Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/331

 10 s. XL A. 3,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

271

If the le in such English place-names is really the French preposition lez, the fact that it did not appear in this country before the sixteenth century seems to show that it is something in the nature of an exotic, and requires explanation. A. E. S.

[Reply from MR. H. A. HARBEN next week.]

FALCON COURT, SHOE LANE (10 S. xi. 128, 190). Walter (not William) Dight was at "The Falcon" in Shoe Lane in 1612, but Prof. Arber in his Transcript of the Sta- tioners' Registers gives him as being at that address from 1590, which is, however, an approximate date only, the first entry of a book to Dight being in 1598. He continued to publish until 1627.

With reference to the Falcon in Fleet Street, this house was " against St. Dunstan's Church," and was occupied by William Griffith (not Griffiths) from 1552 to 1572. He was succeeded by Henry Middleton, who came from " The Ship " in London Wall, and lived at "The Falcon" until 1587. Both Griffith and Middleton had a shop in St. Dunstan's Churchyard where their books were sold. This was distinct from "The Falcon," although it may have been adjoining.

There is no trace of Dight having suc- ceeded Middleton.

The story of Wynkyn de Worde's having occupied a house with the sign of " The Falcon " rests upon the authority of Pen- nant, and even he is careful to add that this was his dwelling-house, and that the press was at "The Sun." R. A. PEDDIE.

St. Bride Foundation, Bride Lane, B.C.

At the second reference there is one palpable error, namely, in icgard to Poppin's Court. " Poppin " is evidently neither a puppet nor a doll, but a popinjay. In a niche in front of the house at the west corner of the entrance to Poppin's Court is a deftly carved popinjay or parrot, " the crest of the Abbots of Cirencester." This is accom- panied by an inscription informing the observant passer-by that there stood "in ancient times the Inn of the Abbots of Cirencester." The accuracy of this legend one has no present opportunity of investi- gating, but the court is Popinjay Court in iStrype's map, 1720. The green wood- pecker (Gecina viridis) was in the Middle Ages known as the popinjay a name also applied to the parrot or to other gaily plumed bird used to aim at in archery, when it hung upon a pole, and swung to and fro with the wind. Scott in ' Old Mortality '

speaks of " various sports, of which the chief was to shoot at the popinjay, an ancient game formerly practised with archery " (vide Note A to this passage, second chapter, ' The Festival of the Popin-

jay').

The neighbourhood of Poppin's Court was devoted to sports. Dodsley, 1761, mentions a Cockpit Alley leading out of it ; and the turning next to it is still called Racquet Court. Mr. Gunston exhibited at a meeting of the British Archaeological Association (10 April, 1867) a curious leaden piece with invected edge, an inch and a half in diameter, bearing on one side the legend " C & P save ye Queene," and on the other a popinjay on a perch. In all probability the piece was a pass ticket to an archery match where a popinjay was the mark.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

HIPPOCRATES AND THE BLACK BABY (10 S. xi. 207, 258). See St. Augustine,* ' Quaes- tiones in Genesin,' 93, on chap. xxx. 37 sqg.

The story, with many alleged instances of the strange effects of imagination under similar circumstances, is referred to by Thomas Fienus, ' De Viribus imaginationis,' Quaestio xiii. Montaigne's ' Essais,' I. xx. (near the end), may be compared. In Heliodorus's ' ^Ethiopica,' lib. iv. cap. 8, is the fiction of the Ethiopian queen bearing a white child owing to the influence of a picture of Perseus and Andromeda.

EDWARD BENSLY.

University College, Aberystwyth.

SEMAPHOBE SIGNALLING (10 S. xi. 168, 211). As a slight addition to the interest- ing correspondence already published in ' N. & Q.,' I should like to quote from Blackie's ' Encyclopaedia ' part of a short biography of the inventor of the telegraph :

" Chappe, Claude, was born 1763. He is cele- brated as the inventor of the telegraph, and attracted notice in his twentieth year by several essays in the Journal de Physique. Wishing to communicate with his friends, who lived at a distance of several miles from him, he conceived the idea of conversing with them by means of signals ; and his experiments for this purpose led hun to his important invention. Having succeeded in erecting his machine on a large scale, he laid a description of the work, which he called telegraph, before the national assembly, in 1792. The establishment of the first tele-

the baby is not black, but pulcherrimus. Its un- likeness to the parents is the cause of suspicion. Erasmus printed the tale from Austin in the text of his edition of Jerome, ' Qusest. Hebr. in Gen. (on xxx. 37), where a story of a black child is referred to.
 * In the story given by Austin as Hippocrates's