cantury, instead of on the breast or back of the garment height before it was gathered and set into the itself as previously." stock, nor more than two inches in depth before the setting into the same stock. The collar of the

This would give the short tight breeches, blue long coat, or short blue doublet and yellow stock-doublet was to have neither " poynt, well [whale] ings as the general wear of the commonalty of the period.

bone, or plaits," but to be made close and comely,
and, as well as the breeches, was to be made only
of "cloth, kersey, fustian, sackcloth, canvasse,
English leather, or English stuffe," and of not more
than 2s. 6d. the yard. His stockings were to be of
woollen, yarn, or kersey. He was not to wear
"Spanish shoes with polonia heels," or to have his
hair with any "tufte or lock, but cut short in
decent and comely manner.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road.

"Flat caps and shining shoes" were the distinthis period. As Gifford would say, "hundreds of instances might easily be adduced" from our old writers. These chiefly take the form of courtierly flat cap on the 137th plate, vol. ii. The breeches sneering. Strutt gives a figure of the pie-dish-like and stockings were what were called round slops, of white broadcloth, and made so as to look all of one piece. They appear to have worn blue cloaks in summer, and gowns in winter of the same colonr. H. C. HART.

Planché says, again, that Sir Walter Scott, in 'The Fortunes of Nigel,' has drawn an admirable (word) picture of the brawling 'prentices from Howe, the continuator of Stow, who tells that "in the reign of Queen Mary they wore blue cloaks in summer, and in the winter gowns of the same colour," dresses of this colour being a badge of servitude about this period. The "City flat cap," or cap of Edward VI., being still often mentioned in the time of James and Charles, shows no very great change. Fairholt also enlarges on the same subject, saying the "City flat cap" is the "statute cap" of Shake-guishing characteristics of London apprentices ar speare, so called because they were strictly enjoined to be worn by the 13 Elizabeth, cap. 19, for the encouragement of the home manufacture," under a penalty of 3s. 4d. for each day's transgression; and he refers to further examples of the dress in Herbert's History of the Twelve Great Livery, Companies of London,' Burgon's 'Life of Gresham,' and many effigies in existing London churches, such as St. Saviour's, Southwark, St. Helens, Bishopsgate, and St. Andrew's Undershaft; also mentioning that Thynne's 'Debate between Pride and Lowlinesse' (1570) gives descriptions of the dress of husbandmen and various classes of the community. Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses' would also prove a valuable reference for male costume of the time of Elizabeth, and no doubt any of Holbein's pictures would afford a great deal of help towards tracing the changes of the period, as by comparing the forms of the ordinary costume temp. Edward VI. (1595 and 1682) the slightness and tendency of the changes during that period will very easily

be seen.

R. W. HACKWOOD.

Herbert, in his 'History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London,' expresses an opinion that James exceeded Elizabeth in his love for the minutiae of the fashion prescribed. About the year 1611 he caused the Mayor to send precepts to the wardens of companies on account of "the abuse growing by excesse and strange fashions of apparell used by manye apprentises." The Common Council afterwards embodied certain regulations into an Act, in which every item of apparel to be worn by apprentices is detailed with the minuteness of a tailor or dressmaker. Apprentices were to wear no "hat" the facing whereof should exceed three inches in breadth in the head, or which, with the band and trimming, should cost above 5s.; the band was to be destitute of lace, made of linen not exceeding 58. the ell, and to have no other work or ornament than a plain hem and one stitch; and if the apprentice should wear a ruff-band, it was not to exceed three inches in

BED-ROCK (7th S. vi. 466).—The word in its metaphorical sense means the bottom of the matter in question. It is, I suppose, an Americanism, originating in the mines. An example of it is to be found in Tennessee's Partner,' by Bret Harte, the middle of the story:

"No! no!' continued Tennessee's Partner, hastily, I play this yer hand alone. To come down to the bedrock, it's just this: Tennessee, thar, has played it pretty rough and expensive-like on a stranger, and on this yer camp. And now, what's the fair thing? Some would say more; some would say less. Here's seventeen hundred dollars in coarse gold and a watch-it's about all my pile and call it square!'”

Tennessee is being tried by Lynch law for highway
robbery, and his partner attempts to bribe the
court. The scene is laid amongst the miners of
Sandy Bar. The story was first published, I think,
in or before 1869.
ROBERT PIERPOINT.

St. Austin's, Warrington.

This is the technical term applied in mining to the solid hard rock underlying loose and incoherent strata. It is generally used in connexion with alluvial gold washings. In the American miner's slang to arrive at the bed-rock means to have spent the last dollar. BENNETT H. BROUGH.

I have certainly heard this word as a mining term, and have understood it as analogous to the engineering term bed-plate, which signifies the heavy plate of metal upon which the machinery rests. The figurative use of the term would follow

naturally, and may be illustrated by a verse of with many talismanic properties, and its festival atLowell's, quoted from memory :— tracted immense gatherings of people.

It is pagan, but wait till you feel it,
That jar of the earth, that dull shock,
When the ploughshare of deeper passion
Tears down to the primitive rock.

C. C. B.

This is an American term. In sinking a coalshaft there is usually found beneath the soil yellow or blue clay, often containing water-worn stones; then, perhaps, sand and gravel, and clay again

under them. Beneath these will be found solid
rock, or shale, in regular layers. This rock, or
shale, is called by the sinkers in the Durham
coal-field the stone-head," which is the exact
equivalent of the American "bed-rock." In like
circumstances Lancashire sinkers speak of "gettin
deawn to th' solid."
P. W. PICKUP.
Blackburn.

The New English Dictionary' gives examples of the use of "bed" in its meaning "to rest on, to lie on for support." Surely this includes "bedrock" and numerous other words, such as bedplate," ","bed-stone," &c. Cf. p. 751, last line of first column.

L. L. K.

DR. CHANCE should look again at his copy of the New English Dictionary,' s. v. "Bed," where, in the third column of p. 750, § 19, he will find evidence that he has been too hasty in classing the Philological Society's work with the other dictionaries he possesses. Q. V.

C. C. B.

MR. BOUCHIER asks, Is kissing under the mistletoe dying out in England? Well, reminiscences of half a century ago or so would lead me to say that, together with many another ancient and laudable practice, it had somewhat decayed. It may be, however, that careful inquiry among the grandchildren of those who kissed dans le bon vieux temps might reveal an undiminished loyalty to custom. But then the conscientious inquirer would be met by the difficulty that one does notor, at least, did not-"kiss and tell."

I

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

KENELM HENRY DIGBY (7th S. vi. 507).-I only know of three editions of Mr. K. H. Digby's The noble book 'The Broadstone of Honour.' first of these came out about sixty years ago, in, think, 1828 and onwards; and after one or two of the volumes had appeared their author joined the Roman Church, which fact accounts for the alterations, whatever they be, that were afterwards made in the earlier volumes, and for the somewhat different tone of the later. About the years 1856 and 1857 Edward Lumley, of New Oxford Street

himself a striking man, and one of the early members of the congregation worshipping at All Saints', Margaret Street-published what I believe to be the second edition of all the volumes; and a reprint of this edition was issued in 1877. If there be other editions than these three, I should be glad to know of them. I believe that 'Mores Catholici,' 'Evenings on the Thames,' and Mr. Digby's other prose works, were all written by him as a Roman Catholic; and I should be agreeably surprised to hear that any of them ever Mr. Digby's versereached a second edition. 'Little Low Bushes' and the rest-is much in

HERALDIC (7th S. vi. 428, 497).—In the arms on the ring mentioned, the coat impaled on the sinister side is that of the Abbey of Westminster, the whole coat therefore is, Williams (quarterly with Griffiths) impaling dexter, the see of Lincoln, sinister, the Abbey of Westminster. The peculiarity of the marshalling arises from the bigamous character of the arms. It is well known how pertina-ferior to his prose. But he who wrote "The ciously Williams clung to his Deanery of West- Broadstone of Honour' must always be a classic; minster after his elevatian to the episcopate. and I suppose that no one, not even Robert S. G. H. Burton himself, ever gave to the public a larger KISSING UNDER THE MISTLETOE (7th S. vi. 487). store, and a store more happily used, of admirable -One would suppose, from the part played by the and recondite quotations and allusions than is mistletoe in Scandinavian mythology, that this contained in that book and in 'Compitum.' to all northern peoples. Baldur was slain by a mistletoe dart at the instigation of Loki, and in reparation for the injury the plant was afterwards dedicated to his mother, Frigg, so long as it did not touch earth, Loki's empire. On this account it is hung from the ceilings of houses, and the kiss given under it signifies that it is no longer an instrument of mischief. MR. BOUCHIER will, unless I mistake, find an account of "le gui de l'an neuf" in De Gubernatis ('La Mythologie des Plantes'). The fêtes held in commemoration of the sacred mistletoe survived in some parts of France into the sixteenth century. The plant was credited

custom was common

Was it not Julius Hare, that defender of Luther, who said that a young man should prize The Broadstone of Honour' next to the Bible? It was like his breadth of charity to say that, and I heartily echo the saying.

A. J. M.

QUEENIE AS A PET NAME (7th S. vii. 4).— Queeney or Queeny was the pet name of Esther Thrale, afterwards Lady Keith, for whom Baretti wrote his 'Dialogues.' See Dr. Birkbeck Hill's edition of Boswell's 'Johnson,' ii. 449, n. 2; iii. 422, n. 4; v. 451, n. 2.

WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT, Trinity College, Cambridge.

DEATH WARRANTS (7th S. vi. 308, 474, 515). --I cannot admit that I am "altogether wrong." There can be no doubt at all that the king personally decided whether any sentence of death passed at the Central Criminal Court should be carried out or not, which, I take it, is the essential point. Is there any proof that the king signed nothing?

As regards the Isle of Man story, AN ENGLISH LAWYER is good enough to say it is "not probable." I can only say that it is a fact known to I cannot enter into details; but I do not, of course, mean that either the king or the queen signed the actual order to the executioner.

me.

E. F. D. C.

According to the Percy Anecdotes,' "the warrant for executing a criminal was anciently by precept under the hand and seal of the judge, as it is still practised in the Court of the Lord High Steward upon the execution of a peer; though in the Court of Peers in Parliament it is done by writ from the king. Afterwards it was established that, in case of life, the judge may command execution to be done without writ. Now the usage is for the judge to sign the calendar, or list of all the persons' names, with their separate judgment in the margin, which is left with the sheriff. As for a capital felony, it is written opposite to a person's name, Let him be hanged by the neck,' Formerly, in the days of Latin and abbreviations, sus. per coll.,' for suspendature per collum'; and this is the only warrant that the sheriff has for so material an act as taking away the life of another. It is certainly remarkable that in civil cases there should be such a variety of writs of execution to recover a trifling debt issued in the king's name, and under the seal of the court, without which the sheriff cannot legally stir one step; and yet that the execution of a man, the most important and terrible of any, should depend upon a marginal note."

wolves in Matt. vii. 15, and the grievous wolves in Acts xx. 29, representing false teachers.'

In that charming collection of negro stories, Uncle Remus,' the rabbit outwits the fox. Í know that it is said that the rabbit represents the negro race, which, in its very simplicity and harmlessness, proves more than a match for the selfish cunning of the whiter man. But on what foundation does this theory rest? The stories themselves do not suggest it, for the fox shows no special cunning. He is simply stupid compared with the rabbit. And if the stories are genuine old negro stories, brought from Africa, the comparison between the negroes and the whites in America will not be to the point. I recur to my former question, What real proofs of superior cunning has "Br'er Fox" given, that we should suppose his reputation to be universal ?

Holbeck.

=

JOHN A. CROSS.

CHESTNUT (7th S. vi. 407, 436).—I venture to suggest that chestnut "stale joke, story heard before," may be a translation of the French marron = a kind of large choice chestnut. This word marron has, either as a substantive or adjective, several other meanings, some of which I will enumerate; and it has occurred to me as possible that chestnut may (shall we say in America ?), by way, probably, of a joke, have been given a meaning borrowed more or less from one or more of these other meanings of marron. One of those meanings is a stencil-plate, by means of which any words or pattern may be reproduced or repeated indefinitely, and the application of this meaning to a réchauffé joke or story is not so very difficult. But as an adjective marron has meanings which may be considered still more appropriate. Thus, when applied to a courtier, cocher, imprimeur, marron = unlicensed or irregular; and a nègre marron, is a runaway negro (our maroon). In all these meanings there is a smack of false pretence, or of dishonesty, which is still more clearly exhibited in the slang French être marron = to be taken in, bamboozled; and this same smack of false pretence there is also in an old story or joke, if, as often is the case, it is served up as a new, and sometimes even as an original one. For the meanI have always understood that the formula " Suss.ings which I have here assigned to marron I per coll." was written against the names of persons capitally convicted. Is this a figment? EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M. A.

Stratford, E.

J. W. ALLISON.

IS AN ENGLISH LAWYER quite correct in saying that "at the assizes the order for execution was and is merely verbal"? It is laid down in Stephen's 'Commentaries' that "the usage is for the judge to sign the calendar, or list of the prisoners' names, with their separate judgments in the margin, which is left with the sheriff as his warrant or authority."

Hastings.

would refer DR. MURRAY to Scheler, and Littré,
and to Barrère's dictionary of French slang.
F. CHANCE.
Facts as to the origin of this slang equivalent

THE FOX (7th S. vi. 148, 396).-On Ezekiel for "an old Joe " there be none, I believe. I first xiii. 4 Hengstenberg comments :

"The foxes come into regard in verse 4 as the dangerous foes and destroyers of the coverts,' as a zoologist calls them. Thus they stand already in ch. ii. 15 of the Song of Songs; and in Luke xiii, 31, 32, the Lord calls Herod a fox as the destroyer of God's people. The foxes nowhere come into regard for their craft, as in heathen antiquity. The foxes here correspond to the ravening

Even the chestnut called marron itself has not attained to its present high position by the most honourable practices, for Littré tells us that there are commonly three kernels or nuts in a chestnut husk, and that in the case of the species called marron, one of these kernels, young cuckoo-like, gets the better of the other two, and so becomes larger than he has any rightful business to be.

detrectavere. Instructis utrimque exercitibus in ejus pugnæ casum, in qua urbs Roma victori præmium esset, imber ingens grandine mixtus ita utramque aciem turbavit, ut vix armis retentis in castra sese receperint, nullius rei minore, quam hostium, metu. Et postero die eodem loco acies instructas eadem tempestas diremit."-Liv., lib. xxvi. c. xi.

Thucydides relates that two expeditions of the Lacedæmonians were put a stop to by earthquakes. The annual invasion of Attica, in B. c. 426, under

ROBERT BURTON (7th S. vi. 443, 517).-Those who take an interest in the Anatomy of Melan-Agis, was one of these, when Пeλодovýσoι Kai choly' are much indebted to MR. PEACOCK for his

careful account of every edition. I have a copy of

that of 1651 which in some points differs from MR.

PEACOCK'S of the same date. May I be allowed to give a description of my copy?

oi

ξύμμαχοι μέχρι μὲν τοῦ ἰσθμοῦ ἦλθον ὡς ἐς τὴν Αττικην ἐσβαλοῦντες, Αγιδος τοῦ ̓Αρχι δάμου ἡγουμένου, Λακεδαιμονίων βασιλέως, σεισμῶν δὲ γενομένων πολλῶν ἀπετράποντο πάλιν, καὶ οὐκ ἐγένετο ἐσβολή (lib. iii. c. 89).

ED. MARSHALL.

The battle alluded to by Southey was, no doubt, that at the Lacus Trasimenus, in Etruria, where Hannibal so signally defeated the Romans (B C. 217). But Southey must have forgotten the fact related by Livy (lib. xxii. c. 5), that so far from the earthquake interrupting the battle, the combatants were so intent on fighting, and so furiously engaged, that they never felt it, though it was devastating a great part of Italy. This is the graphic description of the historian in his "pictured page":

(1) Half-title; recto, the Anatomie of Melan-Again, in the plundering warfare between Argos and Lacedaemon, B.C. 414, ἐπ' Αργος στρατεύ choly; verso, the Argument of the Frontispiece, "Ten distinct squares." beginning, σαντες Λακεδαιμόνιοι μέχρι μὲν Κλεωνῶν (2) The γ λθον, σεισμοῦ δὲ γενομένου ἀπεχώρησαν (vi. engraved title-page, C. le Blon sc., surrounded by the ten well-known designs, and having in the 95). The interruption in the first of these inmiddle a space on which are the following lines. stances arose from terror, in the last two from "The Anatomy of Melancholy, what it is, with all superstition. the kinds causes symptomes, prognostickes, & severall cures of it. In three partitions, with their severall sections, members & subsections, Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, opened & cut vp. By Democritus Junior. With a Satyricall Preface, conducing to the following Discourse. The Sixt [sic] Edition, corrected and augmented by the Author. Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci." Beneath these lines is the portrait of Burton, below which there is engraved on a cartouche, "Oxford Printed for Henry Cripps, 1651." (3) Latin dedication, "Georgio Berkleio," ending with "jam sexto revisam, D.D. Democritus Junior." (4) Two pages of Latin verse, "Vade liber." (5) Two pages of English verse. (6) The text forms 723 numbered pages, but two unnumbered leaves are inserted between pages 140 and 141. The text ends with p. 723. (7) Nine unnumbered pages of Table. On the last page is a notice by H. C. to the reader, and at the bottom, "Printed by R. W. for Henry Cripps of Oxford, and are to be sold by Andrew Crook in Paul Churchyard, and by Henry Cripps and Lodowick Lloyd in Popes-Head Ally. 1651."

I agree with MR. PEACOCK in thinking that we should regard the fifth edition, or the sixth, as the best. The fifth was published in 1638. Burton died in 1640. The sixth appeared in 1651, and according to the notice at the end it was printed from a copy corrected by the author, and committed by him to Cripps for publication. J. DIXON.

BATTLE INTERRUPTED by an EarthQUAKE (7th S. vi. 307).-Though not an exact answer, the interruption of a battle by a storm may be mentioned, B.C. 211:

"Postero die transgressus Anienem Hannibal in aciem omnes copias eduxit: nec Flaccus consulesque certamen

"Tantusque fuit ardor animorum, adeo intentus pugnæ animus, ut eum terræ motum, qui multarum urbium amnes, mare fluminibus invexit, montes ingenti lapsu Italiæ magnas partes prostravit, avertitque cursu rapido proruit, nemo pugnantium senserit."

Perhaps Southey may have confused in his tioned by Herodotus (Hist.,' i. c. 74), where the memory this battle with another earlier one menLydians and Medes were interrupted in their contest "by the day suddenly becoming night" (THY ἡμέρην ἐξαπίνης νύκτα γενέσθαι); that is, of This eclipse, course, by a total eclipse of the sun. the historian says, Thales of Miletus had predicted should happen in this very year; and, if true, astronomy must have been better known to the ancients than is generally supposed.

Shillingston, Dorset.

EDWD. A. DAYMAN.

I cannot help thinking that Southey has confused an earthquake with an eclipse. An eclipse of the sun is said to have put an end to a battle about to be fought between the Medes and Lydians in the year B.C. 585. I never heard of one being interrupted by an earthquake. Livy says that an earthquake occurred during the battle at Lake Trasy menus, during the second Punic war; but adds that the combatants did not notice it, on