Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/590

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. DEC. 19, im

of Bucks 1552 and 1557, the latter married Katherine, dau. and h. of Thomas Langston of Abington, Berks. She would be a con- temporary of Sir John (he died 1566), and probably survived him. A John Langston was Sheriff of Berks and Oxon 14 Ed. IV. ; and in the list of Gentry of Oxfordshire 12 Hen. VI. contained in Fuller's 'Worthies' I find the following names : John Langeston, Roger Radle, Thomas and William Mason. R. J. FYNMOBE.

(fimrws.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

" PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT." We shall be thankful to readers who can give us any information as to the firs t use of this phrase, which has been so much run upon of late. The earliest example at present before us is from a money-market article in The Daily News of 29 April, 1891. The passage runs :

" Both Friday and Saturday next are holidays in London. Provincial markets always follow suit when the London Stock Exchange takes a day off ; and so, unless we cable to New York, there is nothing to do but to forego turns and commissions at the very psychological moment." Here the phrase seems to mean " critical moment " ; and as it is not easy to see how such a moment could be " psychological," any more than chronological, or physio- logical, or sociological, or anthropological, or amphibological, we may perhaps infer that this was only a " polyphloisboisterous " misuse of a phrase which, as originally used, had some reference to psychology (or was thought to have). A friend thinks he re- members seeing an early example in which he took it to mean " moment of greatest mental excitement." This would of course be a moment of mental or psychical crisis, and as such of interest to the psychologist ; it would be of interest to the philologist to see some early quotations in which the phrase was used with some approach to its ety- mological sense. J. A. H. MTJBBAY.

Oxford.

WILLIAM BLACKBOBOUGH, MILTON'S RELA- TIVE. I should be grateful for information as to the precise degree of relationship which existed between the poet and the William Blackborough of St. Martin's-le- Grand in whose house Milton was reconciled to his first wife, Mary Powell, in 1645. All authorities (including both Prof. Masson

and Sir Leslie Stephen) are agreed in styling Blackborough a relative of the poet, but none of them defines the relationship. Pos- sibly some student of the Milton pedigree can do so.

I may say that I want the information for my history of the parish of SS. Anne and Agnes, Aldersgate, whereof Black- borough was a parishioner.

WILLIAM MCMTJBRAY.

THE ' PBOMPTOBIUM.' Not long ago I saw in ' N. & Q.' a reference to a recent reprint of the ' Promptorium Parvu- lorum,' but cannot turn to it. Will some one kindly tell me what house supplies this ? Is it a simple reprint of the book edited by Alfred Way for the Camden Society, or is it newly edited ? M. C. L.

New York

CAPT. W. BENNETT : CAPT. FBANCIS BENNET. In the latter part of the eigh- teenth century there were two brothers, or first cousins, Capt. W. Bennett and Capt. Francis Bennet. One of them became an admiral. Is there any means of tracing his naval career ? I think the admiral was most likely " W." E. M. BEECHEY.

Milvertori, Somerset.

TUBKISH WEIGHTS, MEASUBES, AND COINS. I shall feel obliged if any one will state the correct form of the following weights and measures used at Bussora and Mocha at the end of the seventeenth century :

Muckee = 4 Surat maunds.

Mertigat = less than a Surat tola.

Ferasilah = 271b.

Marbat or Catla = 7^ ferasilah.

Cabeer, a coin of which 80 go to a royal.

EMEBITUS.

NOBTHIAM CHTJBCH. Will any corre- spondent kindly let me know if he happens to have seen a print or engraving of Northiam Church in Sussex previous to 1837 ? A. L. F.

MENDEZ PINTO. Mr. Austin Dobson in his excellent paper on Izaak Walton men- tions the ' Voyages ' of one Mendez Pinto. I fancy this personage was a Jew, and per- haps the same who attended Columbus to America. In his interesting account of ' Jewish Life in the Middle Ages ' Mr. Israel Abrahams mentions a Jew who took part in that first American voyage ; but as I have not the book on my shelves, I cannot now look it up, and do not recall whether Mr. Abrahams gives the man's name. How-