Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/310

 25(5 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. iv. SKPI. 23, i«& sary of Lei^arraga himself, and the dictionary of Kafael Micoleta or Nicoleta, which be- longed to Sir T. Browne and his son-in-law Owen Brigstocke, and is kept in the British Museum. Of this there are three editions, printed at Gerona, Barcelona, and Sevilla respectively. Its date is Bilbao, 1653. An improved reprint is much to be desired. Moreover, there is mention on p. 161 of the ' Bibliographic de la Langue Basque,' by J. Vinson, of a Baskish-Castilian-French-Latin dictionary by J. D'Etcheberri, medical doctor of Sara, which Don M. de Larramendi had seen before 1745, and which M. Vinson thought may have been one that was also seen by Pouvreau about 1660. This manu- script belongs to the Franciscans of Zarauz in Guipuscoa, where it was found last May by my friend Don Julio de Urquijo e Ibarra, of St. Jean de Luz, who describes it in an offprint of seven pages published in May, 1905, at San Sebastian, and appears to take it for granted that it was written after the time of Edward Lhwyd. Further criticism will perhaps decide whether M. Vinson's con- jecture as to the origin of this dictionary, which Don Julio de Urquijo wishes to pub- lish, was well founded. In compiling my •work on Leigarraga's verb I have noted many infallible proofs of his knowledge of the Greek text of the New Testament. EDWARD S. DODGSON. KING JOHN POISONED BY A TOAD (10th S. iv. 168).—An early authority for this story is the ' Chronicle of St. Albans,' printed by Caxton in 1502. It is quoted in a paper on • Shadows on the Past History of Sleaford,' by the Eev. Edward Trollope, M.A., F.S.A., afterwards Bishop of Nottingham, which •was published in 'Associated 'Architectural Societies' Reports,' &c., vol. vii. p. 92. King John, being at Swineshead Abbey after his disaster in the Wash, had threatened to increase the price of bread, which seemed already high enough to a patriotic religious, who resolved to make an end of him :— "The Monke that stode before the Kynge was for this worde full sory in his herte, and thought rather hee would hymselfe suffre deth yf he might ordeyne some manere of remedye. And anone the Monke went unto his Abbot and was nhriven of him and tolde the Abbot all that the Kynge had sayd; and prayed his Abbot for to assoyle him. for he would give the Kynge such a drynke that all Knglonde should be glad thereof and joyfull. Then yede the Monke into a gardeyne, and founde a grete tode therein, and toke her up and put her in a ouppe and prycked the tode through with a broche many times tyll that the venym came out of evry syde in the cuppe. And he toke the cuppe and filled it with good ale, and brought it before the Kynge knelynge, sayinge: ' Sir,' sayd hee, ' Wassayll, for never the dayes of all your lyfe dronke ye_ of so good a cuppe.' 'Begyn, Monke,' sayd the Kynge. And the Monke dranke a grete draught, and so set downe the cuppe. The Monke anone ryglit went in to the farmerye and there dyed anone, on whoas soule God have mercy Amen. And fyve Monke» synge for hia soule specially, and shall whyle the Abbaye standeth. The Kynge rose up anone full evyll at ease and commaunded to remove the table, and axed after the Monke, and men tolde him that he was dede, for his wombe was broken in smulre. Whan the Kynge herde this, he commaunded for to trusse, but it was for naught, for his belly began to swelle for the drynke that he had dronke, and withen two dayes hee deyed, on the morowe after Saynt Lukis day." ST. SWITHIN. The earliest account of King John's death by poison is apparently that by Peter de Langtoft (thirteenth century), who writes: "En le abbaye de Swinesheved home 1'enpusonait." (They poisoned him in the abbey of Swineshead.) According to Caxton's 'Chronicle'(which "differs but little from the Chronicle of Brute"), the king was poisoned by a monk, " whose wombe broke in sunder." The story is repeated by Graf ton, and by Fox in his ' Book of Martyrs' (where we find an elaborate engraving on this theme), and by Shakespeare in his 'King John,' Act V. sc. vi. :— Hub The king. I fear, is poisoned by a monk Bos. How did he take it? Who did taste to him? //"•'.•. A monk, I tell yon ; a resolved villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out. Shakespeare, I think, read the account in Grafton. H. E. D. ANDERS. Before the end of the century in which King John died it was generally believed that he was poisoned by a monk of Swines- head (Wikes); and there is a legend that, as- he intended to violate a nun, the sister of the abbot, a monk gave him three poisoned pears while he sat at table talking wildly about the scarcity of food which he intended to bring Zn the country (Hemingburgh, i. 252; in Higden and other later writers). See 'Diet. Nat. Biog..' s.v. 'John.' J. HOLDEN MAcMlCHAEL. 6, Elgin Court, W. "ENGLAND," "ENGLISH": THEIR PRONUN- CIATION (10tn S. iii. 322, 393, 453, 492; iv. 73, 156).—On the date upon which the last refer- ence appeared there was issued in Paris the current number of La, Jeunesse Modemcj which gave the French view of the subject. In its 'Cours d'Anglais' it instructed its young readers that the pronunciation of "England" was "Innglannd" and of "Englishman" " Innglichmann." It may be addea thst the pronunciations "Hi aute tou oueurk" and " Hi choud oueurk " were at the same time-