Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/402

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. VIL MAY 17, 1013.

the last to ride off the field, leaving his coach-and- aix behind him. It was taken with all the corre- spondence, some of which criminated poor Sir John Hotham." P. 173.

ST. SWITHIN.

In a paper of notes by Clarendon on the affairs of the North, preserved among his MSS., occurs the following :

" The Hiarq. asked the prince what he would do ? His highness answered, ' Wee will charge them tomorrow morninge.' My lord asked him whether he were sure the enimy would not fall on them sooner ? He answered, ' No ' ; and the marquisse thereupon going to his coach hard by, and callinge for a pype of tobacco, before he could take it the enimy charged, and instantly all the prince's horse were rowted," &c.

See Dr. Macray's ' Clarendon's History of the Rebellion,' iii. 376, note.

A. R. BAYLEY.

[DiEGO also thanked for reply.]

" CASTLE " IN SHAKESPEARE AND WEBSTER <11 S. vii. 165, 253). To what has been said already about castle meaning " helmet " the following may be added.

Cassis (a helmet) makes cassidem. Isidor remarks, " Cassidem autem a Tuscis nomi- natamdicunt" (' Origg.,' XVIII. xiv.), where he is speaking of cassis. Pompeius Festus, c. 220, cites a form cassila which he supposed to be more ancient than cas- sid-em. We must contrast dingua, dacrima, adauda=lingua, lacryma, alauda, with this supposition. It is possible that Pompeius Festus's examples (or those of M. Verrius Flaccus, c. B.C. 10, whose work he abridged) were anachronistic. Cassila may well be the parent of M.E, castle.

ALFBED ANSCOMBE.

CB3HSTMAS RIMERS IN ULSTER (11 S. vii. 81, 173, 256, 311). MR. LAMBERTON comments on the change from May Day to Christmas for the performance of the mumming play he describes. This confusion is frequent. In Maylam's Christmas Custom ' (Canterbury, 1909), are examples of performances both at Easter and at Christmas. At Revesby a morris is danced in October, but the players refer to " This good time of Christmas." Christ- mas as a date for the performance is early, as evidenced by Archbishop Theodore's comments in the ' Penitential,' where he
 * The Hooden Horse, an East Kent

fives the date as tjie kalends of January, have before me a copy of the ' Peace Egg, or St. George's Annual Play,' printed by J. Harkness, Preston, but without date (with illustrations one of them of Little Devil

Doubt and his broom). The fool says : " Remember, good sirs, this is Christmas time." Here again we have an Easter play at Christmas. Was not the observance of Christmas forbidden, 24 Dec., 1652 ? In the Cornish version of ' St. George ' we find : " Here come I, Father Christmas, welcome or welcome not " a sentiment also occurring in 'The Vindication of Christmas ' (1653).

The play seems to have been practically universal in England, and, as it admits of easy local adaptation, no two copies are alike. In our Cornish versions we have St. George, the King of Egypt (father of Sabra), Devil Doubt, Prince Hal, General Wolfe (who has a duel with St. George), the Duke of Wellington, and so on. St. George having slain a Turkish knight, an unnamed performer enters, and, seeing the dead corpse, says :

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ;

If Uncle Sam Pearce won't have him, Molly must.

The hobby-horse here capers in, and takes off the body. Here Molly and the hobby suggest that the Christmas play of ' St. George' and the spring morris have been combined.

I have a copy of one Cornish version written by an illiterate man, evidently from memory, and as an acting copy. No cha- racters are named, merely the actors : e.g., Harry Grossman says so and so. Only by reference to other copies do we learn that H. C. was personating St. George. Philologic- ally, this copy has some interest : pierce your doublet full of eyelet holes " becomes " I '11 pierce your giblets full of Hylent holes." YGREC.

"Si VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM " (11 S vii,

308). A. Otto, * Die Sprichworter und sprichwortlichen Redensarten der Romer,' 1890, p. 54, s.v. ' Bellum,' quotes, besides the words from Vegetius, Publilius Syrus, 465, Prospicere in pace oportet, quod bellum iuvet,

and Dion Chrysostom, * De Regn. Orat,.' 1, Tots yMaAicrra, TroAe/xetv TrapecrKeuour/xevois, TOVTOIS /xaAio~ra e^eo-riv ^Ipyjvrjv ayeiv, and compares Livy, vi. 18, 7, " Ostendite modo bellum, pacem habebitis." He observes that, considering the variety of forms in which this thought was expressed by the ancients, we can hardly assume that it had obtained proverbial currency. In a foot- note there is a reference to E. Wolfflin's ' Krieg und Frieden im Sprichworte der Romer ' in the Sitzungsberichte of the Bay- rische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1887,