(1.) The clerk said it used to be "that all may be saved," &c. The dots indicate where the letters are broken off. What the first two words are I cannot say if we take the first letter for M, then we may say 66 Might." Probably part of the second word is destroyed. (2.) The letters in the last two divisions may be taken in many ways, but in none very clearly. Can any one suggest the remainder after "benedicta tu"? (3.) These words are placed on shields, the one between "help" and "ih" being properly charged. Cumberland, p. 510). If Mr. Jewitt can show that the "broad-sheet" of which he speaks was printed more than a quarter of a century before 1809, then Mark Lonsdale's claim at once dissolves into thin air; but till then both charges must stand, as I believe they now do stand, on terra firma. Allow me, however, to remark that I have no quarrel with Mr. Jewitt's collection as a whole. On the contrary, I am glad he has published the Derbyshire Ballads in such a neat style; and I would rejoice to see those of all the other English counties thus gathered together in distinct volumes. SIDNEY GILPIN. THE NATIONAL CREST OF IRELAND.-In a paper in the Anthologice Hibernica by Sylvester O'Halloran, M.R.I.A. (vol. i. p. 173) on the Ancient Heraldic Arms of Ireland, he states that in that country he could obtain no information as to the crest of Ireland; but, on application to the College of Heralds in London, he was informed that the crest of Ireland, as used by our princes at tilts and tournaments, and afterwards by the Henrys and Edwards was "a bleeding hind wounded by an arrow, under the arch of an old castle." J. P. Is this correct? When was it first used and Unfortunately I had not time to get a rubbing. by whom, and when was it discontinued? I shall feel obliged to any of your recent fontcorrespondents who can supply me with correct versions of 1 and 2. ⚫W. C. B. "THE HUMOURS OF HAYFIELD FAIR."-A ballad bearing this title is printed by Mr. Jewitt among his Derbyshire Ballads and Songs, which he says "will be seen to be a version-whether the original one or not remains to be seen-of the favourite ballad usually called 'Come Lasses and Lads';" and he further remarks, "it is, with the exception of here and there a verse, or part of a verse, totally distinct from it." I think it would have been wiser to have kept the suggestion about the "originality" of the Hayfield Fair ballad out of the question altogether. It only contains seven verses in all; the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth of which are copied almost word for word from "Come Lasses and Lads" (Chappell, p. 531); and the second and third are copied equally as literally from Mark Lonsdale's "Last Martinmas gone a Year" (Songs and Ballads of NOTTINGHAM GOOSE FAIR. -I should be glad to know if any collections have been formed towards a history of this celebrated fair, which I believe, in point of antiquity, dates its origin so far back as almost to defy the researches of the antiquary. It is held on October 2 in each year, and is proclaimed by the mayor of Nottingham for eight days. I should also be glad of a reference to any works giving a history of the fair. Kensington. W. D. Queries with Answers. POPULAR SAYINGS.-What is the origin of the following vulgar sayings? 1. "Pull baker, pull devil." 2. "To play up old gooseberry." 3. "To sing old Rose and burn the bellows." HARFRA. [1. The origin of the saying, "Pull Baker, pull Devil," is given in "N. & Q." 2nd S. iii. 258, 316. 2. "To play up Old Gooseberry." Supposing this to be the correct form of the phrase, it would appear to bear a musical, and at the same time a saltatory reference. If there is, or ever was, such a dancing tune as "Old Gooseberry," then " Play up Old Gooseberry" would be equivalent to saying to the musicians, "Strike up the tune of Old Gooseberry, that the dancing may begin.” Another form of the expression, however, and perhaps the more usual one, is simply "To play Old Gooseberry,” not "To play up." "To play Old Gooseberry," means much the same as "To play the Dickens," or "To play the Deuce." Either of these expressions, and perhaps one as much as the other, is applied vernacularly to a mischievous character, or to one who has utterly mismanaged some business that he had in hand, nay, who has actually done mischief, or "made a mess of it." Sometimes also, referring to the future, the terms imply a caution:-"If you let him have his own way in that affair, he'll play the Deuce with it"; "If you don't keep a tight hand on him, he'll play the Dickens"; and, in the same way, "If you leave it to him, he'll play Old Gooseberry." But why" Old Gooseberry?" "Old Gooseberry," in the connection last specified, would seem to be old gooseberry wine. Wine made from gooseberries by keeping becomes brisk and sparkling, like champagne. If, on entering your cellar, you find that a lively old bottle of such gooseberry has burst and carried havoc amongst its neighbours, you will then know ex perimentally what is meant by "playing Old Gooseberry." 3. The origin of the phrase, "Sing Old Rose and burn the bellows," in one of Izaak Walton's favourite songs, is uncertain. There are two conjectural statements respecting it in " N. & Q." 2nd S. ix. 264.] ANONYMOUS.-I have a tract, Church Pageantry Display'd; or, Organ-Worship Arraign'd and Condemn'd. By Eugenius, Junior. London: Printed in Usum Vitaliani Filiorum. MDCC. There is no printer's name. "In usum Vitaliani Filiorum" is employed because the writer ascribes the introduction of organs to Pope Vitalian. He quotes the Rev. Mr. H. the present Rector of All Souls in Colchester (Ceremony Monger, ch. i. pp. 11, 17), who expresses himself thus: "His Cape, his Hood, his Surplice, his Rochet, his cringing Worship, his Altars with Candles on 'em, his Bagpipes or Organs, and in some places Viols and Violins, and Singing Bass, are so very like Popery, that (saith he) I protest when I came in 1660 from beyond sea to Paul's and Whitehall, I cou'd scarce think myself to be in England, but in Spain or Portugal again." Eugenius speaks of his opponents as "Ecclesiastical Tantivies." By the tone of his tract, by his use of the word "bairns" (p. 21), and his praise of Bishop Burnet in more than one place, I take the author to be a Scotchman. Bound up with this is another tract in small quarto, The Great Question concerning Things Indifferent in Religious Worship briefly stated. The Second Edition. London: Printed in the year 1660. There is no printer's name. HYDE CLARKE. [1. The following imprint may be found in some copies of Church Pageantry Display'd: "London, Printed for A. Baldwin, at the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane. 1700.” 2. The second tract is by Edward Bagshaw. There is some account of this "turbulent Nonconformist," as Dr. Kennett styles him in his Parochial Antiquities, in Wood's Athena (Bliss), iii. 944-950, and in The Nonconformist's Memorial, by Calamy and Palmer, iii. 111-114.] JACK AND JILL. "Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water," &c. Is Jill a male or female? What is the generally received notion on the subject? I have heard much discussion on the point lately. C. L. S. [Jack and Gill were measures. "Wherefore," says Grumio, "be the Jacks fair within, and the Gills fair without," meaning the leathern jacks clean within, and the metal gills polished without. These became familiar representatives of the two sexes, as in the proverbs, "Every Jack must have his Gill;" and "A good Jack makes a good Gill." The expression occurs in John Heywood's Dialogue of Wit and Folly, Percy Society's edition, p. 11 : "No more hath he in mynde, ether payne or care, LONG BRETHREN.-Three principal monks, GEORGE LLOYD. Replies. THE IRISH HARP. (3rd S. xii. 141.) The old monkish chroniclers, in the quiet cells of their convents, invented strange stories, and they did not condescend to commence their histories later than the dates of events mentioned in the Old Testament, or by Homer. When Adam was driven out of Paradise, Noah walked out of Troy, were their favourite epochs. In a chronicle the ark, or Æneas escaped from the burning of of the bishops of London, down to 1483, we find them, the bishops, traced back to Noah and to Adam. The Spanish chroniclers present an unbroken line of their kings up to Tubal Cain. Silesia was named from the prophet Elisha, of whom the Silesians say they are lineal derenowned son of Priam. Tours owes its name to Turonius, one of the Trojan heroes; and the city of Troyes was really founded by them, as its name clearly proves. Britain is, in like manner, the land of Brute, the grandson of Ascanius, who, having the misfortune to kill his father, fled over to Britain, and subjugated the giants who once dwelt here. An equally veracious long line of shadowy kings is boasted by the Scotch, and they actually have their portraits painted and exhibited in Holyrood House, Edinburgh. Nay more, they actually show among other shams the stains of Rizzio's blood on the floor, though the building, in which that murder was committed, was burned down in 1650. Crowds of gaping country people come up to Edinburgh by excursion train, every summer, to see the apartments of Mary Queen of Scots, in a building that was burnt to the ground by Cromwell's soldiery. [These monks are thus noticed by Bingham (Anti-scendants. The city of Paris, was founded by the quities of the Christian Church, book vii. chap. ii. sect. 14): "Another name which the historians give to some Egyptian monks, who were deeply concerned in the disputes between Theophilus and Chrysostom, is the title of Marpol, or Longi; but this was peculiar to four brethren, Dioscorus, Ammonius, Eusebius, and Euthymius, who were noted by this name for no other reason, as Sozomen (lib. vii. c. 30) observes, but only because they were tall of stature. In Sidonius Apollinaris they are sometimes called cellulani, from their living in cells (lib. ix. Ep. iii. ad Faustum), and insulani, islanders, because the famous monastery in the Isle of Lerins was the place where most of the French bishops and learned men in those ages had their education. So this was a peculiar name for the monks of Lerins."] QUOTATIONS. But in Ireland, alas! the last civilised of European countries, we have a stronger dose still— there the ravings of the bards are added to the inventions of the chroniclers, and their absurd fictions are not only believed in to this day, but we are asked to swallow them. Mr. O'Connor, author of the Dissertations, owned to Dr. Warner "that the heat of youth and amor patriæ had inclined him to extend the matter (the antiquities of Ireland) beyond the rigour to which he should have confined himself." But, as an Irishman myself, I must say that I do not see any amor patriæ in the matter. I would much rather point out the truth, how that, under the fostering hands of English teachers, we have so soon emerged from barbarous ignorance, than boast of our ancient civilisation, which I know cannot be true, and is laughed at by every antiquary in Europe. It may do for pagan O'Learys, or Irish helps in New York, to talk of Tuatha-na-Daanans, Milesians, or to quote Keating as an authority, but it should not be offered to the readers of "N. & Q." They, generally speaking, do not know that Keating tells us of two visits to Ireland before the Deluge. One was by Seth and some daughters of Cain; the other was by a lady named Ceasarea, who arrived just forty days before the Flood. How accurate these old chroniclers were! But let us hear what Keating says about the Milesians. One Fenius, the grandson of Japhet, from whom the modern Fenians take their name, was in the plains of Shinar when Nimrod, and his profane confederates, insanely attempted to build the Tower of Babel. Fenius did not join them, and he was rewarded by not losing the gartigarran, or original language, and thus it is, that to this day, the language spoken in the Garden of Eden is that spoken in Ireland. But Fenius learned other languages, and discovered and taught the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin alphabets! His grandson, Gadelus, was dangerously bitten by a serpent, but the wound was miraculously cured by a fast friend of Fenius, no other than the prophet Moses. It is absurdly stated that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland; but it was done ages before by the Jewish prophet, who, when he cured Gadelus, said that, wherever his posterity should remain or inhabit, there should be no serpents; and so there is none in Ireland, or in Crete, formerly head-quarters of the Milesian race. An old Irish rhymester has thus paraphrased the words of Moses: "The holy prophet was inspired to see Into events of dark futurity, from Thrace to Gothland, from Gothland to Spain, and from Spain to Ireland." Nor did Gadelus land with the Milesians in Ireland; as they were two or three hundred years on their wanderings, we may so suppose. Milidh, who appears to have been his grandson, and who married another Scota, daughter of another Pharaoh, led the host. The Tuatha-na-Danaans, who then ruled Ireland, were a nation of sorcerers. MR. O'CAVANAGH, on the authority of the senachies (chroniclers), records that three harpers accompanied them to Ireland hundreds of years before this advent of the Milesians. Being sorcerers, as I have said, and knowing that the fleet of Milidh contained their bitter foes, they caused Ireland to look no larger than a hog's back, thinking to deceive their enemies. But the Milesians were not to be taken in with such petty deceptions; they landed, and three days after fought a great battle with the Tuatha-na-Danaans. I need not say that the Milesians were the victors; but Scota, who appears to have been an amazon, was slain, and her place of burial is shown to this day. So minute was this history that the inventors of it were forced to make a Deus ex machina to carry it down, the more so that, although Fenius invented three alphabets, there was still a shrewd idea, that the Irish did not know the art of writing, till it was taught to them by St. Patrick. So the machina was a man named Caiolte MacRonain, who should be introduced to those readers of "N. & Q." who are fond of hearing of And said-'For thee, young prince, Heaven has in great longevities, for he lived some two or three store Blessings that mortals scarce enjoyed before; Shall ever blast that land or be the cause of death; thousand years, and told the whole story to St. Patrick, who carefully wrote it down. Caiolte was then baptised by the saint, and died at last in the odour of great sanctity, and is, I believe, an Irish saint until this day. And so an old Irish rhymester says: 66 From Gadelus the Irish have their name, The Scots from Scota, Feini from Fenius." I am ashamed to quote such puerile rubbish, but I do it to show a specimen of Keating, an author quoted by MR. O'CAVANAGH as an authority for the antiquity of the Irish harp. Moore, from his being a poet, and from his great love of country, would have liked to introduce the Milesians into his History of Ireland, but found he really could not. And one of his reasons I may just give. Ptolemy, the geographer, published an extraordinarily correct map of Ireland in the second century, and gives the names of the tribes which then inhabited it; and there is not one name amongst them, that can be phonographically tortured to any resemblance to Gael or Scot. Cellarius long ago drew the same conclusions from it. He says: "Hos populos Ptolemæus in Hibernia The Latinised form of Gadhoil or Gael. prodidit; nullos autem in illis recensuit Scotos, quod ideo posteriores, saltem nomen illorum, oportet in hæc insula fuisse." I again repeat that I am ashamed to quote such rubbish: the very name of Milesian is a jest to the antiquaries of Europe. Indeed, as there is no credit given to any account of Irish kings previous to the Christian era, the simple cyphers A.M., or anno mundi, prescribed so generally to Irish histories, is well interpreted Asinaria Maxima, and provokes perpetual laughter wherever it is seen. The fables of the Welsh, as told to us by Geoffrey of Monmouth, are sober and sapient in comparison to the Irish fictions. Though we hear of a Brute, a grandson of Ascanius, settling in Britain about a thousand years before the Christian era, yet he tells us also of a Guendolana, a Locrine and an Imogene, a Bladud, a Lear and his daughters, a Belinus, a Lud, an Arthur, and others, all non-existences, but living as long as our language exists embalmed in poetry and romance. But the Milesian fictions are beneath contempt both as history or poetry. Still the Irish antiquaries-save the mark-knew what they were about: by pretending to trace the chief families of Ireland up to Milesius, they engaged them also under the banner of the pitiful delusion. The readers of "N. & Q.," however, know something about genealogy; they know that with all the modern appliances for tracing pedigrees, with lists of members of parliament, lists of grand and petty jurymen, tombstones, heralds' visitations, newspapers, and the thousand-and-one means we have now that were utterly unknown to the ancient Irish, we find it exceedingly difficult to trace even a noble pedigree for three hundred years. Yet we are told that ignorant senachies, who could neither read nor write, traced pedigrees for upwards of a thousand years. Moreover, the system of tanistry that obtained in Ireland, by which, not the direct heir, but the best man of the tribe succeeded to the chieftainship, rendered it utterly impossible. And though a set of barren spectators laugh at a Milesian pedigree taking its rise, as they all do, from Adam, yet the judicious must grieve, they all bearing their inaccuracy conspicuous on their faces, as the lawyer would say, they being invariably traced from father to son! WILLIAM PINKERTON. (To be continued.) PUTTING A MAN UNDER A POT. (3rd S. xi. 277.) I have but recently procured the two last volumes of "N. & Q.," and have consequently an immense arrear of questions and answers to read up. It is thus very probable that by this time more than one solution has been furnished to the enigma propounded by MR. WALTER W. SKEAT: assuredly one of the hardest nuts ever given out to be cracked. The explanation on which I venture as to the meaning of "putting a man under a pot" is as follows: It is notorious that in the palmy days of monachism every conventual building contained an in pace or solitary cell, commonly underground, and as commonly entered only from a hole in the ceiling, and precisely corresponding to the oubliette of the baronial strongholds. The remote ancestor of both in pace and oubliette was the carnificium or lowermost dungeon of the Romans; the horrible hole into which the victim was lowered to be handled by the hangman, and out of which he could be drawn only by the uncus or hook. This lowermost pit is to this day extant in the Mamertine prisons at Rome. To the conventual in pace of the middle ages were consigned profligate and refractory, and, it is to be feared, sometimes merely useless or troublesome friars. The term of in pace applied to these dungeons arose from the circumstance that a horrible mockery of religious ceremonial was gone through when the culprit was consigned to his living tomb. Being duly immured therein, the abbot cast a handful of earth upon him, and said, "Vade in pace," the which was equivalent to "Stay there and rot." It is believed that in some rare instances the victim, with nothing more than a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water to sustain life, was absolutely bricked up in his prison, where he speedily died the most horrible of deaths. Such was the fate of Scott's Constance de Beverley, and of the "Nell Cook" of Ingoldsby's appalling ghost story, who, having been convicted of poisoning in a "warden pie a certain canon, her master and paramour, was buried alive under the pavement of the "Jail Entry " in the Cathedral Close at Canterbury; the remains of the poisoned pie being placed beside her in the sepulchre. Preferring, however, to deal with fact rather than fiction, it would seem that the in pace meant simply solitary confinement on very scant rations, and for a period entirely at the pleasure of the abbot. It may be that this captivity was sometimes life-long. It must be borne in mind, however, that these convent dungeons were not entirely to be attributed to the monkish cruelty and tyranny. They were simply ecclesiastical prisons; and the clergy claimed with great jealousy the privilege of dealing with their own criminals in their own manner. Thus the hospital of Bicêtre in Paris, which formerly contained a number of hideous little cells called cabanons answering to the in pace, is said to have been originally erected as a place of correction for dissolute monks by an English Bishop of Winchester, of whose title "Bicêtre " itself is held to be only a corruption. At the suppression of the monasteries at the great French Revolution num |