-

can there be found any authority for a belief that the custom spoken of ever existed among the aborigines of America. Equally wide of the mark is the attempt to trace Yankee Doodle from Yenghi Dounia, which is said to be very good Persian for America, though how such an insular and stationary people as the Persians should ever hear of America, and coin a word specially to express the name of the country, and to suit their vocabulary, does not seem to have been considered by those who suggested that fanciful derivation. The word Yankee undoubtedly had the Yenghees origin referred to above, but it does not seem to have been very common until the time of the Revolutionary war. I have not met with it in any writings previous to that time; and in letters in which the word occurs, written in 1775, it is referred to in a manner which shows that the writer considered it something new, and intended to be contemptuous, used as it was by their then enemies, the British soldiers. Noah Webster, in his Dictionary, gives the Yenghees origin of the word, upon the authority of Heckewelder; and that fact may account for its being looked upon in New England as something novel. Heckewelder is excellent authority upon Indian subjects; but he spent his time principally among the Delawares and the Six Nations, and was not likely to be well acquainted with the Massachusetts Indians, who spoke a different dialect. Several of the regiments of British regulars who were transferred to Boston after the beginning of the troubles, had been stationed in the middle colonies, and had considerable experience in Indian warfare, and may have thus acquired a knowledge of the word. The 18th, or Royal Irish, for instance, had been engaged in nearly all the battles which had taken place in the colonies during two French wars, and they had acquired much familiarity with American affairs. That the word was rather uncommon in New England, is shown by various letters written from them. One from the Rev. Wm. Gordon, published in the Penna Gazette, May 10, 1775, giving an account of the skirmishes at Concord and Lexington, says, They (the British troops) were roughly handled by the Yankees, a term of reproach for the New Englanders, when applied by the regulars." Another letter, published in the same paper a few weeks afterwards, dated "Hartford, Connecticut," gives an account of the capture of several letters from English officers in Boston, to their friends in England, and says, some of them are full of invectives against the poor Yankees, as they call us." From these facts it seems probable that the word was so unusual in New England that the writers thought themselves obliged to explain it. It was soon adopted, however. In a few months thereafter the citizens of Newbury fitted out a privateer called the Yankee Hero; and the name was used when speaking of the New Englanders, being spelt

66

at times Yankie, Yanko, Yankoo, Yanku, and Yankee, as if its orthography was not settled. At this day it is only applied in the United States to the inhabitants of New England; but foreigners use it to designate all Americans.

The origin of Yankee Doodle is by no means as clear as American antiquaries desire. The reply given by MR. MACKENZIE WALCOTT (Vol. iv., p. 393.), which states that the air was composed by Dr. Shuckburg, in 1755, when the Colonial troops united with the British regulars near Albany for the conquest of Canada, and that it was produced in derision of the old-fashioned manners of the provincial soldiers, when contrasted with the neat and dandified appearance of the regulars, was published some years ago in a musical magazine printed in Boston. The authority for MR. WALCOTT'S statement is not given; and if it is any other than that in the periodical referred to, he would much oblige American readers by stating it. MR. SAMPSON WALKER asks (Vol. iv., p. 344.) for "the origin of the song, or if the tune is older than the song;" and in giving him another version of the history of the air than Dr. Shuckburg's account, I shall have to refer him to authority which he and all your readers have better means of consulting than the citizens of the United States. MR. WALKER asks "for the words of the song." There is no song: the tune in the United States is a march; there are no words to it of a national character. The only words ever affixed to the air in this country is the following doggerel quatrain:

"Yankee Doodle came to town
Upon a little pony,

He stuck a feather in his hat
And called it macaroni."

It has been asserted by writers in this country, that the air and words of these lines are as old as Cromwell's time. The only alteration is in making Yankee Doodle of what was Nankee Doodle. It is asserted that the tune will be found in the Musical Antiquities of England, and that Nankee Doodle was intended to apply to Cromwell, and the other lines were designed to "allude to his going into Oxford with a single plume, fastened in a knot The tune was known in New called a macaroni." England before the Revolution as Lydia Fisher's Jig, and there were verses to it commencing: Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Lydia Fisher found it, Not a bit of money in it, Only binding round it."

The regulars in Boston in 1775 and 1776 are said to have sung verses to the same air : "Yankee Doodle came to town,

For to buy a firelock;

We will tar and feather him,

And so we will John Hanccek," &c.

The manner in which the tune came to be adopted by the Americans is shown in the following letter of the Rev. W. Gordon. Describing the battles of Lexington and Concord, before alluded to, he says:

"The brigade under Lord Percy marched out [of Boston] playing, by way of contempt, Yankee Doodle: they were afterwards told they had been made to dance to it."

The air thus intended as a slur upon the Americans was immediately adopted by them, used throughout the Revolutionary war, and ever since. I have taken up a good deal of room with this Yankee matter; but as the subject is one which has engaged the attention of your readers, I trust I will be excused for giving all the American information upon a topic which has somewhat engaged my attention. I hope that this note may attract the notice of some of your readers who are able to throw some light upon the following questions:

1. Is there a book called the Musical Antiquities of England?

2. If so, does that work contain the tune Nankee Doodle?

3. If so, what is the origin of the air? does it refer to Cromwell or not?

4. Do any of your readers know a tune called Lydia Fisher's Jig, or one to which is sung the words Lucy Lockett, &c.

5. Who was Dr. Shuckburg, and on what authority is the composition of Yankee Doodle ascribed to him? T. WESTCOTT.

Philadelphia, U. S. A., June 5, 1852.

PLAGUE STONES.

(Vol. v., passim.)

I have inclosed some impressions of a "plaguestone" in my collection, which you will oblige me by distributing, so far as lies in your power, amongst such of your correspondents as have shown an interest in the subject. I shall be glad to supply more if required.

I have been led to have it drawn upon stone, and printed, by the many notices which have appeared in "N. & Q." during the past few months, all tending rather to discountenance the idea of any special provision of this kind. Two or more instances have been enumerated in which sotermed "plague-stones" have with more or less probability formed the sockets of way-side crosses. My specimen, however, clearly testifies that such special provision was occasionally made. depth and size of the dish, being only four and a half inches square, and two inches deep, are wholly insufficient to afford the requisite support to any upright pillars. It likewise stood within the bounds of private property, fifty or sixty yards from the road, which is one of little traffic. More.

The

than all, the anti-popish date of the house itself (1650) precludes the possibility of such an origin. The stone formed part of the inward coping of the garden or court-yard wall of a house in the Wash Dam, at Latchford, near Warrington. From time immemorial it has been known as the Plague Stone; and tradition asserts that in former days several cases of plague occurred in this house. All direct communication with the neighbourhood being cut off, the square dish seen in the stone was made for the express purpose of holding a mixture of vinegar and water to disinfect the money paid for provisions and other necessaries, which were brought and laid down at a distance. The story went that the victims of the pestilence

were buried in a field or croft near the house; and labourers came upon a large flat stone, beneath in the year 1843, on this precise spot, some farm which lay three entire human skeletons.

BURIALS IN WOOLLEN.

(Vol. v., pp. 414. 542.)

K.

Your correspondent MR. BOOKER may be informed that parochial registers afford evidence that certificates of burial in woollen were required to a considerably later date, March, 1681. In that of Hasilbury Bryan, the burials for 1730, beginning the ecclesiastical year from March 25th as still usual, are headed, "Buried in woollen only as made by affidavit." But no less than four out of the seven names of persons buried in that year are followed by the words no affidavit. It farther appears to have been usual for the clergyman to affix his name, with "ita esse test. A. B., rector;" and then to send the book to the Lady-day Sessions for the magistrates' inspection. And in this instance, instead of their writing "allowed by us," a lawyer's hand has inserted the following notice:

"The rector or his curate ought to get a warrant, or warrants, to levy the penalty, according to the act

for burying in woollen."

The last entry of the kind in the Hasilbury Register is for the year 1733-4 (so written for the first time, as comprehending January and February of what we should style 1734), and it has the magistrates approving signatures in the following form:

"May y 18th. 1734.

Allowed by us, Ric. Bingham, Thos. Gundrey."

The topic recalls to one's mind Pope's lightminded, yet severe, exemplifications of the ruling passion strong in death; amongst which he has

introduced the exclamation:

"Odious! in woollen! 'Twould a saint provoke! Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke."

H. W.

MERCHANT OF VENICE, ACT III. SC. 2.

(Vol. v., p. 605.)

MR. SINGER must permit me to set him right as to a matter of fact, in which he has made a slight misstatement.

My argument was not, as he says, "to show that beautie in the third line may be the true reading," -but it was to defend the text from that punctuation which would detach beauty from its proper clause in the sentence. Beauty is in possession of the text already, and is not in the least likely to be dislodged from it by either Hanmer's dowdy or Walker's gypsey. It would be the judgment of Paris over again, in which beauty would be certain "to have it hollow."

With respect to the substitution of stale for pale (originally proposed by Farmer), so far from acceding to it, I am, on the contrary, convinced that Warburton's suggestion of plainness, instead of paleness, is right; and I am only surprised that it has not been forced into general adoption by its own intrinsic evidence of truth? There is no relation between paleness and eloquence, in the sense required by the context. Paleness can only move more than eloquence" when the feeling to be excited is compassion: but plainness has just that sort of opposition to eloquence which the tenour of the passage requires. Moreover, plainness has an obvious reference - which paleness has not-to the preceding line :

66

"Which rather threat'nest than doth promise aught." And it is also an appropriate continuation of meagre, in the sense of poor, barren, unassuming!

Altogether, although I am by no means an advocate for rash interference with the text, yet, in this instance, plainness adds so greatly to the harmony and consistency of the whole passage, that I have no hesitation in avowing my conviction that it is the true word.

With respect to guiled and guilded, there seems to be sufficient authority for the word in either form; but it is rather singular that Mr. Lettsom's question respecting it, addressed directly to Mr. Collier in the Athenæum of the 17th of April last, should not, as yet, have been replied to. A. E. B.

Leeds.

"A Supplement to the Queen-like Closet, or a little of every thing, presented to all ingenious ladies and gentlewomen, by Hanna Wooley. London, printed by T. R. for Rich. Lownds, and are to be sold at the sign of the White Lion in Duck Lane, 1674." In this work, which contains receipts in medicine and housewifery, the authoress says, in explanation of the manner in which she became a practitioner of physic,

66

First take notice, that my mother and my elder sisters were very well skilled in physick and chirur gery, from whom I learned a little, and at the age of seventeen I had the fortune to belong to a noble lady in this kingdom till I married, which was at twentyfour years of age."

She then states that she studied by leave of that lady, who provided her with drugs and simples, and permitted her to try her skill upon the poor neighbours. She goes on to say:

"When I was married to Mr. Woolly, we lived together at Newport Pond in Essex, near Saffron Walden, seven years; my husband having been master of that free school for fourteen years before. We having many boarders, my skill was often exercised amongst them."

She then gives a long account of various surprising cures which she made, and continues—

"After these seven years were passed, we lived at Hackney, near London, where we had above three score boarders, and there I had many more trials of my skill both at home and abroad. I cured my own son of an impostume in the head, and of a consumption, after the physicians had given him up," &c. She continues

"If any person desire to speak with me, they may find me at Mr. Richard Woolley's (sic) house in the Old Bailey, in Golden Cup Court. He is Master of Arts and Reader at St. Martin's, Ludgate.

In another part of the book she complains that Mr. Newman had printed the second edition of her work, The Young Ladies' Guide, without her knowledge, and had employed another hand upon it, whereby it was so much altered that she felt it due to herself to disclaim the authorship. The remedies mentioned in The Supplement to the snails, mashed toads, and other like ingredients of Queen-like Closet recommend a liberal use of burnt the barbarous pharmacopoeia of that age.

Philadelphia, U. S. A., June 5, 1852.

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD

T. WESTCOTT.

"DEVIL."

I acknowledge the great plausibility of the ordinary derivation from daßλλew, but it is this apparent correctness which makes the search for a more satisfactory etymon unusually difficult. The application of a word in a sense foreign to the language in which it is employed, especially when that meaning is so peculiar and limited as that of the word diabolos in the Greek Testament, necessarily excites a doubt respecting its origin, which is what I implied by the phrase "in the case of ecclesiastical usage," which has occasioned such perplexity in the mind of A. N.

How he can feel surprised at my assertion, that the Septuagint and Greek Testament are replete with words of oriental origin, I do not understand; it would be a much more remarkable fact if the polity, religion, and literature of a distinct people like the Hebrews could be transplanted into a foreign language without the occurrence of such a phenomenon.

I am at present at a distance from my library, and must trust to memory for arguments to maintain my position; in furtherance of which object I shall adduce a few words, Greek in their form and analogy, but undoubtedly oriental. Some of them, I know, occur in the Greek Bible, but it is from Herodotus and Xenophon that I have immediately borrowed them. They are as follows: παράδεισος, ακινάκης, ανάξυρις, κύρος. On some of these I shall exert a little fancy etymology, to show how easily a Greek origin might be claimed for them as well as form and inflection. In the first place, it is a fact known to all philologists, that Tooke, in the Diversions of Purley, derives the word town from the Anglo-Saxon tynan, "to enclose," and the Greek duos has a similar root δέω. Now the word apádeloos means a park attached to a summer palace, and might be derived from rapa, "beside," and déw, "to bind ;" and thus be defined as a tract of land set apart beside a dwell ing. Unfortunately the word is Persian, and will not admit of this derivation, which is to the full as plausible as diaßáλew for diabolos. Again, the word ακινάκης, 66 a dagger," might be derived from ἀκός, a point," and mean a pointed weapon; the reduplication being no more remarkable than that in the Latin preterits cecidi and momordi. This word too is Persian, and probably from the same root as the words hack, hatchet, axe, &c., viz., if my memory does not deceive me, the Chaldee PP, "secare." Kúpos again, being the name of a prince, might be considered the substantive root of the adjective kúpios, "lordly, legal, ratified," &c. (Kupía eкKλnσia, and similar phrases, being common in classical authors), were it not simply the Median "Khoresh," which means the sun. The habit of the Greeks in altering words to suit the genius of their own language, forms a marked feature in their literature, a number of Persian, Hebrew, and Egyptian words having thus become

66

incorporated and naturalised. The abuse of this custom Lucian satirises in his treatise De Historia Conscribenda, where he says that a writer of his day altered the Latin Saturnianus into Kpovíwvos, Titianus into Trivos, Fronto into póvtis, and so on. If A. N. cannot see the connexion between Undebel and diáßoλos, how can he acknowledge, as every divinity student does, that elokomos and bishop, peσBUTEρos and priest, are identical words; the history of whose changes is lucid and distinct. I come now to that part of his reply which he himself says is not relevant, but which, in my opinion, is the only argument of any weight which he has adduced. I understand him to say, that the introduction of a new religion was usually attended with the condemnation of the old divinities as evil spirits. This is true as far as regards their individual appellations, but does not apply to the abstract words denoting deity. In Scandinavia, after the introduction of Christianity by King Oluf the Saint, Odin, Thor, Balder, and the rest of the northern Olympus, were anathematised as demons; but the appellation " Alfadir," and the like, were merely directed to their proper channel. No Christian writer has ever used déos or divus to denote the evil spirits, though the old possessors of these names, Jupiter, Apollo, and Athena, were hurled to that Tartarus, where they were believed to have incarcerated the Titans. The word Dív, in its diabolic sense, was undoubtedly long antecedent to the composition of the Shah-nameh, as the combats of the Rustan and Tahmuras Shah with the Dios are amongst the most ancient legends of Persia. If I do not mistake, the latter was a monarch of the Pishdadian dynasty, which had died out ages before the introduction of Islamism.

The chief objection to the parallels I have brought forward is, that one word in each case is in a dead, and one in a living language; but an instance occurs to me where both are found in living tongues, namely, the Slavonic Bogud, God, and the Scotch bogie, a ghost or evil spirit. The euphonisms of the Celtic Daoine Shie, or men of peace, and the Icelandic Jötun, or God-men, both applied to evil and malignant races, might likewise serve to show the extent and spread of the Yezidi superstition.

Having thus answered A. N.'s objections, I beg leave to submit my interrogation again to your notice, and once more to ask the etymology of the word "Devil?" RICHARD F. LITTLEDALE.

ANCIENT AMERICAN LANGUAGES.

(Vol. v., p. 585.)

If the following remarks be of any service to your correspondent W. B. D., they are quite at his disposal.'

The Aztec language was spoken in the valley of Mexico, and in the country immediately in its neighbourhood, as far as Meztitlan, about twentyfive leagues north of Mexico. Here, however, according to Gabriel de Chaves (1579), it was corrupt. The south-eastern limit was the river Guacacualco. The due southern extent is not precisely ascertained.

Humboldt informs us that the Tlapance was spoken in and near Tlapa. The Mixtec and the Zapotec were the dialects of Oaxaca; the Tarasca, that of Michoacan. The shores of the Gulf of Mexico due east of the capital were inhabited by tribes speaking the Totonac. Huasteca was spoken in the state of that name. Matlazincan was spoken sixty miles distant from Mexico. North of the valley of Mexico the Tarahumaran was spoken. Juarros gives seven languages as spoken in Guatemala-the Quiche, the best of the South American dialects, but not to be confounded with Peruvian, Kachiguel, Subtugil, Mam, Pocoman, Sinca, and Chorti. The following is the best list I can offer :

MEXICAN. Paredes' Abridgment of Horatio Carochi's Grammar, Mexico, 1759. Carlos de Tapia Zenteno's Grammar, Mexico, 1753. TARASCA. Diego Basalenque's Grammar, published by Father Nicolas de Quixas, Mexico, 1714. MAYA. Beltran's Grammar, Mexico, 1746. POCONCHI, or POCOMAN. Grammar annexed by Thomas Gage to his Travels, London, 1648. The Lord's Prayer in Poconchi is thus given by Gage:

HUASTECA. Grammar of Tapia Zenteno. OTOMI. Dictionary and Grammar, by Louis de Neve y Molina, Mexico, 1767; Emanuel Naxera's Dissertation, Philadelphia, 1835.

PERUVIAN. Father D. G. Holquin's Grammar of the Qquichua.

W. B. D. will also find ample details in Humboldt's Nouvelle Espagne, livre ii. chap. vi. vol. i. p. 377., and Mr. Albert Gallatin's Memoir in the first volume of the Journal of the American Ethnological Society, New York, 1845. TernauxCompans has had a translation made of Oviedo's Nicaragua, which contains much valuable matter. Adelung, in Mithridates, has likewise discussed the subject. Duponceaux's Prize Essay on the Algonkia Languages, 1835. Pickering, in the "Col

lections of the Massachusetts Historical Society," and in the Appendix to the sixth volume of the "Conversations-Lexicon" (Encyclopædia Americana), Essay on the Indian Languages.

If, however, these should not be sufficient, I shall be happy to supply the querist with all the information that I can, particularly as regards Mexican symbolism, if he will address a note to me, to the care of the Editor of "N. & Q." KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

July 13. 1852.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Royal "We" (Vol. v., p. 489.).— Mr. Grubb will find the following in 2 Coke's Institutes, p. 2. Coke here makes these observations on the Magna Charta of Henry III.:

"Here, in this Charta, both in the title and in divers parts of the body of the Charta, the King speaketh in the plural number, concessimus; the first King that I read of before him that in his graunts wrote in the plural number, was King John, father of our King H. 3.: other Kings before him wrote in the singular number; they used Ego, and King John, and all the Kings after him, Nos."

H. M.

"The Man in the Moon" (Vol. v., p. 468.). In the Journal of the Archæological Institute for March, 1848 (p. 66-67.), W. H. will find an account and engraving of a remarkable personal seal of the 14th century, of which the late Mr. Hudson Turner exhibited a drawing. The seal represents a man carrying a bundle of stolen thorns in the moon, whither he had been sent as a punishment of his theft. The legend is "Te Waltere docebo cur spinas Phebo gero." Allusion is made to the comments made by Alexander Necham, a writer of the twelfth century, to the popular belief upon the subject. J. Br.

Anima Magis, &c. (Vol. ii., p. 480.).— Dr. Pusey, in one of his Sermons, quotes the passage as S. Augustine's; and renders it very happily: "the soul is much more where it loveth than where it liveth." BEOTICUS.

Edgmond, Salop.

De Laudibus Sanctæ Crucis (Vol. vi., p. 9.).The book alluded to by HUGO is, I suppose, that entitled De Laudibus Sanctæ Crucis, written by Rabanus Maurus, and first printed by Tho. Anselmus Badensis, at Phorca (Pfortzeim), 1503. Books printed at Pfortzeim are of rare occurrence, for the printer removed to Tubingen in 1511. There was a second edition of Rabanus Maurus, printed at Augsburg (Augustæ Vindelicorum), 1605, but the execution is very inferior to the original. I believe it has been reprinted within the last few years, but this I have not seen.

P. B.