Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/283

 10 S. VII. MARCH 23, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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by the Honourable Artillery Company in the fields near the old mansion called Bawmes or Balmes at Hoxton. It was an exercise in which the removal of certain encroachments formed an important part.

It is necessary to remember that a patent was granted by Henry VIII. in 1537 to create or, what is more likely, to confirm (as there is a probability of a previous existence as a fraternity) the " Fraternity or Guild of Artillery of Long-bows, Cross- bows, and Hand-guns." The patent in- cluded a licence to shoot at all manner of marks, butts, &c.

In 1638 the Corporation of the City of London gave to the Company the Artillery Grounds which they hold to-day near Moorfields. Hatton in his ' New View of London,' 1708, cited by Tomlins, ' Yseldon,' 1858, p. 150, referring to the Artillery Com- pany, says they

from the Artillery Ground to Islington and Sir George Whitmpre : s, breaking down gates, &c., that obstruct them in such marches."
 * ' do by Prescription march over all the ground

Finsbury Fields, Hogsden or Hoxton Fields, and Islington had wooden marks, and stone rovers, utilized as the archers' marks. Balmes or Baulmes House was better known as Sir George Whitmore's (Lord Mayor 1631-2), it having been his residence. Many of the most prominent of the aforesaid rovers were placed in the fields or grounds of this estate ; therefore the Company made a special feature of inarching over this particular property in order to ascertain what encroachments or removals had been made with regard to the ancient marks belonging to them. Many notices occur respecting these marches over Bawmes and Finsbury Fields and the removing of obstructions (see Lewis's ' His- tory of Islington,' 1842, pp. 20-26, and Tomlins's * Perambulation,' 1858, pp. 149- 158).

It may be of interest to add that the Balmes estate to which we have been referring was held on lease by Mr. William Rhodes, the grandfather of the Right Hon. Cecil ; but the lease was set aside by the courts. Suffice it to say that the original carriage- way to Balmes mansion was for years a private approach to Mr. Rhodes's premises. It may be recognized to-day as Whitmore Road, Hoxton.

JOSEPH COLYER MARRIOTT. 36, Claremont Road, Highgate.

The last " Baums March " of the Honour- able Artillery Company was held in 1779.

These marches to Baums or Balmes were formerly known as " General Days," of which there were three (one in May, June, and August), and had been regularly held since the Restoration.

ALFRED SYDNEY LEWIS. Library, Constitutional Club.

" VITTLE "= VICTUAL (10 S. vii. 188). It is worth while to remind your readers that the original spelling was vitaille, a spelling which occurs more than a dozen times in Chaucer, and lasted down to 1530, when Palsgrave gave us the equivalent form vytaile. But with the revival of learning, as it was called, the day came when the English people awoke to the amazing dis- covery that the Old French vitailles repre- sented a Latin victualia ; and they were so intoxicated thereby that they celebrated it by the idiotic insinuation of a c before the t, in order that this wonderful fact might never be lost, and under the delusion that etymological spelling means a worship of the letter without any regard to the sound. And now we all have to insert this idiotic c ; for such is its right epithet.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

Scottish writers use vittal, vittel, and vittle. In the ' Scottish Dictionary ' Jamie- son says, " Buchan-vittal is applied to meal of which the ' twa part is aits, and the third bear ' " ; and he adds that it is said of an untrustworthy person, " He's Buchan-vittal that."

The following passage occurs in Sir David Lyndsay's ' Historie of Squyer Meldrum,' 1. 1097 :

Quhen to Makferland, wicht and bauld, The veritie all haill wes tauld, How the young Squyer Meldrum Wes now into the cuntrie cum, Purpoisand to seige that place ; Than vittaillit he that fortres, And swoir he suld that place defend, Bauldlie, untill his lyfis end. Burns' s forms are vittel and vittle. In the Third Epistle to John Lapraik he speaks of "a' the vittel in the yard " ; and in the song ' Robin shure in Hairst ' he writes : Robin promis'd me

A' my winter vittle ; Fient haet he had but three Goosefeathers and a whittle.

" Sooterkin," it will be remembered, is used by Pope in the sense of an abortive jest. See " Fruits of dull heat and sooter- kins of wit " in ' Dunciad,' i. 126. For " blockish," signifying dull and stupid, cf. ' Troilus and Cressida,' I. iii. 374 :