Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/74

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vn. JAN. 25, 1913.

Morer. "demeurer," is given as a Liege word in Godefroy (Suppl.). In Ducange we find the words morare (demeurer, habiter) and moratus (mansio, habitatio). AH this shows that the provincial word " morrye- house " has some very respectable relations in the Romance languages and in the com- mon language of scholars, mediaeval Latin. I wonder if this highly interesting word is to be found in any other parish document. A. L. MAYHEW. Oxford.

" NIGHT-CAP." The term " night-cap." applied to a person, occurs twice in Webster's plays. In ' The Duchess of Malfy,' II. i.. Castrucchio asks Bosola how he is to know whether people take him for an " eminent fellow," and Bosola replies :

Give out you lie a-dying, and if you Hear the common people curse you, Be sure you are taken for one of the prime night-caps.

And again, in ' The Devil's Law Case,' II. i., Sanitonella says to the lawyer Crispiano :

How often have I borne you on my shoulder. Amongst a shoal or swarm of reeking night-caps.

" Night-cap " is here used as a contemp- tuous nickname for barrister-at'law, in allusion to the white cap, or coif, forming the forensic headgear of the time. In this sense it seems to be peculiar to Webster. Hazlitt, following Dyce, took it to be a cant term for the bullies of the period, and the ' N.E.D.' also gives " nocturnal bullies " as the meaning. It is strange that the true meaning has escaped previous commenta- tors, as there are two passages in Webster's own plays ' The Devil's Law Case ' and ' Appius and Virginia ' that contain the key to it. In the former play (IV. i.) Ariosto, the lawyer, says :

Such vile suits

Disgrace our courts, and these make honest lawyers Stop their own ears whilst they plead ; and that's

the reason

Your younger men, that have good conscience, Wear such large night -caps"

And in ' Appius and Virginia,' IV. i., the Nurse exclaims :

I protest, my lord, the fellow i' th' nightcap

[referring to the advocate] Hath not spoken one true word yet.

The barrister's cap is called a " biggon " in the following passage in 'The Citye Matche ' (1639), IV. vii. (Hazlitt, ' Dodsley,' xiii. 288) :

One whom the good

Old man, his uncle, kept to th' inns of court, And would in time ha' made him barrister, And rais'd him to his satin cap and biggon.

This coif or cap, originally of white lawn or linen, and completely covering the head,, as the barrister's wig now does, is still- represented in the coif of the Serjeant-at- law by the white border, the patch of black silk on the top of the wig representing the satin cap worn above it. See Serjeant Pulling's ' Order of the Coif.'

H. D. SYKES. Enfield.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

TOP- COMPOUNDS. We want examples of these : top-boot or -boots before 1835 ;. top-hat before 1881 ; also top-hamper before 1841. All these ought to occur earlier. Topper, as slang for top-hat or tall hat, goes back to early in the nineteenth century.

I have seen of late a word topology, which those who use it tell us is not = topography, nor toponymy, but they do not say what it is or comprehends. Will any one who knows or uses the word write and inform us ? " Local science " or " science of places " i not very illuminating.

" TOPPING OF THE LAND." The London Gazette of 1666, No. 77, has the following item : " Whitby, August 3. Several of our Fisherboats inform us that the Dutch Basses and Doggers are fishing a little off the Topping of the Land." This was during the war with the Dutch, a few weeks after the two battles off the North Foreland, in the first of which the Dutch, in the second the English, were defeated. What is the meaning of " the topping of the land " T Is it found anywhere else ? A friend suggests the rising, or appearance, of the top of the land on the horizon, and thinks that sailors might say " the land is just topping up." But ?

J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.

THE LATE EDWARD SOLLY AND *THE DUNCIAD.' I am anxious to discover whether Edward Solly left any MS. notes on ' The Dunciad.' In ' N. & Q.' for 18 Oct., 1879, he wrote of the 1728 editions 'of that work as if he had a copy of Edition A before him. No recent authorities whom I have consulted believe that Edition A e,ver existed. B. H. G.