Replies.

CHILDREN CALLED IMPS.

(Vol. viii., p. 443.)

"Heere resteth the bodye of the noble Impe, Robert of Duddeley, Baron of Denbigh, sonne of Robert, Earle of Leicester, nephew and heire unto Ambrose, Earle of Warwick, brethren, both sonnes of the mighty Prince John, late Duke of Northumberland, that was cosin and heire to Sir John Grey, Vicount L'Isle, nephew and heire unto the Lady Margaret, Countesse of Shrewsbury, the eldest daughter and coheire of the noble Earle of Warr: Sir Richard Beauchampe here interred; a childe of great parentage, but of farr greater hope and towardnesse, taken from this transitory unto everlasting life in his tender age, at Wanstead in Essex, on Sunday, 19th of July, in the yeare of our Lord God 1584, being the 26th yeare of the happy raine of the most virtuous and godly Princesse, Queene Elizabeth, and in this place layd up among his noble auncestors, in assured hope of the generall resurrection."—Lady's Chapel, St. Mary's Church, Warwick.

H. B.

Warwick.

An inscription on a tomb at Besford, near Pershore, Worcestershire, of the same period as that at Aylesbury (mentioned by Mr. Brooks), contains also the word imp. The tomb at Besford is a most singular one, consisting of two large folding doors fixed against the wall, their panels and the interior being painted over with figures and inscriptions. From the latter, which are of some length, the following extracts will be sufficient to illustrate the subject:

The old poetical word sugared, "Noe sugred word," occurs in the inscription.

The "impe" is supposed to be Richard Harewell, who died in 1576, aged 15 years, to whom a second monument, of alabaster (close by the former), was also erected; a rare circumstance, I should suppose. The Harewells appear to have been a family at the time of the Conquest; the two following lines are a part of one of the inscriptions:

Nash, in his History of Worcestershire, makes mention of this singular monument, but is anything but correct in giving its inscriptions.

Cuthbert Bede, B. A.

T. W. D. Brooks will find this word used by some modern authors to denote a child. In Moral and Sacred Poetry, selected and arranged by the Rev. T. Willcocks and the Rev. T. Horton (Devonport, W. Byers, 1834), there is at p. 254. a piece by Baillie, addressed "To a Child," the first line of which runs thus:

And in a poem by Rogers, on the following page, the children of a gipsy are called imps.

J. W. N. Keys.

Plymouth.

THE DIVINING ROD.

(Vol. viii., pp. 293. 479.)

The inclosed extract from a letter which I have just received from a friend on the subject of the divining rod, will probably interest your readers as an answer to a Query which appeared some weeks ago in your excellent work. You may entirely rely on the accuracy of the facts stated.

J. A. H.

"However the pretended effect of the divining rod may be attributed to knavery and credulity by philosophers who will not take the trouble of witnessing and investigating the operation, any one who will pay a visit to the Mendip Hills in Somersetshire, and the country round their base, may have abundant proof of the efficacy of it. Its success has been very strikingly proved along the range of the Pennard Hills also, to the South of the Mendip. The faculty of discovering water by means of the divining rod is not possessed by every one; for indeed there are but few who possess it in any considerable degree, or in whose hands the motion of the rod, when passing over an underground stream, is very decided; and they who have it are quite unconscious of their capability until they are made aware of it by experiment.

"I saw the operation of the rod, or rather of a fork, formed of the shoots of the last year, held in the hands of the experimentor by the extremities, with the angle projecting before him. When he came over the spot beneath which the water flowed, the rod, which had before been perfectly still, writhed about with considerable force, so that the holder could not keep it in its former position; and he appealed to the bystanders to notice that he had made no motion to produce this effect, and used every effort to prevent it. The operation was several times repeated with the same result, and each time under the close inspection of shrewd and doubting, if not incredulous, observers. Forks of any kind of green wood served equally well, but those of dead wood had no effect. The experimentor had discovered water, in several instances, in the same parish (Pennard), but was perfectly unaware of his capability till he was requested by his landlord to try. The operator had the reputation of a perfectly honest man, whose word might be safely trusted, and who was incapable of attempting to deceive any one—as indeed appeared by his open and ingenuous manner and conversation on this occasion. He was a farmer, and respected by all his neighbours. So general is the conviction of the efficacy of the divining rod in discovering both water and the ores of calamine or zinc all over the Mendip, that the people are quite astonished when any doubt is expressed about it. The late Dr. Hutton wrote against the pretension, as one of many instances of deception founded upon gross ignorance and credulity; when a lady of quality, who herself possessed the faculty, called upon him, and gave him experimental proof, in the neighbourhood of Woolwich, that water was discoverable by that means. This Dr. Hutton afterwards publicly acknowledged.

"The above I suppose will suffice for your present purpose; I could, however, say a great deal more, for I wrote a very long account many years ago to our friend ——, of what I have now only briefly stated. That letter was treated by certain scientific friends of his with contempt; but when I afterwards saw poor Dr. Turner, he said he would go down to Somerset to see it himself; but alas! he did not live to carry his intention into effect."

CHANGE OF MEANING IN PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS, ETC.

(Vol. viii., pp. 464, 465.)

Very hesitatingly I venture to express dissent from Mr. Keightley's ingenious suggestion of a change of meaning in the proverb "Tread on a worm and it will turn." I support my dissent, however, by the following lines from Shakspeare:

King Henry says, Withhold revenge, dear God!

Clifford replies, The lion, the bear, the serpent, the smallest worm, and doves, if injured, will make an effort at revenge or defence. It is clear that Shakspeare uses the word worm as meaning, not a venomous serpent, but the most defenceless of reptiles.

Again, I do not think that Mr. Keightley's quotation from Schiller's Wallenstein's Tod supports his view. I am not a German scholar, but I find that the translator of Wallenstein's Tod (I believe Lord Ellesmere) has translated or paraphrased the lines quoted by Mr. Keightley as follows:

The sense of the passage (spoken by Butler) requires that "wurm" should be understood to mean a harmless despised reptile, not a venomous serpent.

It seems that Schiller had Shakspeare in his mind when he wrote the lines in question; indeed, they are almost a copy of Shakspeare's line. I consider them as parallel passages.

It may not be irrelevant to observe that worm in some places still means a serpent; but I believe it has usually a prefix, as "hag-worm" in Westmoreland and the West Riding of Yorkshire; so also in the latter "slow-worm" means a species of small snake or viper found on some of the moors. (For "slow-worm," see "N. & Q.," Vol. viii., pp. 33. and 479.) I have been told that "blind-worm" in Surrey means a viper. I conclude with a Query, Does Wurm in modern German ever mean a serpent?

F. W. J.

"To put a spoke in one's wheel," is not singular in its double entendre (Vol. viii., pp. 262. 351. 464.). "There is no love lost between them" is in a similar predicament. We now speak of no love being lost between A. and B., when we would intimate that the warmth of their mutual affection may be accurately represented by 32° Fahrenheit. That this has not always been the meaning of the phrase, the following verse from the old ballad of The Children in the Wood will testify:

R. Price.

St. Ives.

SNEEZING.

(Vol. viii., p. 366.)

A collection of "facts, theories, and popular ideas" upon this subject would fill a volume. I send, however, a few extracts, &c., which may interest your correspondent Medicus:

Here, not to sneeze appears to be looked on as an ill omen.

Ammianus has an epigram upon one whose nose was so long that he never heard it sneeze, and therefore never said Ζεῦ σῶσον, God bless.—Notes on the Variorum Plautus (ed. Gronov., Lugd. Bat.), p. 720.

Athenæus, says Potter in his Archæologia Græca, proves that the head was esteemed holy, because it was customary to swear by it, and adore as holy the sneezes that proceeded from it. And Aristotle tells us in express terms that sneezing was accounted a deity: "Τὸν Πταρμὸν θεὸν ἡγούμεθα"—Archæol. Græc. (5th ed.), p. 338.

Erasmus, in his Colloquies, bids one say to him who sneezes, "Sit faustum ac felix," or "Servet te Deus," or "Sit salutiferum" or "Bene vertat Deus."

"Quare homines sternutant?

"Respondetur, ut virtus expulsiva et visiva, per hoc purgetur, et cerebrum a sua superfluitate purgetur, etc. Etiam qui sternutat frequenter, dicitur habere forte cerebrum."—Aristotelis Problemata: Amstelodami, anno 1690.

Query whether from some such idea of the beneficial effect of sneezing, arose the practice of calling for the divine blessing on the sneezer?

When Themistocles was offering sacrifice, it happened that three beautiful captives were brought him, and at the same time the fire burnt clear and bright, and a sneeze happened on the right hand. Hereupon Euphrantides the soothsayer, embracing him, predicted the memorable victory which was afterwards obtained by him, &c.

There is also mention of this custom (the observation of sneezing) in Homer, who has introduced Penelope rejoicing at a sneeze of her son Telemachus:

"Οὐχ ὁράας ὅ μοι υἱὸς ἐπέπταρεν"

Sneezing was not always a lucky omen, but varied according to the alteration of circumstances—"Τῶν πταρμῶν οἱ μὲν εἰσὶν ὠφέλιμοι, οἱ δὲ βλαβεροί," "Some sneezes are profitable, others prejudicial"—according to the scholiast upon the following passage of Theocritus, wherein he makes the sneezing of the Cupids to have been an unfortunate omen to a certain lover:

"Σιμιχίδα μὲν ἔρωτες ἐπέπταρον."

If any person sneezed between midnight and the following noontide it was fortunate, but from noontide till midnight it was unfortunate.

If a man sneezed at the table while they were taking away, or if another happened to sneeze upon his left hand, it was unlucky; if on the right hand, fortunate.

If, in the undertaking any business, two or four sneezes happened, it was a lucky omen, and gave encouragement to proceed; if more than four, the omen was neither good nor bad; if one or three, it was unlucky, and dehorted them from proceeding in what they had designed. If two men were deliberating about any business, and both of them chanced to sneeze together, it was a prosperous omen.—Archæol. Græc. (5th ed.), pp. 339, 340.

Francis John Scott.

Tewkesbury.

The custom your correspondent Medicus alludes to, of wishing a person "good health," after sneezing, is also very common in Russia. The phrases the Russians use on these occasions are—"To your good health!" or "How do you do?"

J. S. A.

Old Broad Street.

BOOKS BURNED BY THE COMMON HANGMAN.

(Vol. viii., pp. 272. 346.)

To the list of these literary auto da fé's we may well add the burning of Bishop Burnet's famous Pastoral Letter, which was censured by the House of Commons, January, 1692, and was burned by the common hangman. The offence contained in it was the ascribing the title of William III. to the crown of England to a right of conquest. A recollection of this gives additional point to the irony of Atterbury in attacking Wake:

"William the Conqueror is another of the pious patterns he recommends, 'who would suffer nothing,' he says, 'to be determined in any ecclesiastical causes without leave and authority first had from him.'... His present majesty is not William the Conqueror; and can no more by our constitution rule absolutely either in Church or State than he would if he could: his will and pleasure is indeed a law to all his subjects; not in a conquering sense, but because his will and pleasure is only that the laws of our country should be obeyed, which he came over on purpose to rescue, and counts it his great prerogative to maintain; and contemns therefore, I doubt not, such sordid flattery as would measure the extent of his supremacy from the Conqueror's claim."—Atterbury's Rights, Powers, and Privileges of Convocation, pp. 158—160.

Atterbury never misses a hit at Burnet when he can conveniently administer one, and the Bishop endeavours to smile even while he winces:

"He writes with just and due respect of the king and the present constitution. This has come so seldom from that corner that it ought to be the more considered. I will not give that scope to jealousy as to suspect that this was an artifice; but accept it sincerely," &c.—The Bishop of Sarum's Reflections on the Rights, Powers, &c.. p. 4.

W. Fraser.

Tor-Mohun.

The following, may come under the list wanted by Balliolensis:

"The covenant itself, together with the act for erecting the high court of justice, that for subscribing the engagement, and that for declaring England a Commonwealth, were ordered to be burned by the hands of the hangman. The people assisted with great alacrity on this occasion."—From Hume, Reign of Charles II., edit. London, 1828, p. 762.

On a copy of La Défense de la Réformation, &c., par I. Claude, à La Haye, 1683, I noted the following about thirty years ago as a striking passage, but cannot now recollect from whence I took it. This book was condemned by the Pope to be burned, on which circumstance the editor of an old edition of it very appositely observes:

"Books have souls as well as men, which survive their martyrdom, and are not burnt, but crowned by the flames that encircle them. The Church of Rome has quickly felt there was nothing combustible but the paper. The truth flew upward like the angel from Manoah's sacrifice, untouched by the fire, and unsullied by the smoke, and found a safe refuge at the footstool of the God of Truth."

G. N.

JEWS IN CHINA.

(Vol. viii., p. 515.)

Circumcision is too general a practice in the hotter regions of the south and east, to permit such practice to be deemed proof of Jewish descent, unless corroborated by other customs peculiar to the Jews. Besides the physiological characteristics of the native Australians preclude us from deducing their natural descent from either the Jews or the ten tribes.

T.J. Buckton.

Lichfield.

POETICAL TAVERN SIGNS.

(Vol. viii., pp. 242. 452.)

I made a note of the following specimen of poetical tavern sign, in one of Mr. Mark Lemon's Supplements to The Illustrated London News (Dec. 27, 1851). I here transcribe it to add to Mr. Warde's collection:

"The Captain Rawlinson of the district has deciphered this inscription, and conjectures its meaning to be as follows:

Cuthbert Bede, B.A.

Bradford:

The public-houses to which the above are appended are kept by sweeps.

The name of the public-house is "The Robin Hood."

Over another tavern door I noticed the following very pithy and brief sentence:

"Tobacco given away to-morrow."

Charles Willison.

Bradford, Yorkshire.

A sign at Newhouse, a small public-house on Dartmoor, hard by a rabbit-warren, on the roadside leading from Moreton to Tavistock, six miles from the former town. John Roberts was the worthy landlord some considerable time since. It ran thus:

A swinging sign on the front of a public-house on the borders of Dartmoor could once boast of like following quaint invitations.

The side presented to view, prior to entering the wild waste, underneath a rude painting of a weary traveller in a storm, had the following rude couplet:

The attempt at poetry on the reverse side, below a highly-coloured daub representing a Christmas fire on the hearth, surrounded by a goodly band of jolly fellows, read thus:

Over the door of a spirit and beer shop at the lower end of Market or High Street, Plymouth, may be seen the following very salutary aid disinterested piece of advice. It is printed in the triangle formed by the spread of a gigantic pair of compasses, which gives name to the house:

The house is located near the quay; and it is devoutly to be wished that the jolly tars of the neighbourhood, who make it a constant place of resort, would profit by its wise counsel.

H. H. H.

There is (or was some two or three years since) at Coopersale, in Essex, a sign-board in front of the "Queen Victoria" (only a beer-house by the way), with these lines:

On the other side are some different lines, which I forget.

1. At Overseal, Leicestershire:

2. The sign of "The Bee Hive," in Birmingham and other places:

3. The sign of "The Gate" (of frequent occurrence):

T. H. Kersley, B.A.

Audlem, Nantwich.

In King Street, Norwich, at the sign of "The Waterman," kept by a man who is a barber, and over whose door is the pole, are these lines:

J. L. S.

There used to be at a small roadside inn, between Wetherby and Borobridge (Yorkshire), at a place called Ninivy, the following inscription; whether or not it is still in existence I cannot say:

C. I. R.

THE CURFEW.

(Vol. ii., pp. 103. 175. 189. 311.; Vol. iv., p. 240.; Vol. vi., pp. 53. 112.; Vol. vii., pp. 167. 530.; Vol. viii., p. 603.)

The curfew is still rung at Kidderminster at eight o'clock. It is the annual custom there, on a certain night, to continue the ringing for one hour, a sum of money having been left for that purpose as a thank-offering to God, for the curfew having been the means of saving a person from destruction. This person had lost his way on his return from Bridgenorth Fair, and when (as he afterwards discovered) on the point of falling from a great height, the sound of the Kidderminster curfew caused him to retrace his steps and regain the road. A five o'clock morning bell is also rung at Kidderminster. This and the curfew bell have been rung for many years past by "Blind William," who, notwithstanding his total blindness, finds his way along the streets that lead from his house to the church, and gains the belfry with the greatest ease. So well is he acquainted with the path to church, that he may be seen to turn the corners of the streets in as decided a manner as if his wide-open eyes were endowed with sight; and, with similar facility, he unlocks the gates and church doors. It is curious to see him on the dark winter evenings, apparently guiding his steps by the light of a lanthorn, which he probably carries in order to prevent careless people, who are blessed with sight, from running against him. Like most (if not all) blind people, he has an extraordinary ear for music, and will quickly reproduce on his violin any tune that may have caught his fancy. At this present festive period, a Kidderminster Christmas would lack one of its component parts, were Blind Willie and his fiddle not there to add to the harmony of the kindly season. During the month preceding Christmas, he promenades the streets at untimely hours, and draws from his old fiddle all the music which it is capable of giving forth. Indeed, Blind Willie may be considered (in Kidderminster at least) as the harbinger of Christmas, for he warns the inhabitants of its approach, long before the ordinary "waits" have taken their ordinary measures for the same purpose. And when Christmas Day is past and gone, he makes house-to-house visitation for the Christmas-box which is to be the reward of his "early minstrelsy."

The curfew is rung at Bewdley in Worcestershire.

At Durham the curfew is rung (on the great bell of the cathedral) at nine o'clock. It is therefore of the same use to the students of the University of Durham as "Tom" is to the students of the University of Oxford, viz. it marks the closing of the college gates.

Cuthbert Bede, B.A.