Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/141

 io* s. iii. FEB. ii, IMS.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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skorulig, at menn fottuz vart slika rausnar- veizlu set hafa' 1 ). It seems to me that this Jola-veizla is the jolly-wessel of the Yorkshire carol, which I have heard nearly every Christmas for the last fifty years, and that icassail is the perverted form of a word which would have been better written waissel or u'assel. Anthony Wood has preserved a carol beginning :

A jolly Wassel Bo\vl,

A Wassel of good ale, Well fare the butler's soul, That setteth this to sale Our jolly Wassel.

See the whole carol in Brand, ' Popular Antiq.,' 1849, i. 5.

I have just noticed that Mrs. Press, in her translation of ' Laxdcela Saga,' c. 26, renders veizla as uussail. This translation, published in 1899, appeared in a series called "The Temple Classics," edited by Prof. Gollancz. In a note at the end Prof. Gollancz says, "The manuscript translation has had the advantage of being revised by a competent Icelander." S. O. ADDY.

BESANT (10 th S. iii. 28). A lady friend of the late Sir Walter and Lady Besanfc for thirty-five years informs me that they invariably pronounced their name with the accent on the second syllable Besant. T.

BRITISH MEZZOTINTERS (10 th S. ii. 481, 521). MR. GORDON GOODWIN has been kind enough to answer my query as to Loggan's biography published in 'X. & Q. 1 in 1881 (6 tn S. iv. 90).

E. S. DODGSON.

ANTHONY BREWER (10 th S. ii. 468). The name of Brewer does not occur in any docu- ments relating to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to which, as a student of local history, I have had access. I think it hardly likely that the play of 'The Lovesick King,' published in London in 1655, was performed here at or about that period, and I find no record of it among the amusements of later date. My doubts are founded upon the following letter, which appeared in The Weekly Flying Post of 10 January, 1656, quoted by the late John Hodgson Hinde in the Archceologia JZliana, iv. p. 235 :

" Letter from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I send you a piece of exemplary justice, which as it sets an example to other magistrates of this nation, so also can no* be unfitly communicated to you. On the 28th of December a cluster of lewd fellows, adver- tising to act a comedy within the precincts and bounds of this town, daring, as it were, authority, and outfacing justice ; our vigilant magistrates hearing of it, resolved to set a boundary to their sinful courses, and clip the harvest of their hopes ; concluding such enormities the proper

nurseries of impiety, and therefore they repaired' to the place, where having begun, Alderman Robert Johnson, Mr. Sheriff, and divers godly men, step in to see their sport. But their sudden approach changed the scene both of their play and coun- tenances, so that the interlude, proving ominous, boded no less than a tragedy to the actors, turning the play into a tragi-comedy. After they had done, they were apprehended and examined before the Mayor and other Justices of the Peace, and found guilty of being common players of interludes, according to a statute made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and according to law adjudged to be whipped : which accordingly was performed in the public market-place, when a greafe concourse of people thronged to see them act the last part of their play, their robes of honour hanging in public view. Therefore let the nation know their names and habitations, that all that have converse with them may look upon them to be such as the laws of the land hath concluded them to be, rogues and vaga- bonds, as followeth :

John Blaiklock of Jesmond.

John Blaiklock, his son, both Papists.

James Morehead of Newcastle.

Edward Liddell of Jesmond, a Papist.

James Edwards of Useburu.

Thomas Rawkstraw of Newcastle.

Richard Byerley of Useburn. All whipt in Newcastle for rogues and vagabonds."

The full title of Brewer's play, according to Lpwndes, is ' The Love Sick King, an English Tragical History : with the Life and Death of Cartesmunda, the Fair Nun of Winchester.' RICHARD WELFORD.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

'HARDYKNUTE' (10 th S. ii. 425, 536; iii. 37). To charge a correspondent with imperfect knowledge is easy, out to demonstrate it is- not. The charge, supposed to have its base in my confession that I did not know Mr. Gosse's writing on the subject, is weak, because I was fully informed of the "definite conclusions" come to by that gentleman; and to those only did I refer.

The charge that I ignored any part of the first note is incorrect, and what I am said to have ignored is not specifically named. When I referred to a writer who threshed the subject, was that not sufficient to guide those interested, and enable them to form their own opinion, independently of what I said or " inferred " ?

What I, however, left readers to "infer" is only on a par with what was left for readers to surmise in the first note under this heading. It was my desire that readers should, as they had a right to, form their own conclusions from what evidence might be produced. I was quite aware of the quotation now given from Percy, and I am also aware that this quotation, in part, is discounted by the statement that Sir John Bruce " pretended " to have discovered the