Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/166

 134 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. iv. AUG. 12.1905. been aptly called, was Senior Wrangler, on gradua- ting B.A. at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1786, with many able competitors for that honour. He is likewise celebrated, as everybody knows, for writing three several hands t one only he himself can read, another nobody but his clerk can read, and a third neither himself, clerk, nor anybody else can read ! It was in the latter hand he one day wrote to his legal contemporary and friend, the present Sir Launcelqt Snadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England (who is likewise a Cantab, and graduated in 1800 at St. John's College, of which he became a Fellow, with the double distinction of seventh Wrangler and second Chancellor's Medallist), inviting him to dinner. Sir Launcelot, finding all his attempts to •decipher the note about as vain as the wise men found theirs to unravel the cabalistic characters of yore, took a sheet of paper, and having smeared it over with ink, he folded and sealed it, and sent it as his answer. The receipt of it staggered even the Great Bell of Lincoln, and after breaking the seal, and eyeing and turning it round and round, he hurried to Mr. Shadwell's chambers with it, declaring he could make nothing of it. 'Nor I of your note,' retorted Mr. S. ' My dear fellow,' exclaimed Mr. B., taking his own letter in his hand. ' is not this, as plain as can be, " Dear Shadw dl, I shall be glad to see you at dinner to-day."' ' And is not this equally as plain,' said Mr. S., pointing to his own paper, "My dear Bell, 1 shall be happy to come and dine with you."'"-Pp. 154-5. Bell died in 1836, and is depicted as Mr. Tresayle in Warren's ' Ten Thousand a Year.' Vice-Chancellor Shadwell died in 1850. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. M. (10th S. iv. 45).—Under the heading M. (as an abbreviation for Monsieur) a curious question was incidentally raised by MR. MARCHANT, viz., how it caine to pass that Mr., in addressing envelopes to gentlemen, has ceased, in course of time, to sound dignified, and is now confined to tradesmen and to men of lower rank ? Considering that Mister is a mere corruption of Master (see Prof. Skeat's 'Etymolog. Diet.'), have we to regard its limited use as an analogous deterioration of meaning? Certainly, it contrasts with Monsieur, Herr, Signor, Seiior, Pan, Qospodin, Kyrios, &c., prefixed, respectively, in most of our European languages, as a title of courtesy and politeness to the names of gentlemen, and only dropped before the names of men of lower rank. This subject appears to deserve, perhaps, the particular attention of Dr. Bradley for the historical elaboration of Master and Mister in the ' H.E.D.' H. KREBS. MR. MARCHANT is, of course, entirely accurate in supposing that French writers take the " M. de " as an exact equivalent for the German "Herr von." The "de"—the " particule " as we call it here—is supposed to be a sign of descent from the old "noblesse." M. Laborde is a commoner ; but Monsieur de Laborde or de la Borde may be supposed to have originated from a family who feudally held the village or domain of La Borde. Of course the present-day "triumphant demo- cracy " is careless of such trifles; and while a thoroughgoing Republican—Henri Roche- fort is a well-known example—drops alike title and "particule," the parvenu whos_e father was M. Dubois will probably write his name du Bois without let or hindrance. Still, the principle exists. In this connexion may one be allowed to point out that " M." or " M. de" is only permissible " in the third person," and that when addressing a letter (or even when alluding to a mutual friend in a letter to another) the word Monsieur should in variably be written in full 1 The frequency with which Englishmen fall into this error must be my excuse for insisting on such a well-known rule. F. A. W. Paris. AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (10th S. iv. 68).—The quatrain of which A. N. desires to know the source forms part of the seventh stanza of a 'Tom o' B_edlam Song,' which Isaac D'Israeli reprints in his ' Curiosities of Literature' (vol. ii. pp. 311-17, ed. Warne, 1866) from a collection of verses entitled 'Wit and Drollery,' ed. 1661 —an edition, however, which, according to D'Israeli, "is not the earliest of this once fashionable mis- cellany." Stanza 7 runs :— With a heart of furious fancies, Whereof I am commander: With a burning spear, and a horse of air. To the wilderness 1 wander ; With a knight of ghosts and shadows, I summoned am to Tourney: Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end ; Methinks it is no journey ! The lines quoted by A. N. at the above reference are prefixed, by way of motto, by Edgar Allan Poe to his ' Unparalleled Adven- ture of one Hans Pfaall,' a fact noted by the late James Thomson in his 'Essay on the Poems of William Blake.' See "Shelley, a Poem, with other Writings relating to Shelley, by the late James Thomson (' B. V.')," <kc., 1884. K- A. POTTS. BOWTELL FAMILY (10th S. iv. 29).—See two Chancery suits temp. Queen Eliz.:— 1. Ed. Owen v. Wm. Pinfold and Jane Bowtell. Claim by purchase: sundry lands and tenements in Thorpe and Egham, Surrey. 2. Ed. Owen v. Thos. Bowtell, to protect title by purchase: "Foster's Farm, Egham