of the Shrewsbury and Talbot families, was burnt down in 1710, except the porch and the gable to the right of it, which Dr. Nash supposes to have formed part of the old hall. This porch Nash likens to" the gateway of the Schools at Oxford, but of much more ancient date." There is about fifty years' difference in their respective dates, the Schools having been erected in 1613, whilst over the entrance porch at Grafton are the arms of Elizabeth and her monogram, with the date 1567. On the upper part of the window, in incised Roman lettering, are these words :

PLENTI AND GRASE

BI IN THIS PLACE.

WHYLE EVERI MAN IS PLEASED IN HIS DEGRE
THERE IS BOTH PEACE AND UNETI.
SALAMAN SAITH THERE IS NONE ACCORDE
WHEN EVERI MAN WOULD BI A LORDE.

After the lettering was set out it was found that
there was not quite length enough in the frieze
itself to contain the line; it was therefore quaintly
continued upon another slab extending beyond the
window on the same level. This motto was well
adapted to the latter end of Elizabeth's reign and
that of James I., whose favourites, thinking the
monarch's profusion endless, imitated him in his
extravagance ; witness Hay, Lord Carlisle, of
whose dress and entertainment wonderful stories
are told. In the pediment above the window is
the figure of a dog passant, the badge of the
Talbots, and the motto, "Fiat voluntas tua." In
the wall beneath the window are the remains of a
curious drinking fountain.
W. A. C.
Bromsgrove.

In the Blackfriars' Wynd, Edinburgh, there was formerly a doorway which would have interested MR. NUTT, although scarcely "mediæval." It is now, I fear, improved away, like so many more of the delightful buildings of the "auld toun." Over the door was:

"Pax intrantibus, Salus exeuntibus."

contradistinction from the meadow or pasture. Syden-ham would be the sown farm; Sydn-ey, the cropped or sown island. In A.-S. y, a, and e, are frequently interchangeable: sylf or self-self; syllan to give, selen a gift. The nomenclature in Kent is for the most part unmistakably Saxon, but there are here and there clear indications of a Norse infusion, arising from the Danish irruptions in the ninth century, e.g. Lewisham, Norse Ljosheim, the bright or pleasant place, equivalent to A.-S. Bright-stowe or Bristol; Beckenham, the settlement by the brook; Eltham, from Norse Elliði, a farm. Mottingham has a curious combination. Mot or moot was the meeting-place for the township or parish; thing, the place for the assembly of the shire. In Mottingham both seem to be combined. Taylor, however, derives it Sheerness, Lessness, Romney, Herne, &c., illustrate Such names as from mottings, a Saxon tribe.

the Danish or Norse influence. J. A. PICTON. Sandyknowe, Wavertree.

HERMENTRUDE asks for the meaning of syd in Sydney and Sydenham. Surely it is south, Sydney meaning "south island." The Sydneys held the manor of Kingsham, near Chichester, from a very early date, and probably derived their name from some island in or near Bosham Creek, Portsmouth Harbour, or some of the other lagoons of the Sussex coast. Similarly the Shelleys, another very old Sussex family, probably derived their name from a shell island. A. N. Athenæum Club.

The former word, the better spelling of which is Sidney, is generally, and I believe correctly, considered to be derived from St. Denis, just as St. Clair becomes Sinclair, and just as St. Leger is pronounced Selleger, and St. John, Sinjohn. S. O. ADDY.

Sheffield.

St. Denis. It is a favourite name of Israelites, some thinking it to come from Sidon. Sydney is found as a female name. R. S. CHARNOCK. Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Is not Sydenham a corruption of Chippenham, the place where the fair or market was held?

E. H. M.

"TEAGLE":"SECTACLE" (6th S. v. 49).-Is not X. C. tumbling over a straw in being puzzled by the word which he writes "sectacle"? I have always thought it should be "sack-tackle," the derivation of which is obvious-a tackle or gear fixed outside the upper story of a warehouse for raising sacks of grain or bales of wool from wherries or canal boats beneath. I have invariably heard the word teagle (of whose derivation I am ignorant) applied to a movable tripod

crane with a pulley at the apex, such as would be used for lifting huge blocks of stone; but I have never understood " teagle" and "sack-tackle" to be synonymous terms. FRED. W. JOY, M.A. Cathedral Library, Ely.

Some years ago I witnessed the destruction of a seed warehouse, or rather cake mill, by fire, and when certain apparatus affixed to a doorway in the topmost story gave way a cry went forth that "sectacle hed gone now." The roof fell in soon after. Though puzzled at the moment, I soon satisfied myself that the apparatus thus named was the "sack - tackle," the chain, blocks, pulley, davit, &c., used for raising seed to the various floors. This was in the East Riding.

W. H. "Teagle" is the A.-S. tigl, a windlass; "tractorium, trochlea," in Ælfric's Glossary; connected with A.-S. tige, a band, a tie, but primarily a rope. The A.-S. tigl corresponds to the Old Norse tigill, a little rope; funiculus (Hald.). We have the root in the Swed. tåg, Germ. tau, a cord, a cable. Sectacle must be " sacktackle or "sack-rope," if the word sack is pronounced in Yorkshire as in the neighbouring county of Lancaster. The "teagle" is used for raising sacks or bales to the higher floors of a warehouse. J. D.

"

66

Catholicon Anglicum. Mr. S. J. Herrtage, in his recently issued edition (E.E.T.S.), gives several examples of the use of lit. F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

Cardiff.

GENTLES MUDWALL (6th S. v. 68).—Modwall, S., a kind of woodpecker; G. meid is wood, and S. wigol, from G. ve, veg, holy, consecrated; apparently a name given to birds of divination. See Etymons of English Words, by John Thomson, M.R.I. and A.S., Edinburgh, 1826, and references there. MARS DENIQUE.

the name of the bee-eater, Merops apiaster. Is Coles's Dictionary (ed. 1714) gives mod-wall as

not "mud-wall" the correct form, the word referring to the nests of these birds, which are constructed in holes in the banks of rivers, especially in the banks of the Danube and Volga? The beeeater, as an occasional visitor to these shores, has come to be reckoned a "British bird."

EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A. "ALKERMES" (6th S. v. 68).-In Minsheu's Guide into the Tongues, 1617, this word is given in the Spanish part, with a mark prefixed to show that it is of Arabic origin. Minsheu says:—

"Alquérmes, G. graine d'escarlate. I. Grana de scarlato o morello, Granum cocci. A. The graine wherewith the scarlet red is died, ab Arab. Karmes idem vnde dicitur. H. Carmesi, A. Crimson. Alquermes florum cum pulveribus Coralli margaritarum et aliarum etiam est saccharis confectio, rosarum pulveris et aliorum

rerum cor refocillantium et corroborantium."

The confectio obviously obtained its name from its

Torquay.

WM. PENGELLY.

LISTER OF ARNOLDS, BIGGIN CRAVEN, WEST RIDING, YORKSHIRE (6th S. v. 108).-Halliwell does not give "to let or dye," as your correspondent asserts, but lit, with the following examples: "He'll lie all manner of colours but blue, and that is gone to the litting" (Upton's MS. additions to Junius). "We use na clathes that are littede of dyverse coloures oure wiffes ne are no3te gayly arayed for to plese us" (MS. Lincoln A. i. 17, fol. 53). Is it not somewhat loose writing to make ster" the using of it," an ending so common in the oldest English, and a characteristic sign of the feminine gender, as in webster, baxter, huxter, &c.? The Promptorium Parvu lorum has "Lystare, clothe dyynge (or lytaster of cloth dyynge, s. lytstar, P.), Tinctor." The name occurs in the Paston Letters (vol. i. p. 522, ed. 1872), "And I prey yow for Godds sake to be good mayster to Jon Lyster," &c. "A Littester (Lyster A); tinctor, tinctrix," is given in the

F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

This word is an Arabic compound, derived through the Persian from Sanskrit krimi, a worm; whence, indirectly, vermis, vermicelli, vermilion, worm, cramoisi, crimson.

R. S. CHARNOCK.

idleness. In Essex the word is pronounced bussick oftener than bussock. I may add one or two other words which, I think, probably are peculiar to Essex. Bont, an old man; but, as there rarely happens to be more than one bont on a farm of the same name, if the bont has a son, one is spoken of 28 "th' owd bont," and the other as th' young bont." Stag, to look; as Stag him"; "Stag where it goes"; "Did you stag all the time?" &c. "Stush it," stop it, give over, cease, &c.; as, "Stush that row," addressed by a father to his children.

Dunmow, Essex.

66

J. W. SAVILL, F.R.H.S.

JOHN DICKINSON (6th S. iv. 514; v. 136).— Drake's Dictionary of American Biography merely states that his father, Samuel Dickinson, was a judge. UNEDA. Philadelphia.

THE "CATHOLICON ANGLICUM" (6th S. v, 24, 74, 154). For the use of wolfe= e—a sore or ulcer, cf. "All ulcers whatsoever, bee they woolves, cankerous sores, or otherwise corrosive and eating forward still: yea the very illfavoured Polype and Noli-me-tangere in the nostthrils, the juice of this root dooth cure and heale wonderfully."-Plin., Nat. Hist. (Holland), 1601, ii.

ff. 200-1.

"Housleeke cureth shingles, ringwormes, and such like wildfires, yea if they grow to be Wolves, and begin to putrifie."-Ibid., f. 265.

Cardiff.

F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY.

"inkhorn of Robert Ker," but I have a couple of his fanatical works produced therefrom (see " N. & Q.," 2nd S. viii. 145). If the subject is continued, I beg to contribute the following appropriate extract from that social and religious_reformer's Glass, wherein Nobles, Priests, and People may see the Lord's Controversies against Britain:—

"The true Signification of the Name Ker, as it is derived from it proper Fountain in the Hebrew. It is derived from that Place called Cherith, in the Hebrew called Kereth, which is a Noun Feminine, from the Root Kora, which signifies In Call, he digged, he pierced throw; also he made a Feast, he bought, he purchased. 2. He was digged upon; in the Caldaick Tongue it signifies he 7, 15: Ker signifies a Lamb, in the Plural Numbers was pierced through, he was grieved in Spirit. Daniel Lambs, Isa. 54. 6. a Pasture to feed Lambs in, Isa. 30, 23. Also Furniture for Beasts. Gen. 31, 34. in the Plural it signifies Rams, Pastures; also Captains of Armies, Ezek. 4. 2. And battering Iron Rams, made to batter down Walls and Fortifications. Karath signifies he cut assunder, or he cut off, and being joined with the Noun Berith a Covenant, is, he made a Covenant, as Deut. 5, 5. Because in the making of Covenants, they used the Cutting of Beasts, Gen. 15, 10, 17. Kerituth signifies a Devorcement, the Cutting assunder of Marriage, as it were. Isaiah 50, 1."

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

NUMISMATIC: JAMES II.: GUN MONEY (6th S. iv. 348, 475; v. 118).-MR. W. STAVENHAGEN JONES'S query as to the date upon his half-crown, February, 1689, has been explained by the note appended to it by the Editor, but he still appears to be somewhat confused as to the then current mode of reckoning. James's "gun-money" coins were dated from the civil year, which commenced on March 25; consequently the date upon my half-crown, August, 1690, and that upon his shilling, September, 1690, do not mean, as he supposes, 1689/90, but 1690/91. In the Numismatic Chronicle, new series, vol. x., 1870, is an exhaustive paper, by Dr. A. Smith, descriptive of every known variety of James's "gun money," or, as he

66

EBORACUM (6th S. v. 69, 131).-Ebora is Evora, a fortified town in Portugal, with an ecclesiastical seminary and a college. B and v are, of course, convertible. It had a printing press at a comparatively early date, and I came recently upon a book printed at Ebora in the sixteenth century, 66 cum typis academicis." The suggestion of White and Riddle, mentioned by MR. TEW, that Ebora is "now perhaps Ixar" (6th S. v. 132), strikes me as singular. JOSEPH KNIGHT.

[Other papers next week.]

he at least deserves the credit of having introduced a better, because a more careful and truthful, spirit into the compilation of such works in our own day, and has at any rate rendered it necessary for his rivals, if they follow his example in many respects wherein his method would successfully compete with him for the future, to most materially differs from that which they have hitherto pursued. The time, in fact, has passed when genealogical writers could afford to " dip their pens in nothing but the milk of human kindness," and endow everybody they happened to take under their patronage with ancestors of precisely the pattern they desired. Mr. Foster has excluded all manifestly fabulous genealogies from his work, and the genealogies which he gives appear to us to be on the whole as trustworthy and complete as could well be expected. Ordinarily they commence with the grantees of the

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c. The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage of the British Empire. By Joseph Foster. Third Edition. (Nichols & Sons.) MR. FOSTER'S Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage has now reached a third annual edition, and, to judge from the account which its author is enabled to give of the sale of the two earlier impressions, there seems to be no doubt that it is entitled to be regarded as a conspicuous and, it may be anticipated, a permanent success. Independently of its more solid claims to public esteem, anybody who takes up and turns over the pages of the work may easily discover why it has commanded and is likely to retain a wide popularity. Besides being excellently printed and admirably (although occasionally, perhaps, a little grotesquely) illustrated, it professes to give "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," whether pleasant or unpleasant, about the various families with whose history it deals; and it includes the names of a vast number of persons more or less remotely descended from or related to peers and baronets, who find themselves unnoticed in all other compilations of a similar kind. The interest of genealogical investigation is certainly not restricted within the narrow bounds prescribed by the limitations of a patent, and no pedigree is of much value, save for the purpose of special and immediate reference, which does not embrace the collateral branches as well as the main stem of a family tree. It is still more obvious that historical accuracy should be made the principal aim, and should be looked upon as the chief recommendation of all genealogical works with any pretensions to lasting consideration. And whatever may be

this is the case it is clear that there is very little room for invention or mistake. The Duke of Northumberland's pedigree, for example, begins, not with " William de Percy" in the eleventh, or "Josceline of Louvain" in the twelfth century, but with Sir Hugh Smithson of Stanwick, created a baronet in 1660, whose great-greatgrandson was Sir Hugh Smithson, fourth baronet, created Duke of Northumberland in 1766. Yet, although the male descent of the Duke of Northumberland is from the Smithsons, he is undoubtedly the heir general of the great house of Percy, and as such the possessor of their ancestral domains. Thus there would have been no impropriety, we should imagine, in setting forth his grace's more illustrious as well as his less distinguished descent. Here Mr. Foster would have done wisely to imitate Sir Bernard Burke, for no work on the genealogy of the peerage can be regarded as complete which omits so illustrious and historic a line as that of the Percies, Earls of Northumberland, while their titles, although under a new creation, are held by their descendants, the inheritors alike of their blood and their estates. Very different is the case, for example, of the Earl of Lytton. Mr. Foster rightly enough commences his pedigree with William Wiggett, of Wood Dalling and Guestwick, who assumed his mother's name and arms of Bulwer by Act of Parliament in 1756. It is probable that the Bulwers were better bred than the Wiggetts, but there is no reason that we are aware of why their genealogy should be preserved, like that of the Percies, on general grounds. From the old family of Lytton of Lytton and Knebworth, the Earl of Lytton is destitute of any descent whatever, and the shape which is given to his pedigree by Sir Bernard Burke falls little short of a hoax. It begins with "Sir Robert de Lytton of Lytton, in the county of Derby, Comptroller of the Household to King Henry IV.," and passes in the course of several generations to "Sir Rowland Lytton of Knebworth, one of the representatives of Herts in the healing Parliament of Charles II." Sir Rowland Lytton's daughter Judith married as her second husband Sir Nicholas Strode, by whom she was the mother of Sir George Strode, who married Margaret, daughter of John Robinson, by whom he had a son, Lytton Strode. Lytton Strode succeeded his great-uncle, Sir William Lytton, son of Sir Rowland Lytton, in the possession of Knebworth, and assumed the name of Lytton, but dying without issue in 1710 he "devised the estates to his first cousin (ex parte materna)," namely William Robinson, who had not a drop of Lytton blood in his veins. His daughter and heiress married William Warburton, and their granddaughter and heiress married William Earle Bulwer, and by him was the grandmother of the Earl of Lytton. In avoiding anything like this