other chants. The table of the eight tones given by the Rev. T. Helmore (pp. xiii. - xvi.), with their respective beginnings and endings, may, perhaps, take the place of a definition. W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A. THE TRUE MAIDEN HAIR FERN. (Vol. vi., pp. 30. 108.) I met with a book yesterday with which I had not been previously acquainted, viz. Newman's History of British Ferns, Lond. 1844, 8vo. The writer enters into copious details respecting the Maiden-hair, a few of which I shall give to perfect my Note. The only species of the genus Adiantum that has been discovered in Britain, and perhaps in Europe, is the Capillus Veneris. It is found in several parts of Cornwall, Devonshire, Wales, and in Glen Meay, Isle of Man. Sir J. E. Smith says that the A. pedatum of to is principally used in the south of France to make the syrup Capillaire. Mr. Newman remarks that A. pedatum is not a native of Europe, and queries, "Does not the supposition originate in the French name Capillaire being applied the plant as well as the syrup?" We are told by Bulliard, in his work on the medical plants of France, that it is known in shops under the name of Capillaire de Montpellier; and no mention is made of its use as an ingredient of the syrup called Capillaire, though the author adds that it is frequently used in medicine. The medical properties of the True Maiden-hair have been much extolled. Ray, and his authority, Dr. Peter Formius, a Frenchman, make it a universal panacea. Still older writers bear testimony to its powers; and Tragus, after enumerating sundry of its virtues, boasts of prudently omitting some as unworthy of being related, or believed, by Christians. Dr. Ball says that the Arran islanders use a decoction of its leaves instead of tea. I have often heard the same, but though I have spent some time in Arran, I never saw it so used. The Capillus Veneris is styled the True Maiden-hair Fern, in contradis tinction to A. Ruta-muraria and Asplenium Trichomanes, which are often confounded with it under the common name Adiantum, or, in England, Maiden-hair. Asplenium Trichomanes, or common Spleenwort, is a beautiful little fern, and very common: its stem is also black and wiry, but short and leaved from the root; unlike the Capillus, which is tall and bare, leaved only at the top. The medical properties of the Spleenwort are likewise much celebrated by the older botanists. Lightfoot informs us that in Scotland the country-people give a tea or syrup of it for coughs. Luo na canamh, in my former note, is a misprint for Lus na cenamh. EIRIONNACH. July 21, 1852. It may be difficult to fix the exact time when this expression was first used, or to point out its author; but its origin should, I think, be looked for after the time when the adherents of the original "cause" had become split into different parties. Many of the old parliamentary party, or adherents of the "cause" properly so called, were hostile to the Commonwealth government; but the supporters of the latter arrogated to themselves exclusively the title of maintainers of "the good In 1659, Prynne, who was as violently opposed to the Commonwealth, as he had at one time been to the King, published a pamphlet with the title: The True Good Old Cause rightly stated, and the False Uncased, in which he denies the right of the Commonwealth to the name, and claims it for his own party. In answer to this, another pamphlet was published in the same year with the title, Mr. Pryn's Good Old Cause stated and stunted Ten Years Ago, or a most dangerous Design in misstating the Good, by mistaking the Bad Old Cause, &c. From these tracts it appears that the name was then popularly applied to the cause of the Commonwealth. Prynne accuses the other party of attempting "to bring our old religion, government, parliaments, laws, liberties, to speedy desolation and irrecoverable destruction, under the disguise of 'maintaining the good old cause," and adds in a marginal note, "if they mean by this good old cause their new Commonwealth, it was begotten but in March, 1648," &c.; and then proceeds to show what was the "true original good old cause, grounds, ends, drawing the houses of parliament to raise and continue their armies." The answer to Prynne also shows the sense in which the term was then used; he says: "The present outcry for the good old cause, i. e. the Commonwealth government declared and proclaimed in March, 1648, he impeaches as the project of Jesuitick instruments," &c. - P. 2. The name may have been previously used, but The question of UNEDA (Philadelphia) is worth answering, for the sake of historical truth, though the person and the book he inquires after are in themselves utterly contemptible. The woman was an aventurière of the most profligate class: it is not very clear what her real name was; that which she first assumed, Van-Aylde-Yonghe, was the maiden name of her mother, a Dutch woman. She seems afterwards to have assumed, in the course of her trade as a professed courtesan, several temporary names; amongst others, those of Ney and Moreau, whom she lived with; but at last she settled down under that of Ida de St. Elme. Having been born in 1778, her personal stock in trade must have deteriorated considerably by the time of the Restoration; and at the age of fortysix (1824?) she attempted to become an authoress, but without success. She could find no bookseller to print a novel which, with the usual tact and good sense of such persons, she chose to call Corinne. She now fell into such misery as to have, she says, attempted suicide. This seems, like all her anecdotes, very apocryphal; but she was received into some kind of charitable asylum. About this time the appetite for scandalous memoirs was in full force in Paris, and she thought of directing her authorship into that line. With the assistance of a hack littérateur of the name of Malitourne, and under the patronage of Lavocat the bookseller, she produced the voluminous and indecent fatras, in eight volumes octavo, which UNEDA mentions. Some scandalous and licentious anecdotes of her own life may perhaps be true, and nothing can equal her effrontery in telling them: but the work altogether is a profligate catchpenny, of no authority or value whatsoever, and is, I believe, now selling almost as waste paper. FISHING BY ELECTRICITY. (Vol. vi., p. 53.) C. The following paragraph, from The West of England Conservative for July 28, 1852, will perhaps interest your correspondent LLEWILLAH. "We alluded several weeks since, to certain experi ments by Mr. E. A. Heineken, of Bremen, to test the applicability of electricity as a means of facilitating the capture of whales. Mr. Heineken, who is now in the United States, has recently received intelligence from Bremen which is of much interest, relating to the success of this invention, as practically tested on board the Bremen whale-ship 'Averick Heineken,' Captain Georken. The Averick Heineken' left the river Weser last July, for the Pacific Ocean, having on board three rotation machines of various sizes, in order to ascertain the degree of power necessary to secure sperm or right whales; one machine containing one magnet, another four, and another fourteen. Captain Georken, in a letter dated New Zealand, Dec. 13, 1851, writes as follows: - The first experiment we made with the new invention was upon a shark, applying the electricity from the machine with one magnet. The fish, after being struck, instantly turned over on its side, and after we had poured in upon him a stream of electricity for a few moments by turning the handle of the machine, the shark became stiff as a piece of wood. We next fell in with a black fish. As soon as the whale-iron was thrown into him, and the machine handle turned, the fish began to sink. The operator then ceased turning the machine, and the fish immediately rose; when the machine was again set in motion, upon which the fish lay stiff on the surface of the water, and was taken alongside of the ship. At this time we made use of the four-magnet machine. We saw sperm and other whales, and lowered our boats, but were unsuccessful in getting fast to them, as they disappeared on our approaching them; while at all other times the weather was too boisterous to permit us to lower our boats. Thus we had but one chance to try the experiment upon a whale, which was made with the four-magnet machine. The whale, upon being struck, made one dash onward, then turned on his side, and was rendered perfectly powerless. Although I have, as yet, not been fortunate enough to test the invention in more instances, I have the fullest confidence in the same, and doubt not to be able to report the most astonishing results on my return from the Arctic seas, where I am now bound." MATURIN LAURENT. (Vol. vi., pp. 11. 111.) W. FRASER. Your correspondent A. N. will find in the Histoire de Jacobinism, by the Abbé Barruel, that Maturin Laurent was a monk that Marc Michel, the celebrated bookseller in Amsterdam, kept in his pay, and who furnished him with many works of a similar character to Le Compère Mathieu. As your correspondent truly says, "it is a somewhat learned and not altogether undull" book; but "it is not an imitation of the manner of Rabelais." It is a philosophical romance, in which many of the most curious speculations of the human mind are argued with great ability. Two lads leave the Jesuits' College at La Flêche, are joined by a Spaniard and Englishman, a renegade priest, and one or two others, who travel together over a great part of Europe, and indulge with great freedom on a great variety of topics. The story serves for a peg to hang their philosophy on. Voltaire repudiates being the author. The style is indeed unlike that of Voltaire, but equally brilliant; and the language is very pure. The copy of Le Compère Mathieu I have is a Paris edition, MDCCXCVI., Statesmen and Favourites of England, published in "Imprimerie de Patris." The "Avis de l'Editeur" may be acceptable to some of the readers of "N. & Q.," to whom the book may not be known: " Il importe fort peu au public d'apprendre par quel hasard cet ouvrage m'est tombé dans les mains. II doit savoir que j'ai été plus de quatre ans dans l'irrésolution de le mettre au jour. Je puis compter sur une douzaine d'amis vertueux et éclairés. Quatre d'entre eux voulaient que je le fisse imprimer; quatre me poussaient à le brûler; et le reste me disait d'en faire ce que je jugerais à-propos. Un coup détermina l'affaire, et ce coup fut pour l'impression. "Voici donc cet ouvrage tel que je l'ai reçu, non-seule ment quant aux notes, qui sont de différentes mains, et aussi souvent mal en ordre. Si cet ouvrage est bon, je prie le lecteur bénévole de savoir gré à la fortune de sa publication: s'il est mauvais, et qui pis est, méchant, je suis le premier à joindre ma voix à celle des hommes zélés qui le décrieront." JAMES CORNISH. Replies to Minor Queries. The Man in the Moon (Vol. vi., p. 61.). - I beg to remind your correspondent J. Br. of two passages in Dante which are illustrative of the "Man in the moon." Inf. xx. 124-126.: "Ma vieni omai; chè già tiene il confine D'amendue gli emisperi, e tocca l'onda Sotto Sibilia, Caino, e le spine." Par. ii. 49-51.: "Ma ditemi: che sono i segni bui Di questo corpo, che laggiuso in terra On the former passage there is the following gloss in the commentary of Jacopo dalla Lana, published at Venice in 1476, under the pseudonyme of Benvenuto da Imola : "Dice che Chayno elle spine cio e la luna; perche fabulose si dice che Chayno figliuo Dadam e nella luna con uno fascio di spine in spalla Simile a quello chel portava nel mondo a fare sul monte sacrificio a dio." Plutarch has a treatise “περὶ τοῦ εμφαινομένου προσώπου τῷ κύκλῳ τῆς Σελήνης." - Plutarchi Opera : Lut. Paris, 1624, fol. tom. ii. p. 910. Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromat. lib. i.) quotes Serapion for the tradition of the face which appears in the moon being the soul of a sibyl. See Sibyllina Oracula (Parisiis, 1607, 8vo.), pp. 97, 98. F. C. B. 1665: "He was one whom the collar of S. S. S., worn by judges and other magistrates, became very well, if it had its name from Sanctus, Simon, Simplicius; no man being more seriously pious, none more singly honest." From this it appears that judges and magistrates were entitled to wear this badge. JOHN BRANFILL HARRISON. Orchard Street, Maidstone. At Gaddesby Church, in this county, is a high tomb against the north wall of the north aisle, reputed to be of the Segrave family, whereon is an effigy of a knight bearing a collar of SS., which must have been beautifully executed, but which, from repeated coats of whitewash and the damp, is at present so clogged up as to be scarcely discernible. "He is in armour, with a collar of SS., a large dagger on his right side; at his feet a dog; his head reclines on a helmet, and his hands, which are broken off, were uplifted in prayer. On the front [of the tomb] are four blank shields." - Nichols's History of Leicestershire, vol. iii. part ii. p. 995., in which the above-mentioned tomb is engraved. Leicester. THOMAS L. WALKER. Reverence to the Altar (Vol. vi., pp. 33. 109.). — I do not quite agree with MR. BEDE that the custom in Huntingdonshire, Pembrokeshire, and no doubt many other places, of bowing to the clergyman on entering church is a mere abuse of the ancient reverence to the altar; for the two distinct usages may have coexisted. If it be nothing but a "transfer of the mark of respect from the altar to the clergyman," at all events it received early sanction in some places; for example, in certain "Statutes made by the Reverend the Deane and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, Dublin, for the government of the Viccars Choralls," it is ordered : "VI. That every Viccar, att his first entrance into the choire, doe behave himself reverently, and doe accustomed obeyance to the Deane." And again : "XI. That every Viccar, att his goeing to read any lesson, littanies, or to the Lord's table, shall, both goeing and att his returne, expresse a civell obeydance (sic) to the Deane." These rules were made in 1692. (Mason's Hist. S. Patrick's Cath., p. 92.) A. A. D. Spanish Vessels wrecked on Irish Coast (Vol. vi., p. 44.). - A letter from the inspecting general officer of the Coast Guard, printed at p. 499. of vol. xx. of the Illustrated London News, states that during the present year the remains of two of these vessels became distinctly visible on the Donegal coast, from the shifting of the sands. Attempts were made to raise some of the cannon, but without success. An anchor was however recovered, of which a drawing is given. A. A. D. Dress of the Clergy (Vol. vi., p. 99.). - The dress of the clergy, before the Reformation, was not, as far as I am aware, fixed by any ecclesiastical regulation. Their luxurious dresses are often attacked by the writers, especially the poets, of the Middle Ages. In a ballad of not later date than 1467 we hear of "prestis " "With your wyde fueryd hodes voyd of discrecion Un to your ouyn preachyng of contrary condition." who are bidden to "Make shorter your taylis and broder your crownys, Leve your short stuffede dowblettes and your pleylid gownys."* Scarlet, however, seems to have been the most favourite colour with the priests, and on that account was especially ridiculed by the maligners of the clergy: "Of scarlet and grene gaie gownes Either they serve the devill or none."† Much curious matter on this point, as well as all others connected with the domestic concerns of our ancestors, is to be found in the wills and inventories of the time. In that of Roger de Kyrkby, vicar of Gainford, published by the Surtees Society, there is mention made of more than one article of dress of a scarlet colour. It is probable that the Protestants were the more violent against the clergy for wearing scarlet dresses because they considered that colour symbolical of the "Babylonish apostacy." K. P. D. E. Virgilian Lots (Vol. vi., p. 77.). - The Editor's note is indeed " a very curious illustration" of the Sortes Virgilianæ; but it is hardly a direct answer to TECEDE'S question, "What is the meaning of The Virgilian Lots?" Perhaps, therefore, the following extract from Dr. Smith's Antiquities (p. 1052.) may be found worth inserting : "It was the practice to consult the poets in the same way that the Mohammedans do the Koran and Hafiz, and many Christians the Bible, namely, by opening the book at random, and applying the first passage that struck the eye to a person's own immediate circumstances. (S. Aug. Confess., iv. 3.) This practice was very common among the early Christians, who substituted the Bible and Psalter for Homer and Virgil: * Satirical Songs on Costume, p. 56. Percy Society, No. LXXXI. † The Plowman's Tale. many Councils repeatedly condemned these Sortes Sanctorum, as they were called. (Gibbon, Decline and Fall, xxxviii. Note 51.) The Sibylline Books were consulted in the same way." TECEDE will find more on this curious subject in Prideaux's Connexion, vol. ii. pp. 309, 310. (Tegg's ed.) Bingham says (b. xvi. c. v. § 3.) : "It appears that some of the inferior clergy, out of a base spirit and love of filthy lucre, encouraged this practice, and made a trade of it in the French church: whence the Gallican councils are very frequent in the condemnation of it." - Quoted in Southey's Commonpace Book. I can vouch for this superstitious use of Scripture being by no means extinct, and this in the "higher classes." (Vol. vi., p. 6.) As a kindred bit of Folk Lore, I may add that the words of King Lemuel's mother, the last chapter of Proverbs, are often made to do duty in the divining line. The chapter is divided into thirty-one verses, one of which is appropriated to each day of the month; the response depends on which is the consulter's birthday. What is the history of this plan? The mystery was explained to me by an Italian Roman Catholic servant. A. A. D. General Lambert (Vol. vi., p. 103.). -The following traces him a little later. In the Macclesfield Correspondence (vol. ii. p. 31.) is a letter from the Rev. Thomas Baker to Collins, as is supposed, dated Sept. 4, '78, which ends thus : "Major-General Lambert, prisoner at Plymouth, hath sent me these problems to be solved. I desire the solutions of them (having sent mine to him): Lines on the Succession of the Kings of England (Vol. iii., p. 168.; Vol. vi., p. 83.). - As the following genealogical mnemonics are comprised in less than half the space occupied by those of your correspondent E. C., perhaps you may think them worthy of preservation. I transcribe them from memory, and cannot refer to the source whence I obtained them: George the Fourth, the son of Third, the grandson of the Second, The son of First - Ann's cousin he, as history has Ann Mary Second's sister, either James the Second's He James First's son, the cousin of Elizabeth the Queen, kingdom won; He uncle dread of Edward Fifth, the son of Edward The cause of shame and sorrow both to the repentant The cousin he of Henry Sirth, the son of Henry Five, son, He grandson was of Edward Third, of Edward Second First Edward's son, Third Henry's son, who was the son of John, tained to be impracticable-the continuance of the Sinking Fund-is assumed by Sir A. Alison, who is so far wrong. The extinguishment of the National Debt by that fund would have required the taxation to have been increased about double; that is, raising it in round numbers from fifty to nearly one hundred millions sterling per annum for the twenty-seven years. It is, however, well known that from 1813 to 1815, so far from raising money for a Sinking Fund, the excessive expenses of the war were with difficulty defrayed by the Government; and in 1822 it was found necessary even to reduce the current expenses of the year by extending the charge of naval and military pensions over a long term of years, - an arrangement partially forced on the Bank of England, other capitalists declining the terms. The reduction of the National Debt has proceeded, on the average of thirty-seven years, at the rate of about three millions annually; the principle being to apply surplus revenue only in reduction of debt, instead of borrowing to create a Sinking Fund. Comparing the national case to that of an individual,-suppose he, being in debt, reduces that debt by paying off 1000l. per annum, being clear savings out of his income, he in that case pursues the course now followed by the Government. On the principle of the Sinking Fund, however, he would go on borrowing of A., on the one hand, and buy up the debt from B., to whom A. had transferred it, till the amount bought T. J. BUCKTON. John brother was of Richard First, the son of Henry up equalled the amount of debt incurred. Two, He Stephen's cousin, cousin he of Henry First, he who Birmingham. Aghindle or Aghendole (Vol. vi., p. 9.). - The etymology of this word is from the Anglo-Saxon, and signifies the half-dole or divisional part, the measure being, as F. R. R. states, the fourth part of a peck. Spenser, in his Faery Queene, uses the word "Hafendeale" in the sense of a partition; and in Halliwell's Archæological Dictionary "halfendele" is given as the half, or half part. In Somerset a halfendeal garment is one composed of two different materials. In a marriage indenture dated 14th September, 1454, printed in Corrie's History of Lancashire, vol. ii. p. 645., it is covenanted by parties living in Rochdale parish, that, "After ye decesse of saide Xtofer Kyrschagh, ye saide Eleanor shall keepe reversion of halfundell of all the londes yt ever were ye saide Xtofer's, accordynge to dedes in taile beforetyme thereof made." J. D. Sinking Fund (Vol. vi., p. 101.). - Both the statements of Mr. M'Culloch and Sir A. Alison are facts. The practicability of what has been ascer |