that the Earl of Cleveland had only one son by his first wife, I produce the following extracts from the Toddington registers, which show that he had at least two other sons : "William Wentworth the sonne of Thomas Lord "Mr. William Wentworth the sonne of Thomas Lord was This Charles, Col. Chester informs me, It is worthy of note that this and the one immediately preceding and following, relating respectively to the baptisms of sons of "Sir Henrie Croftes, Kt.," and "Sir John Crompto', Kt.," were originally placed at the end of year 1611, and carefully obliterated by means of ink smeared over them with the finger, but upon careful examination sufficient traces are discernible to show that they are identical with the three entries F. A. BLAYDES. now standing at the end of year 1612. Tilsworth, Leighton Buzzard. CLERGYMEN HUNTING IN SCARLET (6th S. iii. 348).-I can well remember, when living at Egham, nearly sixty years ago, frequently seeing the Rev. Gosling, rector of the parish, following H.M. buckhounds when they met within a few miles of his residence. Little, if any, exception seemed to be taken to his so doing at the time. He was not much of a theologian, and certainly not of a preacher, but a genial, good man, much loved in his parish. If I remember aright, the living was in the gift of his father or some near relation; it was given to an elder brother, who died shortly after his induction, and the wish was to keep the Gosling prior to living in the family. The Rev. his brother's death held a commission in the army, and was induced to resign his red coat for a black one; hence at the time, to me, and possibly to man once more in scarlet was not so great a many others, the appearance of the reverend gentlesurprise as it might have been to strangers, or as it JAMES V. STAPLES. would be now. "MISER" (6th S. ii. 469; iii. 133).-Here are two instances of the use of the word considerably earlier than those quoted by MR. BIRKBECK TERRY, describing a miserable man, and not a niggard :"When Socrates spake sore against soche persones as were perfumed with swete sauours, and Charondas, or (as some writers holden opinion) Phædon demaunded what feloe it was, so perfumed with swete oiles and sauours, Aristippus saied, Euen I it is miserable & wretched creature that I am, and a more miser then I, the kyng of the Persians. But marke, said he, that like as he is in this behalfe nothyng superiour to any other liuyng creature, so is he not a iote better then any other man."-Apophthegmes of Erasmus, 1542, reprint 1877, p. 75. "For, as the common sort of people denieth that persone to bee a man, that is neither learned, nor yet of gentle condicions, so did the Philosophier call hym a miser, that had no qualitee aboue the common rate of man. For according to the saiyng of Homere: No liuing creature is more miserable then man."-Apophthegmes of Erasmus, 1542, reprint 1877, p. 121. But the following passage, from Gascoigne, proves even then (about 1570) the word meant both a niggard and a wretched man : "Well then, let see what reason or what rule * * * The forlorne hope which haue set vp their rest By rash expence, and knowe not howe to liue, The busie brain that medleth with the best, And gets dysgrace his rashness to repreue, The man that slewe the wight that thought to theeue Such and such moe which flee the Catchpols fist, I compt them Misers, though the Queene it wist." Gascoigne's Fruites of Warre. Most probably MR. TERRY is correct about the derivation of the word. How ever any one could imagine that it was derived from micher is a puzzle. The following is the best illustration of this latter word there can possibly be, because it defines its meaning exactly : "Dives. Howe many spyces be there of theft? Pauper. Ful many. For sometyme a thing is preuely without wetyng of the lord or of the keeper, and ayenst their wyl, and it is called mychery: sometime it is do openly by might and vyolence wetynge the lord and the keper ayeuste theyr wyll, and that is properly rapina raueyn." -Dives and Pauper, Berthelet, 1536, f. 240 (first printed by Pynson, 1493). Boston, Lincolnshire. that printed by Valentine Symmes in 1596, which belonged to Edmund Malone, who has filled the fly-leaves with pencilled notes bearing upon Shakesperian criticism : "But I (not willing to see him any longer in such great misery and calamitie) tooke him by the hand & lifted him vp from the ground: who (hauing his face couered in such sort) let fortune (quoth he) triumph yet more, let her haue her sway and finish that which she hath begun. And therewithal......I lead the poore miser to my Inne where......we might be merrie and laugh at our pleasure, and so we were vntill such time as he (fetching a pittiful sigh from the bottome of his heart and beating his face in miserable sort) began to say, Ala poore miser that I am, that for the onely desire to see game of triall of weapons am falne into those miseries and wretched snares of misfortune." ALFRED WAllis. Derby. OLD PARK (6th S. iii. 188).—A writer living at the time of Parr's death has : "Thomas Parre, Son of John Parre, born at Alberbury in the Parish of Winnington in this County (Shropshire), lived to be above one hundred and fifty years of age, verifying his anagram, Thomas Parre, most rare hap. He was born in the reign of King Edward the fourth, 1483, and two moneths before his death was brought up by Thomas Earle of Arundel (a great lover of antiquities in all kinds) to Westminster. He slept away Most of his time, and is thus charactered by an eye Fitness of him. From head to heel his body hath all over, A quick-set, thick set nat'ral hairy cover.' Change of air and diet (better in itself, but worse for him) with the trouble of many visitants or spectators rather are conceived to have accelerated his death, which happened Westminster, November the 15, 1635, and was buried in the Abbey-Church, all present at his burial, doing homage to this our aged Thomas de Temporibus."-Fuller, Worthies, "Shropshire," p. 11, London, 1662. As to his gravestone the editor remarks ("N. & Q.," 4th S. v. 500): "Among other all but obliterated inscriptions which the Dean of Westminster has lately had recut is that of nearly as many untruths as there are statements in it, it Thomas Parr. Although his epitaph probably contains has been very properly reproduced in its original form." ED. MARSHALL. Kirby, in his Wonderful Museum, says that Thomas Parr was the son of John Parr, of Winstolennington, in the parish of Alberbury, county of Salop; that he was born in February, 1483, and died at Westminster, Nov. 15, 1635. John Taylor, the Water Poet, in his pamphlet entitled Long Life of Thomas Parr, published about a The Olde, Olde, Very Olde Man: or The Age and month before Parr's death, wrote, "Hee hath had two children by his first wife, a son and a daughter; the boyes name was John, and lived but ten weekes, the girle was named Joan, and she lived but three weekes." The Rev. Mr. Granger, in his Biographical History of England, records that "at an hundred and twenty he (Parr) married R. R. The following curious illustration of MR. TERRY'S point occurs in Adlington's translation of Lucius Apuleius De Asino Aureo, the first edition of which appeared in 1566; I quote from a copy of |