Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/143

 ii s. i. FEB. 12, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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are two or three instances of ministers in charge who sat in Parliament. Mr. W. J. Fox, minister of South Place Chapel, Finsbury (Unitarian) -at for Oldham. Mr. Ball sat as Conservative member of Cambridgeshire, representing the farm- ing interest while he was the minister of a Baptist congregation. In more recent times Mr. W. S. Caine was the pastor of a congregation at Vaux- hall. He ranked as a lay pastor, and was unpaid but he was to all intents and purposes a minister.'

DAVID SALMON.

The Rev. J. A. Picton, once a Congre- gational minister at Leicester and in other places, was elected M.P. for Leicester in 1883 and 1886. He retired, owing to failing health, in 1894. L. T. RENDELL.

[MR. H. B. CLAYTON also thanked for reply. An obituary of Mr. Picton appears in last Monday's Daily Telegraph.}

SWIFT AT HAVISHAM (11 . i. 8). I cannot find any Havisham, but there is a Haversham in Bucks, near Newport Pagnell. Does this help ? T. M. W.

"TALLY," CARD TERM (11 S. i. 87). At faro the banker holds one of the packs of cards in his hand, and deals them out two at a time, paying on one and receiving on the other, according to the stakes made by the players on the cards of the other pack. The operation of going through the pack in this way, until it is exhausted, is called in French la taille. Similarly, to act as banker at faro and such games is called tailler, because the banker " fait la taille," i.e., goes through the pack as described above. See Littre's dictionary, s.v.

T. F. D.

"TALLY-HO": "YOICKS" (11 S. i. 48, 93). Chap. xlii. of "La Venerie de lacques du Fouilloux," Edition L. Favre (Niort, 1888), a reprint of the Poitiers edition of 1561, may throw some light on the origin of the word " tally-ho." The chapter in question is headed ' Comme il faut sonner de la Trompe,' and on fo. 42, verso, occurs this passage :

Semblablement si Irs pi<|ururs so trouuent

an delimit ilcs rhii'iis, ft qu'ils \oynit le cerf,

e doiuent passer deuant, puia Eorhuer et parler au\ rhi.-Ms ainsi, Thin hilluml. Thin "

The music is given for this ; and on fo. 44, verso, is :

' Kt aussi quand les piquours vmidmnt fain- la curee aux rhi<>ns, faut qu'ils forhuent et crient ius< pit -s -i ce qu'ils soient tous v.-nus, en cette niani.-iv. Thi-im I,- //,/,/, Ihctni. /> hnn," also with music.

Surely one or other of these expressions, possibly the latter, offers an origin for the

English word " tally-ho." This suggestion was made in Gent. Mag., 1789, pt. ii. pp. 784-5, by " Observator,"' with others for the words hoix (modern " Yoicks ! ") and hark forward. JOHN HODGKIX.

The following explanation of " tally-ho," proffered by Brewer in ' Phrase and Fable,' may be worth quoting :

"Tally-ho is the Norman hunting cry, Taillis an! (To the coppice). The tally-ho was used when the stag was viewed in full career making for the coppice. We now cry ' Tally-ho ! ' when the fox breaks cover. The French cry is Thia hiUavtl"

THOMAS BAYNE.

Is not " tally-ho " merely a call to the " field " to keep on the heels of the hounds and the huntsman that is, to keep tally with them ? It would not apply to those who were already " leading the field. 1 * And what is the meaning of ' ' yoicks " ?

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Thia hillaut is found in the ' Venerie l of Jaques de Fouilloux, 1585, 4to, fo. 12, " Ty a hillaut et Valliey," which is set to music on pp. 49 and 50. The English " tally-ho n seems to be of later origin. The name of Sir Toby Tallyho is given to a roistering character in Foote's play ' The Englishman returned from Paris,' 1753.

TOM JONES.

MILTON ON THE PALM (10 S. xii. 67). The technical definition of a branch is " a short or secondary stem growing from the main stem, or from a principal limb or bough of a tree, or other plant," while of the palm it is said that " the trunk is usually erect, and arely branched, and has a roughened ex- erior, composed of the persistent bases of the leaf-stalks."' Besides this, a& the branches of the palm are given off at the apex of the tree, somewhat after the fashion of an umbrella, this plant is regarded by Botanists as having closer affinities with orchids, lilies, and the grasses, than with the najority of exogenous or dicotyledonous irees.

Hence it follows that the term " branch - ng " as applied by the poet to the palm, is Tom the modern scientific point of view open to exception ; nevertheless, there can be no question that in the language of poetry Vlilton was fully justified in his use of the word to denote the arms of that denizen of the tropical forest. The possibility of the yew being referred to instead, in the passages cited, seems far too remote a conjecture to