Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/189

 III. FEB. 23, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

153

Will ME. WILLIAMS explain his contention a little more fully] Is it affirmed that as the compositor set up the text the great Bacon stood over him and slipped in his cryptic sentence ? or is he supposed to have arranged with the compositor to expand or contract the lettering so that this phrase should appear at the thirty-third line? The text, I may say, shows no sign of this, so that I think that question may be answered in the negative.

Then, again, it is a little unfortunate that the line happens to be the thirty-first, unless the stage directions are counted, which is unusual. It is also a little unfortunate that ME. WILLIAMS'S answer by no means fits the question. As I understand it, we are asked if the C reversed, used as an abbreviation for Con, might not have been known as "the horn." MR. WILLIAMS'S answer is that " the horn " in a passage in the First Folio stands for C, which is another story altogether, and can have no warrant whatever except in the imagination of the writer. Even if QUIRINUS'S question could be answered in the affirmative, which has yet to be seen, it would lend no support to MR. WILLIAMS'S contention. HOLCOMBE INGLEBY.

fSedgeford Hall.

With all respect to MR. WILLIAMS, I beg to point out that he takes for granted what he is asked to prove, and adds a minus quantity to our information on the point raised by QUIRINUS. If any positive instance of the sign in question being called " the horn " can be found, I sincerely hope it will be sent to Dr. Murraj', for incorporation in the supplement to the ' New English Dic- tionary.' Does not QUIRINUS bring down the use of this contraction rather late ? I know it well in MSS. down to about the end of the fifteenth century, and in a certain number of printed books of that century; and should be sorry to fix a positive date for its dis- appearance, seeing that a compositor might casually use a single one in a book to save trouble in "justifying" some awkward line. But it is certainly rare in the sixteenth cen- tury. It had, however, a name so late as 1597, as may be read in Morley's 'Intro- duction to Musick, 3 book i. p. 36, that name being, as one might expect, neither more nor less than con per se. May we have a refer- ence to books in which this sign is " horn- shaped " ] As it is not very common, a note of the pages would save trouble in finding the instances. Q. V.

CONDITIONS OF SALE (10 th S. ii. 269). The earliest " Conditions of Sale " I have been

able to find in my office relate to some houses in St. Luke's (Old Street), and are- dated 14 November, 1787. They are very- short, but substantially the same as those of the present day. EDAVARD HERON-ALLEN.

COPYING PRESS (10 th S. ii. 488). Your correspondent should refer to 8 th S. xi. 226, 298, 337, for instances of its use in 1809 and 1782, and for the description of a machine invented by Mr. Wedgwood, which had been in the possession of the family of your contributor for at least three generations, and was thea in excellent preservation.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

FLAYING ALIVE (9 th S. xii. 429, 489 ; 10 th S.. i. 15, 73, 155, 352 ; ii. 14). At the fifth refer- ence I gave a quotation relating to the human skin nailed to the door of Hadstock Church, Essex. From a paragraph in The East London Advertiser of 21 January, I learn that this skin was recently offered for sale at Stevens's Auction Rooms :

"When the door was removed for repairs lately the ghastly remnant was found under an iron hinge. Now this last memento of a Danish pirate, encased in a mahogany box, with a collection of literary references to it, has gone for 31. &*, not a high price for a relic of such rarity."

JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

EDMOND AND EDWARD (10 th S. iii. 49). I have frequently met with these names used indifferently for the same person in original documents and other MSS. of the seventeenth century. But whether so used in " mediaeval times " I cannot state with any such degree of certainty. W. I. R. V.

MOTOR INDEX MARKS (10 th S. ii. 468). The- letters were assigned to the various registra- tion districts in the order of time when appli- cation was made by the several authorities (with one or two exceptions). S and I precede or follow the other letters in the ca^e- of Scotland and Ireland respectively. Edin- burgh has plain S and Glasgow plain G. la England, when the single alphabet had beer* exhausted by being assigned to the first seb of applicants, the list was continued by A A AB, &c., followed by B A, B B, &c., C A* C B, &c., and so on. ' W. S. B. H.

ANTIQUARY r. ANTIQUARIAN (10 th S. i. 325,. 396; ii. 174, 237, 396, 474). I have before me a copy of a letter dated " Trieste, 14 January, 1883," from that great purist Sir Richard Burton, to Bernard Quaritch, criticizing a, pamphlet of mine which he had sent him.