Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/190

 156

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIIL AUG. 24, 1907.

Among my notes of curious and uncommon names occurring in the registers of SS. Anne and Agnes, Aldersgate, which date from 1640, I find that of Hamlet Toon. This individual was (I think) married at the church in the eighteenth century ; I cannot give a more exact date at the moment, but shall probably do so in my history of the parish. In the meantime this imperfect reply may have some interest for MR. PEACOCK.

WILLIAM MCMURRAY.

Mr. Hamlet Gill Dixon took an Honours degree for mathematics at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1901. He had a great uncle named Christopher Hamlet Gill, who died in 1826. HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

The name of Shakespeare's son is usually given as Hamnet. ST. SWITHIN.

I possess a beautifully engraved shoeing- horn with the following inscription : THIS is

HAMLET RADESDALE SETTESON THE COVPAR OF LONDAN ANNO DOMINI 1593. SARVE GOD. H R ROBART MINDVM MAD THIS.

Who the Radesdales were I am unable to say. I have two other specimens of Mindum's work.

I believe that in the parish registers of St Stephen's, near St. Albans, the marriage of Hamlet Marshall is to be found under 1603. A William Hamlet was married in that same year, and the deaths of members of his family are recorded under 1609, 1616, and 1618. JOHN EVANS.

Britwell, Berkhamstead, Herts. [MISTLETOE also refers to Hamlet Holcroft.]

" CORTEL " CLOCKS (10 S. viii. 89). Is not this " cortel " merely a variant of the well- known " curtal," a derivative of " curt," whence the phrases " curtal horse," " curtal dog," &c. ? A clock hanging on the wal] would naturally seem docked or shortened in comparison with the standing or " grand- father " variety. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

Cortel being a French surname, an ex- planation might be sought, perhaps, among the authors of French works on clock- making. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

I should imagine that the word " cortel ' in the matter of clocks corresponds to th< French word " cartel." In this sense my dictionary says : " Boite de pendule en forme de cul-de-lampe qui s'applique contre le mur. Les cartels ne sont plus de mode Cette pendule meme."

EDWARD LATHAM.

LITTLETON'S ' HISTORY OF ISLINGTON * 10 S. vii. 70, 117). MR. HEMS will probably >e interested to know that there is an earlier eference to Islington than the one he- mentions, namely, that in Shadwell's ' The Virtuoso : a Comedy, acted at the Duke's- ^heatre,' London, T. N. for H. Herringman,. 676 (Act V., near the commencement) :

"The Suburb fools trudge to Lambs-Conduit or Totnam ; your sprucer sort of Citizens gallop to- Cpsom ; your Mechanick gross Fellows, shewing, nuch conjugal affection, strut before their wives,, each with a child in his arms, to Islington, or logsdon."

I have transcripts of the titles, &c., of everal pieces, such as ' ^Esop at Islington,' vhich I could probably lend to MR. HEMS f desired. They are mislaid just at present.

H. W. D.

" HUBBUB ":= DISTURBANCE (10 S. vii. 507 ; viii. 54). One would like though with some hesitation in replying to so high an authority to ask PROF. SKEAT if the accident of an earlier quotation than 1550- or this word not having been found for the N.E.D.' is conclusive evidence of the non- jxistence of the word in this country at an earlier date. The resemblance of mean- ng seems more than a chance one, and the word may have come over later perhaps than the Crusades. Before the era of Drinting our sources of quotation are few, ind the nets, even when spread for the N.E.D.,' do not catch every fish that is n the sea.

Perhaps, too, we may regard it as the reverse of humiliating that the English Language does contain so large a proportion of words borrowed from foreign countries- Is it not rather an evidence of the energy of the English race travelling, or settling, so much abroad ? R. B.

Upton.

THE HAMPSTEAD OMNIBUS (10 S. viii. 86). The interesting quotation given in ' N. & Q.,' prompted by the diversion of the well-known yellow omnibuses from the route they have so long traversed, recalls, to my mind the old-fashioned vehicle which plied between Finchley (by way of Highgate) and St. Martin's Church about fifty years- ago. This conveyance was small, of sober tint, and of an eminently respectable type, as were its " insiders." It was, I fancy, drawn by three horses at any rate, an extra one was put on to negotiate that terrible West Hill on the return journeys. The customers were chiefly regular ones, who occupied the same seats morning and