Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/87

 10* S. III. JAN. 28, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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No authority is quoted for any of these opinions, so I have had some trouble in ascertaining the facts. I find that the 'Encyclopaedic' is alone correct. Its in- forination is from Garmann's ' Curiosse Specu- lationes,' a book published at Chemnitz in 1707, in which turamali is given as the Ceylon term for this stone. Fortunately there is a good modern Cingalese dictionary, | by B. Clough, 1892, which has enabled me to verify Garmann's statement. Clough gives " Toramalli, a general name for the cor- nelian." Obviously, turamali and toramalli are merely variant orthographies of the one Cingalese word, and obviously our tourmaline is taken from it. The etymology perpetuated in the ' Century ' is the reverse of the truth. Tourmaline is practically pure Cingalese. Tournamal is hopelessly corrupt.

JAS. PLATT, Jun.

" THE NAKED BOY AND COFFIN." The City Press of Saturday, 3 December, 1904, states as follows, and as the matter is of some interest to the increasing number of those who have a regard for the past of London, I venture to send it for preservation in N.&Q.':-

" We are told that the Guildhall Museum has been placed in possession of another curious old City sign, which was displayed in the seventeenth century outside an undertaker's shop that was situate at the corner of Fleet Lane and Farringdon Street. The naked boy is the only portion of the sign that has been recovered, the miniature coffin, which hung with it, having been lost. The figure is a good piece of carving in wood. Some idea of the original sign may be gathered from the head of an old advertisement, on which are depicted the coffin and the naked boy swinging together. The advertisement issued by the citizen of old ran as follows :

" ' At ye lower corner of Fleet Lane, at ye signe of ye Naked Boy and Coffin, you may be accom- modated with all things for a funeral, as well ye meanest as those of greater ability, upon reasonable terms ; more particularly coffins, shrouds, palls, cloakes, sconces, stars, hangings for rooms, heraldry, hearse and coaches, gloves, with all other things not here mentioned, by Wm. Grindly, Coffin Maker.'"

W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY.

Westminster.

[MR. G. YARROW BALDOCK also refers to the article in The City Press.]

" PROGRESSIVE." This word has of late become quite a recognized party term in municipal politics, but the occasion of its being so first used does not seem to be generally known. The writer believes it to have been appropriated for party purposes under the following circumstances. A Par- liamentary candidate, some few years ago, for a Midland constituency was pressed by the

clergy for a declaration of his views as to Church property, and he thereupon stated that he was prepared, if elected, to oppose disestablishment in any form. The consti- tuency rejected him, and he shortly afterwards stood for a borough where the middle-class vote was strong, and he stated in his address that lie was ready to vote at once for dis- establishment of the Church in Wales, and that his mind was open as to doing the same in the case of the Church of England generally. Thereupon a letter in an opposi- tion morning paper, calling attention to his former declarations, congratulated the con- stituency on the prospect of having a member " whose principles progressed with the requirements of his candidature," and the letter was headed ' Progressive Politics.' This was in 1884. The term seems to have struck some astute political organizer(whohoped that its origin as above would be forgotten) as an excellently suggestive label for party pur- poses ; and, so far as the writer has been able to ascertain, it was then first used by the advanced party in municipal politics. There is a curious analogy to this in the belief that the term " Liberal " was first suggested to the political party in England which has since appropriated it by an article in a Tory review which reproached the Whigs and Radicals of the day with their meanness and illiberality towards their political opponents.

G. B. F. [For Liberal as party name see 8 th S. v. 168, 272, 490.]

WOMAN, HEAVEN'S SECOND THOUGHT. George Meredith, in ' Diana of the Cross- ways,' makes his heroine say (ch. xiv.) :

" I suppose we women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator ; human nature's fringes, mere finishing touches, not a part of the texture."

Steele, in his 'Christian Hero' (p. 48, ed. 1802), says of Adam :

"He awaked, and by a secret sympathy beheld his wife ; he beheld his own rougher make softened into sweetness, and tempered into smiles : he saw a creature, who had as it were Heaven's second thought in her formation."

It is interesting to observe both the coinci- dence of the idea and the different applica- tions of it in the earlier and later writers. The obvious parallel of Burns's "prentice han' " with the passage in Steele has been noticed by me already in ' N. & Q.' (10 th S. i. 357). C. LAWRENCE FORD.

LADY LUCY HAMILTON SANDYS. She was evidently an intimate of Nell Gwyn's, as she occurs as ' ; my Lady Sanes" in one of Nelly's bills for sedan chairs, dated 13 October, 1675, and was the first witness to that famous woman's will. Rochester mentioned "the