Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/275

 ii s. xii. OCT. 2, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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to his liver and decide whether the old tradition was true that such a brave one as himself had his liver hairy. So it was taken out of his dead body, and found covered with hair...." Mukunashi Issetsu (A.D. 1621-80), 'Shin Chomon Sim, lib. vii. ch. xviii.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

FOLK -SPEECH (WORCESTERSHIRE): "PLAIN" (11 S. xii. 137, 187). The use of " plain " a3 an appreciative epithet was not uncommon in the North Riding of Yorks fifty years ago. In modern slang the meaning would be interpreted by " having no side on," i.e., being approachable and sympathetic.

Two other adjectives were used in a different sense from the ordinary, viz., " out ward" and "inward." My landlady had two sons. On 3 of them played cricket, and occasionally went to a public-house, and she complained of him as rather " out- ward." The other was given to chapel- going, and was considered very " inward."

H. G. P.

HERALDIC QUERY : BOTELER ARMS (11 S. xi. 399, 496; xii. 33, 110). In justice to the memory of the compiler of the ' General Armory,' it should be mentioned that Sir Bernard Burke is not responsible for the anachronism implied in CROSS-CROSSLET'S communication on p. 33. The entry reads that the quarterly coat described was used by the Butler family, which was originally established in Ireland during the reign of Henry II.

Such an inquiry as this would be helped by an expert opinion upon the age of the seal. LEO C.

CREST ON SEAL (11 S. xii. 48). " Utere tuo " is not known to me as a motto, and the. design would make an awkward crest. Perhaps the seal is not heraldic. Does the crest rest upon a crest-wreath ? LEO C.

' THE TRUSTY SERVANT ' (US. xii. 193). Your learned contributor PREBENDARY DEEDES has thrown further light on this interesting matter.

A few years ago, when residing at Win- chester, I bought, at a stall just outside its glorious old cathedral, a little square tablet of wood, represented to me as being cut out of a piece of wood removed of necessity from the edifice during restorative work. On the front of the little tablet was pasted an exceedingly neat and well - executed coloured cut representing the Trusty Servant, the colours copied, I believe, ~from the

original painting, and on the back Latin and English explanations of it, that I append hereto :

Effigiem Servi si vis spectare Probati

Quisquis es haec oculos pascat Imago tuos

Porcinum os quocunque cibo jejunia sedat

Haec Sera consilium ne fluat arcta premit

Dat patientem Ashms dominis jurgantibus Aurem

Cervus habet celeres ire redire Pedes

Laeva docet multum tot rebus onusta laborem

Vestis munditiem Dextera aperta fidem

Accinctus Gladio clipeo munitus et inde

Vel se Vel dominum quo tueatur habet.

A Trusty Servant's portrait would you see, This emblematic figure well survey. The Porker's snout not nice in diet shews ; The Padlock shut, no secrets he '11 disclose ; Patient the ass his Master's wrath will bear ; Swiftness in errand the stag's feet declare ; Loaded his left hand apt to labour Saith ; The Vest his neatness, Open hand his faith ; Girt with his sword, his shield upon his arm, Himself and Master he '11 protect from harm.

As the verses have probably come under the notice of learned Wykehamists and worthy citizens of Winchester, and were allowed to be sold in Winchester, pasted on wood purporting to be " cathedral wood," I fancy they are the accepted explanations of the painting of ' The Trusty Servant.'

The printing had been slightly rubbed, and was rather difficult to decipher ; but I copied it as I believe it was originally printed. Your classical readers will doubt- less supply any corrections that may have resulted through my errors in copying. G. GREEN SMITH.

Weston Lodge, Bournemouth.

The original form of ' The Trusty Servant ' can be seen in the MS. of the poem * Do Schola Collegiata ' in Fellows' Library at Winchester College, and is reproduced opposite p. 118 of Mr. Leach's ' History of Winchester College.' The poem (above referred to) used to be considered to be the work of Christopher Johnson, circa 1560, but is now known to be about a century later. In this original form ' The Trusty Servant ' is represented in Elizabethan or Jacobean costume. There is no landscape. The picture must have been painted over and over again. In its present form it dates from 1778, when it was repainted by one William Cave in honour of a visit paid to the College by George III.

Mr. William Thorn Warren in his ' Illus- trated Sixpenny Guide to Winchester Cathe- dral and Winchester College' (1902) makes at p. 145 the statements: (1) that tradi- tion says it was given to William of Wyke- ham by a German monk ; and (2) that it was