his opinion, from an anxiety to adhere to the old impressions in all cases where it was possible to make sense out of the original reading. My folio 1632 did not come into my possession until long afterwards, and there to my surprise I found "sly slow" printed fly slow, the old manuscript-corrector having, moreover, placed a hyphen between the two words, so as to make the line read

"The fly-slow hours shall not determinate." Here again I beg to ask whether any of your readers and correspondents happen to know of the existence of any other copies of the folio 1632 It is clear that the two similarly corrected? errors (arising in both cases from the ordinary confusion of the f and the long s) must have been detected as the sheets were passing through the press, and the objectionable letters picked out of what, I believe, printers call the form, and others substituted. The folio 1623 has fire in one play, and sly slow in the other, so that the changes in these words in the folio 1632 must have been made in order to set right two blunders, after many copies containing them had been struck off. Other copies with the corrections must also have been struck off, and I wish to be informed whether any such are known.

As I have said, I have not yet found any other places in which the printed portion of my folio 1632 differs from others, and I doubt if I shall meet with such; but these two are remarkable, especially as I cannot observe that they have been occasioned by any defects in the letters themselves, although the cross-stroke from the f to the 7 in "fly-slow" is rather faint. The manuscript-corrector seems to have bestowed his pains upon copy that was peculiar, however ill it happens to have been since used, and however shabby its J. PAYNE COLLIER. present condition.

CANT OR SLANG LANGUAGE.

a

Will you kindly allow me to make a few hasty remarks on cant, or slang language; for though the parties amongst whom it is chiefly in use are those of the lowest and most abandoned, yet the investigation of its origin and principles opens a curious field of inquiry, replete with considerable interest to the philologist and the philosopher? It affords a remarkable instance of lingual contrivance, which, without the introduction of any arbitrary matter, has developed a system of communicating ideas, having all the advantages of a foreign language, and which has all been accomplished simply by the employment of metaphor and allegory grafted on the older forms of the vernacular, or its cognate dialects; and what foreign expressions may occur have arisen mostly from the mutual intercourse of native and foreign mendicants and wanderers.

Harman, in his Caveat (1566), states that the

cant language was the invention of an individual in the early part of the sixteenth century:

amination of a number of them, their language, which they term Pedler's-French, or canting, began but within these thirty years, or little above that: the first inventor thereof was hanged all save the head." Will any reader of "N. & Q." be kind enough to explain, if possible, the last words? Rowlands, in his Martin Mark-All, states that this language was introduced in the time of a certain king of the beggars, called Cock Lorrell, and that it is an onnium gatherum. But from the fact of the French having their Argot, a vocabulary of which ap peared in the middle of the sixteenth century; the Spanish their Germania, of which a vocabulary was published in 1609; the Germans their Roth wälsch, or Red Italian; the Italians their Gergo; and even the Hottentots their Cuze-cat, a question will very naturally arise with us which was the original? They mostly agree in principle — metaphor mixed with obsolete expression; and Burrow, in his Gypsies in Spain, inclines to Italy as being the originator: I do not now stop to inquire farther into this point. Confining ourselves to the English slang, we find it is composed to a great extent of common household words, converted into slang by the use of metaphor, allegory, or burlesque antithesis, of much Anglo-Saxon, of many words obtained from the rommany, or gypsy tongue (which is not slang, but a proper language, closely allied to the Sanskrit and other eastern dialects, though it is frequently confounded with the thieves' jargon), of corrupted forms of Latin, of some Hebrew words derived from the connexion of the Jewish receivers of stolen property with the thieves, &c., and of several German, Dutch, French, and Italian words, derived probably from an intercourse with foreign itinerants.

"As far as I can learn or understand by the ex

The following are a few familiar words taken promiscuously from a cant or slang vocabulary, etymological and comparative, on which I have been engaged for some time past:

Having a lark (A.-S. lac, sport, play). Gammon (A.-S. gamen, game, sport, scoff). Just the cheese (A.-S. ceoran, to choose), hence = just my choice.

=

Dodge and dodger (A.-S. deogian, to colour, conceal).

Nix my Dolly (A.-S. dæl, part, dole). Stir, a prison (A.-S. reyn, correction, punishment).

Blunt (money), from Fr. blond, blund, or blunt, and applied to money from its colour; compare the word Browns which copper money.

Patter, to talk (Lat., from the mumbling and hurried way of saying the pater-noster before the Reformation).

Toggery, clothing (Lat. toga).

tity).

INEDITED LETTERS OF NELSON.

A friend of mine has the following letter framed and hanging by the side of a portrait of the great sailor. With his permission I have sent it to “N. & Q." for preservation. H. G. D. "Vang" at Sea, Aug. 28th 1798.

"Sir, "I have just received, thro' the hands of my agent, a letter of yours of respecting a Genoese vessel, which I am required to bring before the Judge of the Court of Admiralty, &c. As I have never been informed that the Judge of the High Court of Admiralty had any authority over my political conduct as an officer, of course I did not consider it my duty to inform him of it. If the Judge has that right, I shall, of course, be ready to answer any question he may put to me; in the meantime I believe it is sufficient to say, that my conduct respecting Genoa, and the seizing of their vessels, has received the approbation of the King, through Lord Grenville, and my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to whom only I have hitherto felt myself bound to render an account of my conduct.

"I am, Sir,

"Your most obedient servant, "HORATIO NELSON."

Perceiving by your "Notices to Correspondents" that inedited letters of Nelson are acceptable to you, I send you one that I transcribed from the Additional MSS. (No. 17,024.) in the British Museum, some months since, and which I cannot find anywhere published. It seems to have been purchased by the Trustees in 1847, on the 27th of

First Eclogue of Sannazarius, I came upon a pas-
On lately renewing my acquaintance with the
sage which seemed rather a good illustration of
Milton's meaning in a part of Lycidas which
Thomas Warton has confused:

"At tu sive altum felix colis æthera, seu jam
Elysios inter manes, cœtusque verendos
Lethæos sequeris per stagna liquentia pisces,
Seu legis æternos formoso pollice flores,
Narcissumque, crocumque, et vivaceis amaranthos,
Et violis teneras misces pallentibus algas:
Adspice nos, mitisque veni: tu numen aquarum
Semper eris, semper lætum piscantibus omen."
Opp. p. 56. Amstelædami, 1728, 8vo.

The line in Milton is this:
"Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth."
Lycidas, 163.

For my part I feel quite convinced that Thomas "the great vision of the guarded mount," the Warton is wrong in supposing that "angel" meant archangel Michael, and not Lycidas himself, translated by death to a higher state of purity and blessedness in another world. Milton_had been preparing a "laureat verse' for his Lycidas in some lines of deep beauty, which remind one strongly of Vida:

-

All this, however, was but "dallying with false surmise," for the remains of Edward King had not been discovered. The poet therefore implores him, wheresoever his body might happen to be, to grant it to the prayers of his afflicted friends; though now an angel himself, to "look homeward" upon the scenes of his human life, and to "melt into ruth," as far as such sympathy could exist in an angelic mind to sympathise with his sorrowing companions. The beautiful fiction of Arion, and the amiable habits ascribed to Dolphins by Pliny, Appian, Theophrastus, and Aulus Gellius (Noctes Attica, lib. vii. cap. 8.), will sufficiently account for the pious office assigned by Milton to them:

66

And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth." Milton is supposed to have borrowed the name Lycidas from some of the Idylls of Theocritus. So is named one of the characters in the Eclogue of Sannazarius, which I have already alluded to, but it was Phyllis and not Lycidas who had met with a fate similar to that of Milton's friend. Warton appears to me to have created difficulties where none had existed previously, as I think the subsequent lines of Milton prove:

"Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, In thy large recompense, and shalt be good To all that wander in that perilous flood." The "Fable of Belerus old" refers to the legends connected with the Land's End of Cornwall, and the promontory of Bellerium. I remember that Cowley has the line

"Belerii extremis a cornibus Orcadas usque." Plantarum, lib. vi. p. 344. Londini, 1668, 8vo. Dr. Donne, in a poetical epistle to Sir H. Wotton, speaks of St. Michael's Mount and the fables for which it was celebrated. I quote from Alford's edition:

"Here's no more news, than virtue; I may as well Tell you Calais', or St. Michael's tale for news, as tell That vice doth here habitually dwell."

Works, vol. vi. p. 459. Lond. 1839, 8vo. There is also an interesting account of the historical changes which befel St. Michael's Mount in Collins's Rambles beyond Railways, cap. ix. Lond.

1851, 8vo.

Warmington.

FOLK LORE.

RT.

readers of "N. & Q." I copied it from Harl. MS. 6829., which is a volume of notes on Lincolnshire churches, containing much of great value:

"BOLLINGBRoke.

"One thinge is not to be passed by, affirmed as a certain trueth by many of ye Inhabitants of the towne upon their own knowledge, which is, that ye Castle is Haunted by a certain spirit in the Likeness of a Hare, which at y meeting of ye Auditors doeth usually runne between their legs, and sometymes overthrows them, and so passes away. They have pursued it downe into y Castle yard, and seene it take in at a grate into a low Cellar, and have followed it thither with a light, where notwithstanding that they did most narrowly observe it [and that there was noe other passage out, but by y doore, or windowe, y room being all abore framed of stones within, not having ye least Chinke or Creuice], yet they could never find it. And at other tymes it hath beene seene run in at the Iron-Grates below into other of ye Grottos [as thir be many of them], and they have watched the place and sent for Houndes and put in after it, but after a while they have come crying out."—162.

EDWARD PEACOCK, Jun.

Weather Prophecy (Vol. vi., p. 71.). — P. P. has favoured us with the exact words of the prophecy, but he has unfortunately cut before the point in giving "the lie to the adage."

I must for the sake of posterity vindicate both the correctness of the observation and the credit of the season.

The oaks were certainly this year out before the ashes, but instead of the present summer being wet, as P. P. has prematurely asserted, it has been on the whole, and (with the exception of partial thunder showers) is at this monent one of the driest within the recollection of a long life.

The rivers and springs are smaller at this moment than they were almost ever known to be in most places, and in many there is a difficulty in getting water for the cattle; so that the truth of the observation recorded in the proverb (which is no doubt the result of experience) was never more J. Ss. apparent than at this moment.

Aug. 2.

Folk Lore from an old Newspaper (1759).—“The dregs of superstition, it seems, are still remaining

amongst us, a remarkable instance of which appeared last Wednesday at the gallows. A young woman, who had a wen on her neck, was held up in a man's arms, and the hand of one of the hanging malefactors was several times rubbed over it with much ceremony, so that if it should please God to remove the complaint, a miracle will be imputed to the wonder-working hand of a dead thief." E. H. A.

Superstition in the Nineteenth Century. - The following story is only curious as showing the lingering belief in witchcraft, in a county traversed by railroads.

I was visiting in a cottage last February, in the parish of B, in the diocese of Peterborough; and in casual conversation heard the inmates speak of "the Wise Man." Upon inquiry I discovered they meant "a sort of witch" living at Stamford, who is supposed to have supernatural powers, both in the way of foretelling future events, and also of inflicting evil upon persons and things.

Two cases were related to me of the exercise of these powers, both of which my informants (one an old, the other a young, woman) positively believed.

1. Some years ago a flitch of bacon was stolen. The owner of the lost property went to "the Wise Man," and was told his bacon should be restored on a certain day in a certain place, which happened. "The Wise Man also drew an exact likeness of the thief, by which he was recognised. Of course I only relate as I was told.

2. A servant girl stole some money from a fellow-servant's coffer. The latter went off (nearly twenty miles) to "the Wise Man," and the thief was afflicted until her death with a most painful disease. My informants firmly believed this to have been caused by "the Wise Man." They could not say whether he is still living. "Probably not," they added; as they had "not recently heard of any one consulting him." G. R. M.

Cure for Wens. Calling, a few days ago, at a cottage in the adjoining village (Cuddesden, in Oxfordshire), I inquired of its occupant, a woman who is afflicted with a large goître, or external swelling of the throat, whether she suffered much inconvenience from its increasing size, and whether the doctors gave her much hope of relief? She answered, that as yet it did not cause her much inconvenience; that the doctors gave her no hope of its diminution; but that there was one certain remedy which she should have tried, but for lack of the opportunity, viz. stroking the swollen neck with the dead hand of a man who had been hanged! On my expressing disbelief in the efficacy of this singular application, she assured me that her own father had been afflicted with a similar disease; that he had tried this remedy, and had

been completely cured by it, the swelling decreasing gradually, as the hand of the man mouldered away; and that from that time until his death he had had no return of the disease. W.SNEYD. Denton.

NOTES ON MADEIRA.

(Vol. v., p. 501.)

A Number of "N. & Q." sometimes reaches me in Madeira, and I always see it with pleasure. The Number for May 22nd last has just fallen in my way; and as there is an opportunity for sending a letter to England to-morrow, I hasten to correct has fallen, in a communication printed on p. 501.

two or three mistakes into which MR. Yarrell

1. The Portuguese word faya, though derived in Madeira at least, signify a beech, a tree which, from the Latin fagus, does not at the Azores, and except as a garden curiosity, is not found at either of those places. It is the name of an evergreen tree (Myrica faya) belonging to a family of which our Gale or Dutch myrtle is (as far as I know) the only British representative.

2. I know of no Portuguese word like ceira signifying a bank; but, whether any such exist or the name of one of the Azores, which is nothing not, it takes no part in the composition of Terceira, more than the Portuguese form of tertia, third.

3. Pico derives its name from an elevated peak both in the Azores and the Madeiras, are termed which rises from it. All the mountain summits,

Pico.

4. The raven is not an inhabitant of Madeira, nor did I ever hear of its being found here.

Whilst I am on the subject of corrections, let me turn to another matter, which, though it has nothing to do with your publication, may do some good to those whom it may concern if noticed in your pages. The series of penny maps possesses at any rate the merit of cheapness, and, I trust, the more desirable merit of accuracy to a greater degree, on the whole, than the chart of Madeira attached to the map of Africa, No. 71. On that chart are nineteen names, and of these five are Of the remainder

misspelled and one misplaced. I observe that insignificant places have been selected in preference to important ones.

JAMES YATE JOHNSON.

May I add in a postscript a correction of a mistake which Mr. Ford has fallen into in his Gatherings from Spain? That gentleman tells us that aguardiente, the name of a Spanish drink, signifies in plain English tooth-water, referring the last member of the word to the Spanish form of the Latin dens. Its true origin, however, is in the Latin ardere, to burn; and the Spanish aguardiente has correlatives in our ardent spirits, and the Indian fire-water. Here, in Funchal, one can

LIVERIES IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I.

The following passages in The Journal of Nicholas Assheton, of Downham, in the County of Lancaster, Esq., edited by the Rev. F. R. Raines, M.A., F.R.S., for the Chetham Society, exhibit a curious example of the use of liveries, and of the mean services performed by country gentlemen in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

“1617, Aug. 11.—My brother Sherborne his taylor brought him a suit of appa'll, and us two others, and a live'y cloake, from Sir Ric. Houghton, that we should attend him at the King's coming, rather for his grace and reput", shoeing his neibors love, then anie exacting of mean service.

"Aug. 19.-All this morning wee plaid the bacchanalians."

Esquires and gentlemen, in the present day, would be somewhat astonished by a message requesting them to don the livery of a relation, friend, or neighbour, even although it might be "rather for a worthy knight's " grace and reputation, showing his neighbours' love, than any exacting of mean service.'

J. LEWELYN CURTIS.

Minar Notes.

Inscription over Plato's Door.-The inscription, said to have been fixed over Plato's door, ayeuéTONTOS undels eioírw, has not, I believe, been traced higher than Tzetzes (Chil. viii. 972.), and is often incorrectly given ay. oudeis eio. Following up a hint of Fabricius, I have found the inscription in Philoponus (Comm. in Aristot. de Anim., reverse of sign. D, near the top of the page, ed. Venet. 1535). This carries it up to a date earlier, by more than 500 years, than that ordinarily given. As some distinguished writers have been mistaken in this matter, your readers may be pleased to have the mistake corrected, and some of them may perhaps be able to trace the passage to a still earlier authority. J. E. B. MAYOR.

St. John's Coll., Cambridge.

Cock and Bull Story.-The following extract may be interesting to some of your readers. It is found in The Universal Character, by which all the Nations in the World may understand one another's Conceptions, reading out of one Common Writing their own Mother Tongues, &c. By Cave Beck, M.A. Lond. 1657.

writing by emblems and pictures, which might be read "The Egyptians of old had a symbolical way of by other nations instructed in their wisdom, but was so hard to learn, and tedious in the practice, that letters soon justled them out of the world. Besides, most of

their hieroglyphicks were so catachrestical (the picture showing one thing to the eye, and a quite different sense imposed upon it), that they justifi'd the painter who drew a misshapen cock upon a sign-board, and wrote under it This is a bull,'"