Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/351

 i. APRIL 9, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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travels in which he pointed out that in the English playhouses bulls and bears were not only baited, but cock-matches fought. On such occasions the ground-floor would form the bear-pit or cockpit, and by a natural transition, the place, when utilized by specta- tors, would come to be spoken of as "the pit." If my interpretation be correct, the expres- sion " yard " as applied to the position occu- pied by the groundlings must have become obsolete with the players' abandonment of the old inn-yards.

What is the earliest known use of the word " pit " in its strictly theatrical sense ? I can trace it in Pepys at the dawn of the Restora- tion, but no earlier. W. J. LAWRENCE.

BISHOP BUCKERIDGE'S BIRTHPLACE. John Buckeridge, President of St. John's College, Oxford, and Bishop of Ely in 1627, was not born at Draycot Cerne, as stated in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' but at Draycot Foliat, in Chisledon parish. His secretary, Anthony Holmes, was told by the bishop that he was born at Draycot, near Maryborough (see Fuller's ' Worthies,' under ' Wilts '), to which town Draycot Cerne certainly cannot be said to be near. To show that Draycot Foliat is meant, the following extracts from the Wilts subsidies may be of interest. William Buckeridge, the bishop's father, occurs in the subsidy of the thirty-fifth and fortieth years of Elizabeth under Chisledon

Krish, in which Draycot was then assessed, the year 1600 Thomas, son of William, occurs, and he was assessor or collector of the subsidy in the years 1610 and 1628. In 1641 we find the name of the latter's younger son Anthony. Thomas Buckeridge was possessed of the farm of Draycot, and in 1649 his elder son Arthur (see 'Chancery Bills and Answers,' Buckeridge v. Fettiplace) was in possession. The family came from Basildon, Berks, where the elder branch died out in the year 1743. Another branch, that of Pangbourne, the adjoining village, ceased to reside there in or about 1868. The family is of interest, as it was kin to that of St. John's College, and the mother of Jethro Tull, the writer on agri- culture, was a Buckeridge of Basildon. The pedigrees as given by Wilder of Sulham and Blandy of Chaddleworth (see Berry, ' Berks Pedigrees,' and Burke's 'Landed Gentry') are incorrect. The two families claimed kinship to Sir Thomas White through the Buckeridges, and professed to be descended from Thomas Buckeridge of Basildon, brotherof the bishop. This Thomas was in reality the only son of John Buckeridge of Basildon and Katharine, a daughter of Thomas Pleydellof Shrivenham,

and his will was proved in 1653 ; his father, John, was a first cousin of the bishop, and therefore not entitled to kinship with the founder of St. John's. The bishop's brother Thomas, as we see in the subsidies, was of Draycot (see also his brother Arthur's will, which was proved in 1638, and where he is styled " my brother Thomas of Dracot "), but later, probably through his wife's connexion with the place she was a Goddard of Swindon ; and in his will, which was proved 1655, we find him of Ham, in ClifFe Pypard. There is a pedigree (Harleian MS.) which correctly states the descent, and as this and the pedigrees, as given in Berry are certified by heralds, it is somewhat difficult to attach importance to such certificates.

ARTHUR STEPHENS DYER. 28, Leamington Road Villas, W.

PIT=A GRAVE. Looking through the six- teenth and early seventeenth century burial registers of the church of St. Peter, Corn- hill, I was struck with the constant use of this word. The following are a few examples :

" 1593, 25 Jan. John Randoll, Draper and Sexton of this church, his pit in the belfrie."

" 1593, 8 Sept. Henry Drables, sonne of Robert Drables, Fishmonger, his pit in the east y" 1 ."

"1593. Elizabeth Whitehead, M r Hunters maid, her pit in the east yard."

" 1646, Mar. 30. Our Reverent Pastor, Mr. Tho. Colema', pitt in ye vpper end of ye chancell."

The grave is often described as the pit by the Psalmist ; but it is not common to find it so designated in parish registers, at all events so late as 1646. HENRY FISHWICK.

" MUCK-A-LUCKS." I first met with this in the Athenaeum, 6 January, 1900, in a review of a book called ' Two Women in the Klondyke.' The reviewer remarked that the author, Mrs. Hitchcock, " wore muck-a-lucks ; what they are we shall not attempt to guess." The term is not in existing English dictionaries, but it is to be found in most modern works on the Klondyke. Jack London spells it muchics in his 'Children of the Frost, 1 1902, p. 90. As the ' N.E.D.' will doubtless include it, I have been at some pains to trace its history. It is from the Eskimo word for a seal, mcikloq (so written by Father Barnum, in his ' Innuit Language,' 1901). This was extended to mean, first, the skin of the seal, then the sealskin boots of the white miners, pic- turesquely described in the Pall Mall Magazine, vol. xxiii. p. 56, as " water-tight, clumsy, evil- smelling, so large that hay is put inside to make a good bed for the foot, and so loose that leather thongs must be wrapped