race of his life at Norwich, where he first took breath to run it. In the MS. collection of Antony Norris, in my library, quoting Smith's obituary, he is said to have lost his credit by an attempt on Mrs. Bennet. His son Sir Wm. Rant, of Thorpe Market, | married Elizabeth, daughter of Jas. de Grey, Esq., of Merton, and his daughter and eventual heiress married Robert Britiffe, Esq., and her daughter and heiress married Sir Wm. Morden Harbord, Bart., and was the ancestress of the present Lord Suffield. The cousinship of Temple with Rant-i.e., blood relationship cannot come through the latter's wife, Miss Dingley, but must be looked for through his mother, Mary Ward, of Boxley; or his grandmother, Catherine Gilbert, of Norwich. WALTER RYE. St. Leonard's Priory, Norwich. Mothes who are the authors of the 'Archäologisches Wörterbuch.' J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. [The fifth edition of 'Meyers KonversationsLexikon,' s.. Mothes, gives the joint author as H. A. Müller.] "3 "TO MUG (9th S. xii. 5, 136).-In 'The Slang Dictionary' (edition of 1874) various meanings of mug and to mug are given, including the ideas of the face, fisticuffs, and intoxication, but the work assigns only mugup for the theatrical use of the term. The defiface or dress specially with a view to impernition therein given is "Mug-up, to paint one's sonation.-Theatrical." But there is another theatrical meaning for mug, which is plainly, indicated in Pierce Egan's Life of an Actor' (chap. iii.), in which the swindling manager, Mr. Screw, when describing to the hero, Peregrine Proteus, the members of his company, observes : 'A PRETTY WOMAN': 'NO ACTRESS': 'THE EDEN ROSE' (9th S. xi. 509).- The Rose of Eden Arabic Legend,' will be found on "Then last, but not least, in the company is my p. 107 of 'On the Seaboard, and other Poems,' low comedian, Mr. Ephraim Mug Cutter. The by Susan K. Phillips, second edition, Lon-history of the stage cannot boast such an original don, Macmillan & Co., 1879. 'cutter of mugs' as Ephraim. He is a century before all the actors in the kingdom, living or dead. With as much pliability as putty, he can cry on one-half of his face and laugh on the other side at the same time." CHARLES A. FEDERER. "I" PRINTED WITH SMALL LETTER (9th S. xi. 448; xii. 73, 172).—The dot is a survival from MS. times, when it served to distinguish the "i" among a number of precisely similar strokes, as in such words as "minimum" and "numinum." J. T. F. If C. L. F. will just write a few such words as ciuil (with older u for v), illumine, or minim, without being particular as to the round bends of m, n, and u, he will soon see the "raison d'être of the dot over the small i." SIMPLICISSIMUS. That this meaning is still in use may be gathered from a very recent note in the Tatler concerning the actor's mouth, which is often crooked :: low comedian, for nearly every one of them had a "At one time it was considered the mark of the mouth twisted either to the right or left as the result of 'mugging.' ALFRED F. ROBBINS. MR. E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN says he has never heard the verb "to mug" in connexion with fighting. Neither have I, but I have often heard lads in South Notts describe a blow in the mouth as "a mug in the muss." C. C. B. In the Derbyshire dialect "the mug" is "Hide not the face, but the mouth only. that ugly mug ”=mouth. "Ah gen him a good muggin' hit him on the mouth; and "hey's getten a muggin'." "Mug" is not used in Derbyshire that I am aware of to denote drinking. "Hey pows his ugly mug "His mug's like a sideintow aw shapes"; oven when t' door 's oppen." Worksop. THOS. RATCLIFFE. girls, and they'll get on with their work: mug 'em, missess, mug 'em!' A singular, but perhaps a correct use of the word. Richardson in his Dictionary' says, 'Mug means merely a wet, sc., a draught of liquor; afterwards applied to a vessel containing liquor.' The same may be inferred from a passage in the Tatler: There is a mughouse near Long Acre." I have never heard the word so applied in this locality; nor in the following manner, as also recorded by Miss Baker : "Mug. Another double mug 's broke.' A phrase importing that another disaster or misfortune has occurred, or fresh offence is taken." Thos. Wright (Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English '), who followed Miss Baker with respect to date of publication, gives amongst his six meanings of "mug "its use as a verb in Northamptonshire "To supply with beer." I often hear in this village the expression "a mug of beer," but the real pottery-ware mug with a convenient handle has largely given place to the tumbler or glass. The smaller kind of mugs were known as tots," and the expression a tot of beer"=a small quantity, still lingers on, although the actual receptacle is very rarely used. Mug the face Miss Baker does not refer to, but I have occasionally heard a man with an exceptionally ugly face dubbed "an ugly JOHN T. PAGE. 44 Lug. West Haddon, Northamptonshire. [Liston was called a notable mugger," the term equalling "grimacer." We are familiar with this phrase. Ugly mug" is a West-Riding phrase for an ill-looking man.] ANTHROPOID APE (9th S. xii. 169). - The illustration of an ape trying to take off a boot forms part of a plate (xi.) from De Bry's 'Petits Voyages, pars i., Vera Descriptio Regni Africani,' published at Frankfort in 1598. H. C. L. MORRIS. Bognor. GILLYGATE AT YORK (9th S. xi. 406, 457, 518; xii. 50, 173).—Where on earth does the writer at the last reference get his authority for "the primary meaning of gate-something guarded"? If he is anxious, as a vaguely expressed sentence in the reply in question implies, not to "make foreigners laugh at us on account of the "low level of our "linguistic knowledge," he would do well to refrain from "Lilium-giglio" etymologies, to learn the A B C of linguistic study, and to add to his "small private collection of books" at least a few of the most trustworthy authorities. F. J. C. Your correspondent at York appears to be so proud of his Lilygate theory that he may THE POPE AND THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW (9th S. xi. 407, 512; xii. 57).— Voltaire's account of the Pope's conduct is interesting : "Le pape Grégoire XIII. fit incontinent tirer le canon du château Saint-Ange; on alluma, le soir, des feux de joie dans toute la ville de Rome. Le lendemain, le pape, accompagné de tous les cardinaux, alla rendre grâces à Dieu dans l'église de Saint-Marc et dans celle de Saint-Louis; il y marcha à pied en procession; l'ambassadeur de l'empereur lui portait la queue, le cardinal de Lorraine dit la messe; on frappa des médailles sur cet événement (j'en ai eu une entre les mains); on fit faire un grand tableau dans lequel les massacres de la Saint-Barthélemy étaient peints. On lit dans une banderole, au haut du tableau, ces mots : Pontifex Colinii necem probat.'"'Histoire du Parlement de Paris.' E. YARDLEY. opus. 'NOVA SOLYMA' (9th S. xii. 168).-MADAME BYSE certainly gives a good additional reason why Milton should be so careless and reticent about the paternity of his youthful magnum It does, I admit, seem strange indeed that "such a father should abandon such an offspring to an early grave." But the editor of Nova Solyma' has given many other reasons for Milton's reticence, and the romance itself leads us to infer that its author did not expect it to fall into "an early grave," but gave it to the world in Latin (urbi et orbi) for the critics to pass judgment on, with the promise that if their remarks were encouraging he would proceed to put in the finishing touches. after its birth (1648-9), for the critics, and This remarkable book fell dead directly the people of England generally, had something very different to occupy their attention just then, when the king's trial and possible execution would be in every one's mouth. Now, after 250 years, a resurrection occurs, and the critics get their second chance, and, so far as I have read their remarks, they It has been accepted unreservedly as Milton's seem to find it a very hard nut to crack. by good and thoroughly qualified critics both here and in America; but the most remarkable result is that the great majority of the newspaper and magazine critics hold the extraordinary view that this singular, learned, and interesting romance was not written by our illustrious countryman, but was the production of a contemporary who held all Milton's opinions (even those opinions not published till Milton's posthumous MS. was discovered in 1825), was a very fine Latin scholar and Latin poet as well, and "as like as two peas in many other ways to the great English Puritan, and yet was not Milton after all. One critic said that this unknown author in a certain passage lacked the self-confidence of Milton, and that in itself was sufficient to settle the question for an expert, and so on; but not one critic has given the slightest hint yet who Milton's double was, where he lived and died, and what else he wrote besides this very unusual book. Can any reader of N. & Q' help to do this? NE QUID NIMIS. [As already stated, we have little doubt that the work is Milton's.] GERYON (9th S. xii. 166). This monster represents a deep enigma which has probably not been fully solved. I have read nothing which satisfies me. He was the allegorical presentment of fraud and deceit, and I think he may have been meant to personate "that old serpent called the devil...... which deceiveth the whole world" (Rev. xii. 9), or, as the poet puts it, "tutto il mondo appuzza' ('Inf.,' xvii. 3). Geryon had the face of a man, the body of a serpent touched up with a sting at the extremity, and the hairy forelimbs of, maybe, a lion or some other ravenous beast. As Thomas Browne says: " "In the Picture of Paradise, and delusion of our first Parents, the Serpent is often described with humane visage......which is not meerly a pictoriall contrivance or the invention of the Picturer, but an ancient tradition and conceived reality, as it stands delivered by Beda and Authors of some antiquity; that is that Sathan appeared not unto Eve in the naked form of a Serpent but with a Virgin's head." -Pseudodoxia Epidemica,' book v. ch. iv. I How clearly Dante himself must have realized it all! The monster with its bust on the embankment and its tail in space; the careful manner in which it puts forth over the abyss; the sensations, mental and physical, experienced by one of the passengers during the descent all these things seem absolutely true. One fails for a time to notice that the creature lacks the wings one would have thought necessary for its passage through the air with a solid Dante on its back. I suppose that Geryon himself and Virgil were imponderable. ST. SWITHIN. TONGUE-TWISTERS (9th S. xi. 269, 455, 493; xii. 55).-A list of English twisters is given as exercises in elocution books-e.g., Bell's Standard Elocutionist,' Behnke's 'Speaking Voice,' &c. "Peter Piper's practical principles" and the "Austrian army awfully arrayed" will serve as examples. In the legend 'Look at the Clock' Tom Ingoldsby makes fun of the name of some Welsh mountain, concluding And so, with your leave, we 'll curtail it to Pen. The repeated list of instruments in Nebuchadnezzar's orchestra presents difficulties to readers when this chapter occurs as the lesson, and is often read in a tone of impatience which mars the effect. Some French twisters are given in the appendix to Delille's excellent grammar, from which the following is taken :Quand un cordier, cordant, veut corder une corde, : Pour sa corde corder, trois cordons il accorde; "Un chasseur sachant chasser sans chien." 'Ton thé t'a-t-il tout ôté ta toux ?" "La cavale au Valaque avala l'eau du lac, et l'eau du lac lava la cavale au Valaque." Il a tant plu Qu'on ne sait plus Dans quel pays il a le plus plu. The nodi and rotelle on his sides do not lend themselves to easy interpretation. have wondered if the latter bore any allusion to the badges imposed upon the Jews, who have seldom been credited with fair dealing. The nodi are Gordian; I must pass them by, or, as a slangy commentator would say, cut them, unless they have reference to the knots of witchcraft. Would that Boccaccio had not "left half told the story of" the Turkish and Tartarian broideries! Perhaps some useful hints as to the decorative scheme of Geryon's flanks might be obtained at Liberty's. The Platt-Deutsch example given by MR. May I say, before concluding, that there is MATTHEWS, written in German-" Eine gute nothing in the whole of the Inferno' that is gebratene Ganse ist eine gute Gabe Gottes more vivid to me than this episode of Geryon ?-is used as a skit on Berlin cockney dialect, 'Bonjour, monsieur l'original, quand vous désoriginaliserez-vous? Je ne me désoriginaliserai que quand tous les originaux se seront désoriginalisés." in which g gives place to y. Goethe and his friend Behrisch played at games resembling this, though from a logical rather than a euphonic standpoint (see Dichtung und Wahrheit,' c. 7). The following is from the 'Gespräche mit Eckermann,' 24 January, 1830: "Erfahrung aber ist, dass man erfahrend erfährt, was erfahren zu haben man nicht gern erfahren haben möchte." occasional centenarians like her. Nor did any one think it worth while to point out that the unhappy victim of eviction had known perfectly well what he was about, and had agreed to pay a certain price for his ninety-nine years' holding, namely, the cost of the house which he covenanted to build, and ninety-nine yearly payments. Or if he were not the original builder, but the inheritor or The griffin and Mephistopheles in the purchaser of the remainder of a lease, still 'Classical Walpurgisnacht' (Faust,' II.) have he knew precisely what he was buying or a snarling encounter in a string of tongue-inheriting; and if he lamented his lot he twisters. Goethe tells Eckermann of the might, perhaps, claim in extenuation that great pains he took in drilling youthful actors, he would not be the first person who had and the ludicrous blunders into which they coveted his neighbour's goods. were sometimes trapped ('Gespräche,' 5 May, 1824). FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. Brixton Hill. With deference to MR. A. COLLINGWOOD LEE, I submit the following as more correct: "Un ânier dit, 'Je ne suis pas ce que je suis. Car si j'étais ce que je suis je ne serais pas Suis represents follow ce que je suis.""" throughout, except where it first and last MISTLETOE. Occurs. Looking through title deeds relating to the parish of Clifton Hampden in the county of Oxford, I find many ninety-nine years' leases, but they are all leases for lives, with a small annual rent and a sum down on grant or renewal; no building leases and a general system of renewals. Nor could there have been any practical hardship in the longer leases, nor, indeed, any practical difference between them and sales. I find, for instance, a lease for 999 years granted in 1661, and a recital in 1738 of a different lease for the same As examples of alliteration, one of which it may be a little difficult to pronounce "trip-term, with a mortgage for a term of 500 pingly on the tongue" without tripping, the following may be adduced : sorel. more L. Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one 'Love's Labour's Lost,' IV. ii. ADRIAN WHEELER. LONG LEASE (9th S. xii. 25, 134, 193).-I remember hearing a learned gentleman in the House of Commons bemoaning the ill fate of a man who should have had to turn out of a leasehold property at the end of ninety-nine years. Some members irreverently laughed ; but no one thought it necessary to explain that it was the common lot, and that the learned member, those who heard him, and the rest of the world, would have to turn out from their houses, whatever the tenure, at the end of ninety-nine years if not sooner, saving the case of Lady Glentworth and years. Another deed (1723) refers to a lease formerly granted for a term of 1,000 years; and another (1769) refers to the residue of a lease for 1,000 years at a yearly rental of one penny when legally demanded, the 999 years' lease of 1661 prescribing a peppercorn rent." The longest term I find is one of 1657 for a term of 2,000 years at the rental of one penny sterling. This last lease does not cause me the same apprehension and the same searchings of heart as to what will happen when the term expires as the ninety-nine years' lease did to my learned friend in the House of Commons, both because the termination is somewhat more remote, and because I represent the original grantor as well as the original grantee, as I do also in the other leases here mentioned. ALDENHAM. Aldenham House. PRIMROSE SUPERSTITION (9th S. xi. 448; xii. 33). This superstition is, or was a generation F. J. C. ago, also current in Dorsetshire. John Dent, my father's gardener, told me when I was a very little boy that if primroses were planted the wrong way up, the flowers would come red. I was sceptical about it, and mentioned the subject to several other people, who all confirmed his statement; but I do not remember that any one of them had ever tried the process and been successful. The belief is, I am sure, still very common in in his preface that King corresponded with Tollet in February, 1688/9, but does not refer to the great probability of his being the TONGUE-PRICKS (9th S. xi. 447; xii. 175).-person to whom the contents of the diary, or portions of it, were transmitted. The brilliant young Russian poet Griboyedov, whose career was prematurely cut short during a riot in Persia, makes one of the characters in his satire 'Gorie ot Uma' ('Sorrow from Wit') remark :- Ah, evil tongues are more dreadful than a pistol: An instance is the better-known and more gifted Michael Lermontov, whose evil tongue brought about two duels, the second of which resulted in his death. Scandal led to the fatal duel which robbed the world of that splendid genius Alexander Pushkin. Brixton Hill. FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. MARAT IN LONDON (9th S. xii. 7, 109, 175). -MR. COLEMAN has repeated at the second of these three references the traditional falsehoods respecting Marat, "facts long since exploded, not only by the writers named by MR. ASHBY ST. LEGERS, but also by the late Mr. H. S. Ashbee. I did my best to kill all these absurd legends in the Gentleman's Magazine a few years ago-I cannot put my hand on the number just now-in an article on 'Marat as an Englishman.' Fiction, being more picturesque than facts, has, I suppose, much more vitality. W. ROBERTS. MR. ASHBY ST. LEGERS refers me to certain French authors for Marat's proceedings when in this country. I consider English authorities would bear greater weight in this matter. He also contends that Marat is "coming into notice again," entirely ignoring the charges made against him in N. & Q.,' Series ii., iïi., iv., vii., viii., which have not been denied. Contemporaneous information, such as the Gentleman's Magazine for February and March, 1776, and two private letters dated 22 February and 6 March, 1776, appears to him to be of no value. Marat assumed an alias on occasions, and therefore his career may sometimes be difficult to trace. For his general character I conclude with that given in Gorton's Biographical Dictionary': "Enthusiasm of disposition, excited by a deep sense of the miseries of her native country, having prompted a young lady [Charlotte Corday] to deliver the world from one of the most sanguinary, monsters that ever persecuted the human race.... EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. ARCHBISHOP KING'S PRISON DIARY, 1689 (9th S. xii. 187).-Permit me to supplement my note on above, as my allusion to Tollet may be misunderstood. Dr. Lawlor mentions GENEALOGIST. SIR NICHOLAS KEMEYS AND CHEPSTOW CASTLE (9th S. xi. 327, 394, 495).-I am sorry escaped my notice. I visited the castle at the reply at the last reference has hitherto the end of April, 1895, and bought on that occasion a copy of the tenth edition of the late Mr. Taylor's 'Sketch,' at the end of which he referred to an article in the Saturday Review of 9 October, 1880, which may interest your correspondent. L. L. K. FREE CATHOLIC CHRISTIANS (9th S. xii. 106). -Some years since I came across a church of this denomination in New York. The announcement on a board outside the building was "Free Catholic Church of Christ," and the services, one of which I attended, were similar to those of an ordinary_Protestant church of the Methodist type. From the sermon, which was delivered by an exCatholic priest, I should imagine that a proportion of the members had formerly belonged to that communion. Though one of the included in the list of registered denominasmallest of the religious denominations, it is tions in the State of New York. There was formerly a small chapel of the sect in the vicinity of Russell Square, but I do not know whether it still exists. FREDERICK T. HIBGAME. BOWES FAMILY (9th S. xi. 407).-Lancelot Bowes, merchant of Durham, father of George Bowes, of Guisbrough, was a son of Sir George Bowes, of Biddir and Bradley (by his wife Mary Delaval), and grandson of George Bowes, of Biddir, third son of Sir George Bowes, of Streatlam Castle, by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Mallory, of Studley. See Surtees's 'Durham,' also Foster's 'Visitation of Durham.' H. R. LEIGHTON. East Boldon, R.S.O., Durham. ENGLISH GRAVE AT OSTEND (9th S. xii. 9, 176). According to Paterson's Roads,' eighteenth edition, by Edward Mogg, 1826, Skelbrook Park was in the possession of the pp. 228 and 307, s.v. 'Robin Hood's Well,' Rev. Charles Cator. Robin Hood's Well is, or was, seven miles from Doncaster on the road to Pontefract. In Cary's New Map of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland,' 1794, map 51, Robin Hood's Well does not appear, but Skellbrook and park are on the left of the road going north from Don |