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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. AUG. 17, 1007.

DOMINOES : THEIR OBIGIN. The following passage appeared recently in a provincial paper. Is the story correct as related therein ?

" Two monks who had been committed to a lengthy seclusion contrived to beguile the weary hours of their confinement, without breaking the rule of silence which had been imposed upon them, by showing each other small flat stones marked with black dots. By a preconcerted arrangement, the winner would inform the other player of his victory by repeating in an undertone the first line of the vesper prayer. In process of time the t\vo monks managed to complete the set of stones, and to perfect the rules of the game, so that when the term of incarceration had expired the game was so interesting that it was generally adopted by all the inmates of the monastery as a lawful pastime. It very soon spread from town to town, and became very popular throughout Italy, and the first line of the vespers was reduced to the single word ' domino,' by which name the great game has ever since been known."

It is not quite clear what is meant by " the first line of the vesper prayer," unless it be the opening antiphon of Dominica ad Vesperas, taken from Psalm cix., " Dixit Dominus Domino meo : Sede a dextris meis." The story seems plausible enough, but I have always regarded the game of dominoes, like those of chess and draughts, as older than Christianity. J. B. McGovERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

[The 'N.E.D.' gives no special derivation for the name of the game, the first quotation for this use being from Strutt's ' Sports and Pastimes,' 1801 :

"Domino a very childish sport, imported from

France a few years back." Domino, a kind of hood or loose cloak, the original sense, is stated to be adapted from the French domino (16th cent, in Hatzfeld-Darmesteter). Dr. Murray says : "Derived in some way from L. dominus ; Darmesteter suggests from some L. phrase, such as benedicamus Domino. According to Littre", sense 4 We] came from the supposed resemblance of the black back of each of the pieces to the masque- rade garment." The reference to "sense 4" shows one of the few typographical blemishes in the 'Dictionary,' for the numbering of the senses of domino jumps from 3 to 5. Littre's remark refers to section 3. J

" RONE," RAINWATER GUTTER. What is the derivation of the word " rone " or " roan," used universally in Scotland for the gutter for rainwater round the eaves of a house?

H. T. W.

[Annandale's four - volume edition of Ogilvie's 'Imperial Diet.' says, "From stem of run; comp. runnel. See also the replies by CELER and others on 'Rene=a Small Watercourse,' 9 S. ix. 434.]

ANCASTER. I should be grateful for information relating to the earliest extant form of this name and to the documents in which that form may be found.

A. ANSCOMBE.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S KNIGHTHOOD. What ground is there for the statement that knighthood was only conferred upon the author of ' Religio Medici ' because the Mayor of Norwich declined the honour for himself ? This is the account given in the ' D.N.B.' ; but an earlier biographical dictionary says, "In 1671 King Charles II., visiting Norwich, conferred on Sir Thomas Browne the honour of knighthood with great marks of esteem," which does not seem to support the view that the distinction was vicarious merely. W. B. H.

MEDICINAL WATERS. The titles, pub- lishers, &c., of very modern books describing the curative properties of medicinal waters throughout Europe, are sought, with accounts of the diseases for which they are respectively indicated. B. Bradshaw's ' Dictionary of Bathing Places ' (Kegan Paul) is known as a useful work; others are desired.

H. G. SHARP.

CHIPPINGDALE OF BLACKENHALL, STAFFS. In 1635 John Chippingdale was living at Blackenhall, and had a son and heir William. This William appears from a Chancery bill, viz. Bromhead v. Chipping- dale, dated 7 Feb., 1635, to have " married himself, without his said father's consent

or privity, to one the daughter of one

Homersley, a gent n in the county of Staffs."

Can any correspondent supply the place and date of this marriage ? I am aware that William Chippingdale buried a wife Feles (Phyllis) at Washingboro', co. Lincoln, on 14 Feb., 1663. Replies direct to

(Col.) W. H. CHIPPINDALL.

12, Oaklands Road, Bedford.

BEDE'S TRANSLATION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. Will PROF. SKEAT enlighten some students as to whether his comparative edition of the ' Gospel according to St. John in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions ' (Cambridge, 1898) contains also Bede's trans- lation of the Fourth Gospel, which he was finishing, as his pupil Cuthbert assures us, immediately before his death on 27 May, 735 ? INQUIRER.

PUBLIC SPEAKING IN SHAKESPEARE'S DAY. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' refer me to some source of information which would help me to form an idea as to the average rate of public speaking in Shakespeare's day, and how Elizabethan oratory compares in this respect with that of the present time ? Is there, for instance, a verbatim report of any sermon of the late sixteenth or early