Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/407

 10* s. V.APRIL 28. 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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died 1719. His grandson John marriec Bridget Senhouse, and was grandfather o my great-grandfather, John Christian, wh( married Isabella Curwen and assumed he name in 1790.

I shall be glad to send MR. ACKERLEY i monograph of the Christians of Milntowi and Ewanrigg. ALFRED F. CURWEN.

Harrington Rectory, Cumberland, R.S.O.

RALPH GOUT, WATCHMAKER (10 th S. v. 206) I have five London-made Turkish watche which I bought in the bazaar at Smyrni some sixteen years ago. Among them is on< made by Halph Gout. It measures abou four inches in diameter. The outside loose case is of tortpiseshell and silver, the seconc loose case of silver, and the case of the watcl itself of silver. The figures on the dial are of course Turkish. There is also what I take to be the original wooden case covered witl leather. A good many years ago I saw in a curiosity shop in Vigp Street, no longei existing, a watch of Ralph Gout's exactly like mine, except that pinchbeck took the place of silver ; also there was no leather and wooden case.

Tiie makers of my other Turkish watches are George Clarke, Markwick, and George Prior. The largest of these measures only 2f in. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

"RATTLING GOOD THING" (10 th S. v. 250). There is no particular difficulty; we have only to consult (as usual) the ' New English Dictionary,' and the development of the sense can then be appreciated.

As to clipping, it has been explained at least twice : once by Dr. Smythe Palmer, in his * Folk-Etymology,' and once by myself, in ' Notes on Etymology,' p. 38.

A clipper is a fast horse, from the Dutch and Low German Jdepper ; so named from kleppen, to clap. A clipper or a rattler is a fast horse, whose feet are heard to clap over the stones or to rattle along merrily. The 'New Eng. Diet.' gives an admirable illus- tration from Bulwer Lytton's 'Night and Morning,' Book II. ch. viii. (1841): "I want

a good horse; now then, out with your

rattlers." Surely the phrase is clear enough. WALTER W. SKEAT.

The origin of this phrase may, I think, be sought in the desire for emphatic or inten- sifying expressions, like "thundering," ripping," "amazing," and, as so often en- countered in the writings of Pepys and his contemporaries, "mighty." By the way, I had an aged relative who occasionally used the word "mighty" as an intensive, wrote

" chuse " for choose, &c. " That 's my plan. Give ; em bumping weight (with the little finger in), and shout, 'There you are, all that lot for tuppence, it's rattling bait!' and they s wallers it like jam" (S. May, 'Hurrah for a Coster's Life,' quoted in Barrere and Leland's 'Diet, of Slang'). A similar colloquialism for extraordinary, tre- mendous, &c., is "thundering": "I was drawing a thundering fish out of the water" (Tom Brown's ' Works,' i. 219).

A "clipping time" has, of course, the same sense as in "a clipping pace," i.e., a very fast pace, such as that of which the fast- sailing vessel known as a "clipper" is capable. Similarly a "ripping good time ;> appears to be from an Americanism " to rip," to go at a great pace, the metaphor being in an association of ideas between speed and excellence (Barrere and Leland).

J. HOLDEN MAC'MlCHAEL.

HERALDIC (10 th S. v. 230). The swallow or martlet always in nature has a predominant sable aspect. Martlets sable are borne by Watson, Gladstone, Wilmington, and Walsh, and by Lords Meath, Lurgan, and Kenmare. But the unwritten rules as to convenience in the tinctures of blazonry of ten exhibit a lofty contempt for nature. Juvenal's dictum does not apply to blazonry : " Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit." Accordingly martlets argent are borne by the name of Houston and by Lords Truro, Jervis, and St. Vincent ; martlets or by Temple, Smith- Marriott, Morshead, and Hodson ; and gules Proctor, Earl Cowper, and Sir Francis Burdett. The martlets of Edward the Con- lessor appear to have been blazoned argent.

illemeut describes a window of St. Olave's

Church, Old Jewry, wherein are the arms of

Richard II. impaled with those of his patron

aint Edward the Confessor. These arms are

illuded to in an extract from Froissart (ed.

D ynson, vol. ii. fol. 258), as " a crosse potent

Bolide and goules with tour white martenettes

n the felde." The nearest resemblance to the

arms described by BEATRICE that I can find

ire those of the name of Morshead : Azure,

i cross-crosslet argent between four martlets

r ; on a chief of the second, three escallops

ules. The saltier is, of course, merely a

ariant of the cross.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

The field should be gold, the saltire red, he martlets of their proper or natural hues.

ST. SWITHIN.

The explanation of the colouring of the oat of arms which BEATRICE requires is that be field, or ground-work of the shield, is