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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. MAY 21, 1904.

a feather; three-quarter face, with long moustache and goatee beard ; a broad ruff round the neck. On the right side of the head, and in letters, probably, of later date than when the painting was executed, are these words: "S r Walter Rawleigh." This inscription has led many persons to regard the portrait as that of Sir W. Ralegh, to swhom, however, it bears no resemblance whatever. As a matter of fact it represents Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (ob. 1588), and is a facsimile of an engraving, penes me, inscribed "Adr u Werff pinx. Vermeulon sculpsit." The face bears a close resemblance to that of the portrait of the Earl by Mark <Garrard in the collection at Hatfield House. T. N. BRUSHFIELD, M.D.

"HAKLET." In the survey of the manor of Brecknock (Duke of Buckingham's forfeited possessions) taken 13 Henry VIII. occurs the following :

"There is due for the Duk's party yerely for oon haklet within age, soolde, as it is said by the King, to oon John Braynton in Herefordshire, 4."

Hakluyt was a family name in Hereford- shire, ofwhich family the famous Hakluyt, the cosmographer and traveller, was a mem- ber. "Oon haklet" was therefore a ward under age, the guardianship of whom had been sold by the Duke of Buckingham to John Braynton. JOHN LLOYD.

" PONTIFICATE." The following paragraph (Daily Mail, 30 April) contains an unusual employment of this word :

" All rumours as to the serious illness of Arch- bishop Bourne are now disposed of, says the - Catholic Herald, as his Grace returns to town to- day and will pontificate at Westminster Cathedral to-morrow."

In the first place this is a substantive denoting the dignity of a pontiff ; in the second it can apply only to the Pope. This usage cannot be commended.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

[The ' Encyclopaedic Dictionary ' says : " To ponti- ficate at high mass = to celebrate high mass as a prelate." The verb is also in Annandale's 'Im- perial,' 1882.]

BELL'S "CHAUCER." MR. HOOPER quotes (ante, p. 362) a note from R. Bell's edition of Chaucer, adding : "I presume by Prof. Skeat." I beg leave to say this is a mistake. My contributions to that volume were a preliminary essay and such a rearrangement of the material as helped to distinguish the spurious from the genuine poems. At p. 12 of vol. i. I was careful to say that the notes " were writtten by Mr. Jephson," except where I had made an obvious correction and had appended my initials to it. It was not

for me to suppress an annotation on the subject of birth-marks.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

"ScHLENTER." This technical term fora false diamond, known to all South Africans, appears to be missing from ' Slang and its Analogues,' which I am glad to see is at last completed. The term is interesting on account of its etymological connexion with our adjective Blender. As Prof. Skeat has shown, English slender originally meant dragging, trailing, and thence developed the sense of thin. In German schlender or schlenter still retains the older meaning of loitering, lounging, sauntering. In Jewish German it passed through the sense of easy, lax, trifling, into that of worthless, poor, bad. In Yiddish anything can be depreciated by prefixing schlenter, but in English the expression seems to have been taken over only in reference to diamonds. I subjoin a couple of quotations to show how it is used in modern English literature :

"The things were schlenters, or snyde diamonds, imitations made of glass treated with fluoric acid to give them the peculiar frosted appearance of the real stones." G. Griffith. ' Knaves of Diamonds,' 1899, p. 37.

" What ! Not paste ? Not schlanters ? Oh no, of course not ! " 0. Crawfurd, ' Ways of the Million- aire,' 1903, p. 62.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

' THE SCOTS PEERAGE.' From the fact that this ' Peerage ' is edited by the Lyon King of Arms one would have supposed that special attention would have been paid to the heraldic portion of the work, and those who, like myself, take an interest in heraldry, had looked forward to the issue of vol. i. It is disappointing, therefore, to find that the treatment of this part of the book is inadequate. In the first place, the achieve- ments reproduced are not printed in the usual conventional manner, and any one who is not already familiar with the arms of the Scottish peers is unable to blazon them without turning to the description at the end of each article. In the second place, these descriptions do not state for what families the different quarterings are borne. A coat of arms should be an epitome of the history of the family, showing at a glance its alliances and descent ; but to one who is ignorant of Scotch family history a mere narration of the different quarterings of an achievement conveys nothing. Take, for instance, the arms of the Duke of Athpll. No fewer than eight families or dignities are here represented : 1. The ancient earldom of Atholl ; 2. Stewart; 3. Murray ; 4. Stanley;