Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/401

 n s. i. MAY 14, i9io.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

393

journals. The elder brother published 'Geodesie d'Ethiopie,' 1860-73; ' Diction- naire de la Langue Amarinna,' 1881 ; anc ' Geographie de 1'Ethiopie,' 1890. To th( younger we owe ' Douze Ans dans la Haute Ethiopie,'- 1868. Perhaps this work maj contain the particulars which MB. EDWARDS desires.

The second chapter of Blanc's ' Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia,' London, 1868 contains an account of John G. Bell's death while defending the Emperor Theodore See pp. 24-4 1. Was ' Miscellanea ^Egyptiaca issued among the transactions or proceed ings of the Royal Geographical Society ?

In Nathaniel Pearce's ' Life and Adven- tures in Abyssinia, 1810-19,' will be found " Mr. Coffin's account of his visit to Gondar.' Pearce's ' Life ? was edited by J. J. Halls in 3 vols., London, 1821, 12mo.

A concise account of George Annesley, Viscount Valentia, is contained in ' A Bio- graphical Dictionary of Living Authors of Great Britain,' 1816, pp. 359-60.

Reviews and notices of ' Travels in Ethiopia,' 1835 (by G A. Hoskins), were published in The Literary Gazette and The Athenaeum ; of a ' Visit to the Great Oasis of the Libyan Desert,' 1837, in The Eclectic Review ; and of ' Spain as It Is, ! 1851, in the John Bull weekly newspaper,

W. SCOTT.

LATIN QUOTATIONS, c. 1580 (10 S. v. 88). For the first of these,

Nam Paris Iliaca tria numina vidit in Ida, quoted in Abraham Fraunoe's Latin comedy 'Victoria,' ed. Prof. Moore Smith, 1. 156, see Baptista Mantuanus (Spagnuoli), Eclogue vii., 1. 27 :

Cum Paris Iliaca tria numina vidit in Ida, Aut Paris, aut alius.

EDWABD BENSLY.

" BANG - BEGGAR n (11 S. i. 246) . A

doubtful definition of this functionary would appear to be that of Nodal and Milner in their 'Lancashire Glossary,' viz., "a con- stable or beadle. In Lancashire one who kept off noisy intruders during church - time, by the application, if necessary, of his silver-knobbed staff hence the name."

In the ' New English Dictionary l (where, by the way, the date of the quotation alluded to is 1865, not 1867) there is no mention of another form of the word, namely, ' ' ban- beggar," as if the official duties consisted in proscribing such vagrants the use of the town, e.g., " He went by the name of ' ban- beggar ? and every beggar he could see

he fidgetted them out of the town " (quoted by CUTHBEBT BEDE at 6 S. vii. 106 from a lecture delivered in 1883, and again quoted in the 'E.D.D.').

Is it not possible, therefore, that to 6an, prohibit, proclaim, or order away, was the original sense of the term ? Unless the beadle were, in every case, of exceptionally strong physique, the " banging " to be done was hardly likely always to have been on one side. Besides, the dignity of a silver- knobbed staff would be lessened, one would have thought, by using it as a cudgel.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Sixty years ago it was generally under- stood that in most parishes a " bang-beggar n was appointed, his duty being to drive away all beggars who came into a village. Children used to play at a game called "bang-beggar." One was the " beggar, '* and the rest were the " bangers," who with knotted cloths banged the beggar as he made his way through the rest, with arms over his head to protect himself. It Was a kind of running the gauntlet.

THOS. RATCLLFFE. Worksop.

GIL MABTIN (11 S. i. 67). Is not this an Irish variant of the Scotch Kilmartin, as Gilpatrick is of Kilpatrick ? In R. S. Charnock's ' Ludus Patronymicus ; or, the Etymology of Curious Surnames,' it is stated, s.v. Kilmartin : ' ' Bowditch thinks it a corruption of Gilmartin, a follower of Martin; but see Kilpatrick." The latter name is by the same authority said to be derived from the Gaelic and Irish cill t Lat. cella, a cell or chapel, and Patrick : lence " the chapel or church of St. Patrick.'* Thus Kilpatrick would be the Gaelic form of the Lowland Scotch Kirkpatrick ; and Gil Martin would denote originally ' ' the church of St. Martin." N. W. HILL.

New York.

Gilmorton is the name of a parish in Leicestershire, about three miles from Lutter- worth. The difference of vowels hardly eems to suffice to make this reference to a lace-name irrelevant. W. B. H.

G. CHALMEBS'S ' SCOTICAN^ ECCLESIJE NFANTIA' (11 S. i. 267). A copy of the

li

Scoticanae Ecclesiae Infantia, virilis Senectus,' will be found in the Advocates'

ibrary at Edinburgh. The author, accord- ng to the catalogue, was Gulielmus Camer- irius, Fintraeus, Scotus. He was evidently he same as the William Chalmers of Fintray