Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/63

 10 s. XL JAX. 16, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

"have " dans les paniers d' argent," the German " in silbernen Schalen." The note in ' The Speaker's Commentary ' seems ap- propriate : " Probably the golden-coloured fruit set in baskets, i.e., chased vessels of open- worked silver." A silver vessel or receptacle is evidently intended, which our word " picture " can never give, though it is sometimes used in the sense of image or representation, as when we say collo- quially " the picture of misery."

W. T. LYNX.

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.

ST. ANTHONY OF VIENNE. Will any correspondent kindly tell me where I can find out something about St. Anthony of Vienne ? G. AUSTEN.

BLUE COAT SCHOOL COSTUME. What is the origin of the Blue Coat School costume, and its meaning ? G. AUSTEN.

The Residence, York.

VINCENT ALSOP. Can any of your readers throw light on the obscurity of the following passages from the writings of Vincent Alsop, a Puritan author once well known, who lived in the latter half of the seventeenth century ? He was something of a wit as well as a divine, -and frequently uses in his controversial writings ludicrous phrases which recall Andrew Marvell and Roger L'Estrange. ' Anti-Sozzo,' published in 1675, was the book which, even in the judgment of BO bitter an opponent as South, completely routed Dr. William Sherlock's " new theo- logy " ; for by this very term, singular to say, does Alsop describe the rather vapid rationalism of the latitudinarian Churchman. I italicize the phrases which baffle me, and are unexplained by the 'New English Dictionary.'

" Perhaps he [our author] had seen about Billingsgate the Maugeing of a Crane, where a lusty Fellow with a Mastiffe-Dog in a Wheel will take you up an incredible weight, otherwise unmanage- able."' Anti-Sozzo,' p. 201.

2. " He supposes God to have dispensed with the Moral Law, which is news to me; nor shall I

believe it, till I hear it confirmed : for if we like

Fools, goggled in with the Rhetorical Divinity of this Age, should trust to God's Abatements of his Law, and at last it should prove that God loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity as such, we were in a most wretched condition, merely by trusting to Indulgence." Ibid., p. 687.

3. " The name of peace is often iised to destroy the thing. So Austin of old : Ecdesicn nomine Armamini et contra Ecclesiam dimicatis. Thus are we gogled to part with our Christian Liberty for Peace, when as the parting with the Ceremonies would secure both Peace and Christian Liberty." 'Melius Inquirendum' (1679), p. 344.

4. " Both sides, I think, have played at the game of Drop-father so long till they are weary, and forced to confess that some things now in usage were unknown to the Fathers, and many things practised by the Fathers which we have silently suffered to grow obsolete." Ibid., p. 122.

Alsop is speaking of the appeal made both by the Romanist and the Anglican to patristic precedents.

5. " I cannot be of every man's Religion that is of a much 'clearer understanding' than myself, unless I resolve to be of twenty contradictory Religions at

once; nor of every man's way that pretends to

a ' Comfortable Conscience ' in his way, because I see some fitch in Comfort to their Consciences from the greatest pro%-ocatious or grossest delusions." Ibid., p. 258.

This last conundrum I presume to be a misprint, in common with the phrase " an Arditious superstitious Busy-body " (p. 289), where the Latinism ardelious sug- gests itself as the true reading. That would mean meddlesome. Ardelio is a term used by Phaedrus and Martial for a busybody, and is found rarely in English, as in Burton's ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' and in one passage of Dr. John Owen. E. K. SIMPSON.

RUCKOLT HOUSE. Was there ever a pleasure resort called Ruckolt House about ten miles from London ?

" Our Knight had consented to make a Party to Ruckolt-house, which was at that Time the fashion- able Resort of all idle People, who thought it worth while to travel ten Miles for a Breakfast. Sir Thomas, and his Lady, went in a hired Chariot, and the Lovers shone forth in a most exalted Phaeton."' The History of Pompey the Little ; or, The Life and Adventures of a Lap-dog,' 1751, p. 187.

The author of this book was, according to Lowndes, the Rev. Francis Coventry.

The resort is in the same chapter (i.e., Bk. TI. chap, vii.) called twice "Ruckolt." According to the story, Pompey, the lap- dog, was born in 1735 in Italy, and died in 1749 in London. ROBERT PIEBPOINT.

' THE YOUNG LAWYER'S RECREATION.' Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' supply the name of the author of this book ?

"The Young Lawyer's Recreation. Being a Choice Collection of several Pleasant Cases, Passages, and Customs in the Law: For the

Entertainment as well as Profit of the Reader..

London : Printed for Samuel Briscoe, over-against Will's Coffee-Housein Russel-street, Covent Garden, 1694." 12mo, pp. [14], 206, [2].