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the whole of the engraved plates of Hogarth's works were pasted on the walls. They were ornamentally bordered.]

Queries.

[We must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest, to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.]

"PASSION OF CHRIST."-In Goethe's Opinions, by Otto Wenckstern, 1853, p. 122, Goethe finds that in the Passion of Christ, as recited in the Roman Catholic churches, we have a remarkable example of the emancipation of the drama from history, or rather from the epic. It is a sort of play, with three persons-the Evangelist, Christ, and Interlocutor, who represents all other speakers except the Turba or chorus. And then he quotes a few sentences in Latin from one of the gospels, apparently verbatim, only divided according to the characters speaking. Where can one meet with a specimen of such a play? I think there is none given by Hone in his Mystery Plays. Č. A. WARD.

Mayfair.

GOOD FRIDAY CUSTOM. At Headbourne Worthy, a village about a mile from Winchester, a custom prevails of sowing some seed, particularly parsley, on Good Friday, it being a prevalent belief that if sown on that day it will ensure a good crop. Is this a common superstition, or only limited to that locality? Z. Z.

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NEW YEAR'S EVE: EASTER EVE.-The expression New Year's Eve," found in the Book of Common Prayer, in the rubric after the Collect for St. Stephen's Day, puzzles me. New Year's Day, as such, is not a festival, and the feast of the Circumcision, which falls on that day, like all others during Christmastide, has no ecclesiastical eve. Again, why is New Year mentioned at all? It is not an ecclesiastical term; nor did the ecclesiastical year begin on Jan. 1, nor even the civil before 1752. How did it get into the Prayer Book at all, and when? Again, when does New Year's Eve begin? Is it the whole of the day before Jan. 1, as Easter Eve is the whole of the day before Easter Day? If not, why is the latter treated as a whole day, and the Collect for Easter Eve used in the Saturday morning service?

T. C. EASTER SERMON.—About 1638 or 1639, Brian Duppa was Bishop of Chichester, and removed to Salisbury in 1641. He was tutor to Charles II. In the Memoirs of Charles II., by Count Grammont, Bohn's extra vol., p. 420, there is this notice of him :

"During his early years he had for his tutor Brian Duppa, an ecclesiastic, who was of an easy temper, and

much beloved by Charles I., but according to Burnett in no way fit for his post."

On Easter Day, anno Domini 1633, Duppa preached a sermon from the following text:— "Thy deade men shall live together; with my deade body shall they arise. Awake and sing, yee that dwell in the dust." Whether this sermon was ever published I have no knowledge. Can any of your numerous readers inform me? It commences thus :

"The text wch I have brought you is part of an hymne transcribed by the prophet, but the vuνonolog or comsonge we finde in the beginning of the chap.: but not piler of it no less then the holy ghost. That it is a a song for every day. There must be a determinate set time for it." BOOKWORM.

There is a tradition among the Indian peoples that NORTHERN ORIGIN OF INDIAN PEOPLES. they originally came from the North, that is, from the Polar regions; and M. Bailli, in his treatise on the origin of the sciences in Asia, states distinctly that most of the ancient mythological fables of Asia, considered in a physical sense, have relation to the northern parts of our globe, and he even goes so far as to assert that the arts and improvements progressively travelled from the Polar regions towards the Equator. This, at first, seems very improbable, and, viewed from the present condition of the Polar regions, quite impossible; but when we consider that man existed in the inter-glacial periods, and that these extended their influence to within the Polar circle, as we know from the remains of plants found in situ-plants that could not live except under the conditions of a sub-tropical or warm climate-there may be something in the tradition after all.

The argument brought against M. Bailli's theory by Mr. Maurice (see Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. p. 8) is that he had no evidence in buildings, &c., or anything to show. The same may be said for the Indian antiquities; we have no evidence whatever to prove the cradle of the race, and, astronomically speaking, M. Bailli, I consider, has the best of it. For the evidence of man in the inter-glacial period, see Prof. Heer's Primeval World in Switzerland, vol. ii. app. i. p. 298; and for proof of the warmer climate in the Polar regions, see Trans. Royal Society, London, vol. clix. pp. 445-488.

With this evidence before us, I think we can now see how the various traditions common to all, or nearly all, the tribes of both Asia and America became so widely spread; that the passage from the Asiatic to the American continent was an easy one with a comparatively warm climate all over the Polar regions there were, so far as I can see, no physical difficulties in the way of an easy passage.

With these preliminary remarks, I will now

introduce the query that I should be glad to have answered. In a learned work, entitled On Mankind, their Origin and Destiny, by an M.A., Balliol College, Oxford (Longmans & Co., 1872), pl. xxii. is introduced the Persian story of Ormuzd and Ahriman, on a planisphere representing the precession of the equinoxes. The first is termed the Six Prefectures of Good and Light, or six thousand periods of human happiness, or the six thousand periods of God. The other half of the planisphere gives the empire of Ahriman, or the six thousand years of the Devil. In the centre of this planisphere is a figure of a tree, guarded by a dragon, and described as "The Dragon, the Guardian of the Apple of the Garden of the Hesperides"; and near it is "Corona borealis "; and to the left is Boötes, or the Husbandman, or Noah. Around the planisphere are ranged the twelve signs of the Zodiac, nearly the same figures as are represented in our celestial spheres. The author does not state whence he obtained this planisphere, or whether it is constructed from the Persian legend; for having the garden and the tree guarded by the dragon near the North Pole of the earth corresponds very nearly with the Indian legend and with the Persian story that they originally enjoyed seven months of summer and five of winter, but Ahriman smote the land with ever-increasing cold, till at last it had only two months of summer and ten of winter, hence the people quitted their ancient homes. Warren Hastings asserts that an immemorial tradition prevails at Benares "that they originally came from a region situated in forty degrees of northern latitude."

Should the above question meet the eye of the author of the work referred to, or of any of the learned contributors to "N. & Q.," he or they will greatly oblige by saying whence this planisphere was obtained. EDWARD PARFITT.

Devon and Exeter Institution.

"BALDERDASH."-So much has been said on "humbug" that I am curious to know what can be said about the companion word, "balderdash." The following somewhat complicated etymology occurs in a foot-note in the "singular and amusing" Life of John Buncle, Esq., by Thomas Amory, Gent., 1756-66 (i. 63, 64, ed. 1825):

"Holloway, the author of Letter and Spirit, says the word barbarous, used in so many languages...for persons

of strange or foreign tongues, is a monument of the confusion of Babel; this word being a corruption of the reduplicate Chaldee word Balbel, by changing the lin each place into r. Some say the word in the other languages is derived from the Arabic Barbar, to murmur like some wild beast.' Scaliger defines it,'Pronunciatio vitiosa et insuavis, literasque male exprimens, blæsorum balborumque more'; which was hitting upon the truth as to part of the original of the confusion. Indeed Blæsus and Balbus, in Latin, are both derived in like manner from Bal and Balbel. The Welsh have preserved a noble word for this barbarism of confused language in their compounded term Baldwridd; which

is a plain compound of the Hebrew Bal and Dabar, without any other deflection from the original Hebrew word Dabar into the Welsh w, a letter of the same organ. than that of changing the b in the latter member of the Moreover, from their said Baldwridd and Das, we again derive our Balderdash, which therefore strictly signifies a heap of confused or barbarous words like those of the gabble of dialects, originally gendered at Babel." Can anything be said for the word more plausible than this? The work from which Amory (into whom the spirit of Francis Rabelais is said to have passed) quoted is thus entitled by Lowndes: Letter and Spirit; or, Annotations upon the Scriptures according to both, Oxford, 1753, by Benj. Holloway, whose works are "Hutchinsonian and Origenism in perfection." A. FERGUSSON, Lieut.-Col.

U.S. Club, Edinburgh.

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DEATH OF EDWARD, DUKE OF YORK, 1767.— I have just seen it gravely stated that the Duke was assassinated near Monaco. The writer adds: "This statement is but too true, which caused the book containing it to be bought up at an immense price." What is the title of this suppressed book? Mr. Jesse in his excellent Memoirs of George III. has no reference to this canard. D. O. E.

REYNTJENS.-Some years since a picture by H. E. Reyntjens, subject, "Wouverman's Studio," came into my possession. Can any of your readers tell me who this artist was, his school, period, and country? T. A. H.

THE CULTUS OF THE SAINTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES.-I shall feel obliged to any of your correspondents who will direct me to the best sources of information with regard to the cultus of the saints in the Middle Ages-not as to the general subject, the nature and prevalence of the practice, but as to the localities in which the cultus of particular saints was practised, and the periods of its

introduction.

G. O.

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account of this wizard and of his powers. In one remarkable case it was narrated that he had predicted the arrival of a vessel with four masts, which on its actual appearance turned out to be two brigs of two masts each, one towing the other. But although I have searched every likely publication, I cannot now discover where I read the account. Would any of your readers, whose memory is better than mine, oblige me by referring to the book in which this account is given? E. ERSKINE SCOTT.

Lee.

SCHOMBERG-BOCHOLTZ.-Since my last query upon this subject, I have, through the kindness of MATHILDE VAN EYS, learnt some particulars, extracted from first-rate authorities, such as Fähne, &c.; but there still remain some difficulties I should like cleared up. Can any one help me? Wanted dates of first marriage of the first Duke of Schomberg, of death of his first wife, of marriage of his father.

Frederic Armand, first Elizabeth de Schom-
Duke of Schomberg, | berg, first wife.
1608-1690.

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DOTS.-Can any correspondent give the meaning of the nine dots that are so often to be seen on the covers of Prayer Books?

T. R. G. ARMS WANTED.-Wanted the arms of Richard, Duke of York, slain at Wakefield, and of Cicely Neville, his wife, daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. Also those of Sir Thomas St. Leger, who married Richard's daughter Anne; and those of Sir Henry Strangways, who married Margaret, daughter of the twelfth Baron de Ros.

E. M. S. "THE HARMONIOUS BLACKSMITH."-Was Handel really, as supposed, the composer of The Harmonious Blacksmith? I saw in a Manchester paper, a few weeks ago, that not only was this air not of Handel's composition, but furthermore the

author, whoever he may be, had no idea of the cadence of the blacksmith's hammer when he wrote it. LESLIE WARD.

[See "N. & Q.," 2nd S. xii. 228, for a reply, in part, to the above.]

"A COMMONPLACE BOOK TO THE HOLY BIBLE." -I purchased at a sale, some years ago, an old book with a rudely printed title-page as follows:

"A Commonplace Book to the Holy Bible: or, the Scriptures' Sufficiency Practically Demonstrated. Wherein Whatsoever is contain'd in Scripture, Respecting Doctrine, Worship, or Manners, is reduced to its Proper difficult Texts Illustrated, and Explained by others more Head Weighty Cases Resolved, Truths Confirmed, plain. 2 Tim. iii. 16: All Scripture is given by the Inspiration of God, and is profitable for Doctrine, for Reproof, for Correction, for Instruction in Righteousness.' London, Printed by Edw. Jones, for Awnsham & John Churchil, at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster Row, 1697." Can any of readers direct me to the purchase your of any new, and possibly revised and enlarged, edition of this valuable Commonplace Book, or to any recent similar commonplace book of the Bible? I should like to be informed as to the literary or business heirs, if existing, of "Awnsham & John Churchil, at the Black Swan in Paternoster Row, 1697." H. W. B. B.

Kensington.

AUTHORS OF BOOKS WANTED.

Who is the author of Scribbleomania; or, the Printer's Devil's Polichronicon: a Sublime Poem, edited by Anser JOHN CRAGGS. Pen-Dragon, Esq., London, 1815?

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WAnted.—
Philosophy consists not

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In airy schemes or idle speculations. The rule and conduct of all social life Is her great province. Not in lonely cells Obscure she lurks, but holds her heav'nly light To senates and to kings to guide their councils, And teach them to reform and bless mankind. All policy but hers is false and rotten, All valour not conducted by her precepts Is a destroying fury, sent from hell To plague unhappy men and ruin nations." SAMUEL HAUGHTON. "Be the day weary or be the day long, At last it ringeth to evensong.'

Replies.

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E. T. M. WALKER.

CURIOUS ERRORS CAUSED BY HOMONYMY. (5th S. iv. 483; v. 155, 211; vi. 111, 199, 219, 237, 458.)

DR. CHARNOCK is certainly unfortunate in his reply. I asked him to give another example of a Latin o, like that in hora, producing in French two syllables. To this he answers that, had the o been short, he would have compared bœuf and bien

hedera, &c. Homo, then, never became in old
French home or ome (with an e), and hom or om is
not a shortening of home or ome. Home is the
accusative case hominem, and hom is the nomi-
native case homo, just as pâtre is pastor, and pas-
teur, pastorem, or sire is senior, and seigneur,
seniorem. It is a mistake to suppose that the
longer form existed before the shorter one; they
both came into existence together, and each had
bably" an earlier form than eur, eür, I can only
repeat that it is not so. The earlier form is eür,
in two syllables, whilst heur is comparatively re-
cent. In all the poetry (until the fourteenth
century) in which the word occurs, it is impossible
to scan the lines if eür is counted as one syllable.
See, for instance, the following, which I borrow
from Littré under heur, bonheur, and malheur :—
"Eürs, servirs et talens [i.e. désirs]
Me porront encor valoir."
"Si j'atendrai . . . . .

with bovis and bene. I fail to see what the e inorge from hordeum, lierre (formerly l'ierre) from bene has to do with the present question of the o in hora; but, passing over this, bœuf and bien are, and have always been, to my knowledge, one syllable, not two. See Littré's numerous examples under bauf and bien; those from the poets clearly indicate that bœuf and bien have always been monosyllables. So much for the short o. Now, the o in hora being long, DR. CHARNOCK does not even attempt to give an example, but is content with saying that "there are no immutable or un-its particular use. As to heur being " more proexceptional laws relating to the transfer of words from one language to another." Surely, did I think we had to deal with "unexceptional" laws, I should not be satisfied with only one example in support of the derivation against which I have entered my protest. But though there are not in philology, more than in any other science, unexceptional laws, still there are laws, otherwise all discussions on questions of etymology would be perfectly idle, as we should then be at liberty to derive a given word from any word in any language, whatever the letters or the number of the syllables in it might be. I cannot suppose that DR. CHARNOCK is ready to go so far, and, if so, he can hardly accuse me of asking too much when I say that a new derivation, like an amendment in Parliament, ought to be seconded by at least one other similar derivation before it can be taken into consideration. At all events, a reference to Diez (Grammaire des Langues Romanes, tome premier, traduit par Auguste Brachet et Gaston Paris, pp. 148-152, Paris, 1873) will show that the transfer of the Latin accented o into the French language is subject to laws which, if they are not unexceptional, are nevertheless positive and stringent, and that in no case has a Latin accented o produced in French two syllables. DR. CHARNOCK Concludes by saying :

"Looking at homo, which in old French first became home, hom, before it became om, and finally on, I should say that heur was more probably an earlier form than

eur, eür."

Couci, xii. (12th century).

Joie d'amour, se bon eür m'i maine."
Couci, xiv. (12th century).
"Dame Diex par sa grâce lui renvoit bon eür."

Berte aux Grands Pieds, xli. (13th century).
"Et miex vient de bon eür nestre
Qu'estre de bons [ie. riches], c'est dit pieça."
Lai de l'Ombre (13th century).

"En mal eür, dist Refrangiers,
Trop par estes adès maniers [i.e. habile]."
Roman du Renart, 2545 (13th century).

As

I will, for the present, say nothing on the fact that Bercheure in his translation of Livy renders augurium by aür, though I persist in advancing that this also is an argument against heur coming from hora, for it would draw me into a discussion on the meaning of heur in old French, and this answer is already much longer than I had wished. I must, however, add one more remark. MR. SKEAT has very rightly said in "N. & Q." (5th S. iii. 310), what we want in etymology, French as well as English, is "not ideas, but facts.' DR. CHARNOCK is right in advancing under cover I have asked DR. CHARNOCK to give facts; those of such expressions as I should say" and "more he produces in his reply are, as I believe I have probably," for not one of the assertions contained showed, not only not convincing, but inaccurate. in this short sentence is correct. First, homo did As for myself, I have not offered him opinions, not in old French become home, hom (with an not even the opinions of such authorities as Littré h), before it became om. It so happens that in and Brachet, but facts. My facts may be inprobably the oldest text in the French language correct or not to the point; but until they have (Le Serment de Strasbourg, anno 842) the word been proved, by other facts, to be either the one occurs, and its form there is om, without an h:or the other, or both, the accepted etymology of "Si cum om [homo] per dreit son fradra [frère] heur from augurium will remain on an unshaken salvar dist [doit]." The fact is, the addition or basis. suppression of the letter h in French proves nothing either for or against the derivation of a word from the Latin, as may easily be seen by huile from oleum, huitre from ostrea, huit from octo, &c., in which the h is added, and by the following, in which it is dropped, avoir from habere,

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Paris.

A. BELJAME.

SPALDING AND ITS ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY (5th S. vii. 48, 190.)-In 1861, while perambulating Lincolnshire, and making notes which were afterwards printed in Eastern England, from the Thames to

the Humber, I visited Spalding, and can perhaps answer the query with which H. P. D. concludes his interesting article on the Antiquarian Society of that ancient town. Whatever may be the case now, the Spalding Gentlemen's Society was then in existence. They hold, so runs my note,"their sittings in the front room of an old house near the market place, approached by a stair from a butcher's shop-an incongruity which is explained by the fact that the room belongs to the society, the house to some one else. You might almost fancy the place to have been an astrologer's consulting room; for it has the same old presses that are represented in old engravings; the same chemical apparatus; the same green table and rush-bottomed chairs; the same big lizard and snake hanging from the ceiling. There are books of travel, of science and philosophy, and the society's archives; and above the mantelpiece an old map of the town and neighbourhood, on which, among the explanatory notes, you may read that Spalding was dedicated to Venus because it was said to have sprung from the foam of the

sea."

WALTER WHITE.

The readers of " N. & Q." will find a good account of this society, its founder Mr. Maurice Johnson, Dr. Stukeley (a Holbeach man), and of their local associates, in the Provincial Literary Repository, a monthly magazine, published in Spalding by Albin during the years 1801 and 1802. The publication also gives a good summary of the history of Spalding, taken from the minutes of the society.

With regard to the present condition of the Gentlemen's there are several members. The Rev. Edward Moore, F.S.A. (a member of the founder's family), is the president; and although he devotes much of his spare time to local antiquities, and has been the chief mover in restoring (and saving from ruin the beautiful west front) the Abbey of Croyland, and Spalding and Weston churches, he has, I fear, from the dearth of kindred spirits in the town of Spalding and the locality, being unable to have many meetings of the members. I cannot but feel the society ought to extend its sphere of usefulness, and to do this it requires another Maurice Johnson to resuscitate it, as its founder did the parent society in 1717.

The library and museum are in a quaint oldfashioned room, part of a private house, situate at the foot of the High Bridge, Spalding, over what was recently a fishmonger's shop. The library, though not large, contains some valuable books. I, however, place the highest value on the four volumes containing the minutes, which are well written, and the letters and correspondence between Maurice Johnson, Stukeley, Cole, and other leading antiquaries of their time. To the local antiquary the MSS. are exceedingly valuable, embodying, as they do, the researches of Johnson, Stukeley, Cole, and others, who devoted much time to the past history of the fens. Mr. Moore will, I am sure, give any of your readers information as to

the society, as well as access to the library. The late Dr. Moore, Vicar of Spalding, some years prior to his death, wrote and published an account of the society, with a list of its then past and present members. W. E. FOSTER, F.S.A. Aldershot.

BLOOD RELATIONS (5th S. vii. 149, 198.)-The difference between the two correspondents as to the definition of blood relations may perhaps be reconciled by a reference to the circumstance that the consanguineus" in a legal early use of the term " sense was not the same as that which it now has. Consanguinity was determined by descent from a common father, as Justinian (Inst., iii. 2, 1), in describing the succession of agnates, prescribes :

"Itaque eodem patre nati fratres agnati sibi sunt, qui et consanguinei vocantur." The same appears in the earlier Institutes of Gaius (lib. iii. § 10). But this is one of the sections in which the text is defective, and has to be supplied. Mr. Poste (ed. Oxf., 1871, p. 252) similarly remarks:

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'Consanguinei, brothers or sisters by the same father properly included among agnates, being agnates of the opposed to brothers or sisters by the same mother, are first degree."

All this was changed by Nov. xviii. (c. iv.), which provides:

"Nullam vero differentiam esse volumus......inter masculos et feminas ad hereditatem vocatos......sive per masculum sive per feminam defuncto conjungantur: sed in omnibus successionibus agnatorum et cognatorum differentiam cessare volumus."

ED. MARSHALL.

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BONVYLE FAMILY (5th S. vi. 447; vii. 52.)— There are some errors and omissions in SIR JOHN MACLEAN'S extract from his pedigree of Bonville which need correction and supplying. The manor of Shute, near Axminster, which became the chief residence of the Bonvilles, was acquired by marriage in the reign of Edw. I. It remained in the family till the extinction of heirs male in the direct line by the death of John Bonville, Esq., in 1495.

Elizabeth Fitz-Roger, by her marriage with John Bonville, eldest son of Sir William, brought into the family the manor and hundred of Chewton-Mendip; the manors of Westkington, Wilts; Selling, Kent; Merston, Sussex; and Glen-magna,

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