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Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Number 39 July 27 1850 by Various
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MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, Sales, &c. 142 Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 143 Answers to Correspondents. 143
NOTES.
ETYMOLOGY OF "WHITSUNTIDE" AND "MASS".
H.T.G.
Clapton.
FOLK LORE.
Amongst other "choice and experimental receipts" and "curiosities" which in this little tome are recommended for the cure of some of the "ills which flesh is heir to," one directs the patient to
"Take two parts of the moss growing on the skull of a dead man ."
Another enlarges on the virtue of
"A little bag containing some powder of toads calcined, so that the bag lay always upon the pit of the stomach next the skin, and presently it took away all pain as long as it hung there but if you left off the bag the pain returned. A bag continueth in force but a month after so long time you must wear a fresh one."
This, he says, a "person of credit" told him.
HENRY CAMPKIN.
Reform Club, June 21. 1850.
JARLTZBERG.
LONG MEG OF WESTMINSTER.
"Long Meg of Westminster kept alwaies twenty courtizans in her house, whom, by their pictures, she sold to all commers."
From these extracts the occupation of Long Meg may be readily guessed at. Is it then likely that such a detestable character would have been buried amongst "goodly friars" and "holy abbots" in the cloisters of our venerable abbey? I think not: but I leave considerable doubts as to whether Meg was a real personage.--Query. Is she not akin to Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant-killer, Doctor Rat, and a host of others of the same type?
"Towards this end there lies a large slab of blue marble, which is called 'Long Meg' of Westminster. Though it is inscribed to Gervasius de Blois, abbot, 1160 natural son of King Stephen, he is said to have been buried under a small stone, and tradition assigns 'Long Meg' as the gravestone of twenty-six monks, who were carried off by the plague in 1349, and buried together in one grave."
The tradition here recorded may be correct. At any rate, it carries with it more plausibility than that recorded by Mr. Cunningham.
EDWARD F. RIMIBAULT.
A NOTE ON SPELLING.--"SANATORY," "CONNECTION."
CH.
Minor Notes.
"Tre cose mat fecesti, O Padre santo: Accettar il papato, Viver tanto, Morir di Carnivale Per destar pianto."
J. Mn.
T.S. LAWRENCE.
"The soil about Puerto, Seguro, and very likely in most of the valleys, is a rich black mould, which, as you turn it fresh up to the sun, appears as if intermingled with gold dust; some of which we endeavoured to purify and wash from the dirt; but though we were a little prejudiced against the thoughts that it could be possible that this metal should be so promiscuously and universally mingled with common earth, yet we endeavoured to cleanse and wash the earth from some of it; and the more we did the more it appeared like gold. In order to be further satisfied I brought away some of it, which we lost in our confusion in China."
How an accident prevented the discovery, more than a century back, of the golden harvest now gathering in California!
E.N.W.
Southwark.
A.C.
JARLTZBERG.
QUERIES
THE STORY OF THE THREE MEN AND THEIR BAG OF MONEY.
My object in troubling you with this, is to ask whether any of your subscribers can furnish me with any other versions of this popular story, either Oriental or otherwise.
BRACKLEY.
Putney, July 17.
THE GEOMETRICAL FOOT.
A. DE. MORGAN.
Minor Queries
"Full many a gem of purest ray serene," &c.?
"Plurima gemma latet caeca tellure sepulta, Plurima neglecto fragrat odore rosa."
S.W.S.
"EMMOTE DE HASTINGS GIST ICI" &C.
Hitherto, after diligent search, no notice whatever has been discovered of the said person. The supposition is that she was either a Miss De Bitton married to a Hastings, or the widow of a Hastings married secondly to a De Bitton, and therefore buried with that family, in the twelfth or thirteenth century. If any antiquarian digger should discover any mention of the lady, a communication to that effect will be thankfully received by
H.T. ELLACOMBE.
Bitton.
A.C.
A.W.H.
A.C.
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