Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/219

 ii s. ix. MAR. 14, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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George and Christopher. The George Shilli- toe who was Mayor in 1622 is referred to by John Taylor, the " Wa f er Poet," in his ' Very Merrie Wherrie Ferry Voyage ; or, Yorke for my Money : From London to Yorke by Water, and Back by Land ' :

So farewell Yorke, the tenth of August, then Away came I for London with my men ; To dinner I to Pomfret* quickly rode Where good hot venison staid for my abode ; I thank the worshipful George Shillitoe, He filled my men and me, and let us go.

SAMUEL WADDINGTON.

" COSTREL " (11 S. ix. 147). I remember how in the fields at harvest -time the " sup- pings " were handed round, filled from a keg, in wooden cups and horns, both being spoken of as "costrels." The wooden cups or " masers " were bowls of hard wood, somewhat shallower than the early porcelain teacups. The word " costrel " is in Halli- well's ' Archaic Dictionary.'

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

"THE HONOURS THREE " (11 S. viii. 467; ix. 34, 115). The matter is a purely his- torical one, which Henry Scott Riddell had no doubt in view (probably through the Sir Walter Scott episode of opening the chest in Edinburgh Castle in 1818). I dealt with the historical setting of the matter in my volume ' The Lone Shieling,' &c., pp. 227-8.

G. M. FRASER. Public Library, Aberdeen.

FORMS OF THE NAME JAMES (US. ix. 151). This appears in the Slavonic languages as Yakov (Russian), Jakub, Jakob, or Jaka. FRANCIS P. MARCHANT.

Streatham.

COFFIN-SHAPED CHAPELS (11 S. ix. 51, 114). Your correspondent at the latter reference is probably mistaken as regards churches of coffin shape in Philadelphia, although some of the older churches are unprepossessing in outline and ornament. The modern Roman Catholic churches in Philadelphia are mostly highly ornate speci- mens of external and internal architecture. By " Stephen Giraud," the philanthropist, your correspondent must mean Stephen Girard, who founded Girard College, an insti- tution for the care and education of orphan boys, and which now maintains over a thousand such. Nor could Stephen Girard have been buried in any Roman Catholic church, for he was a French Deist of the type so abundant in the latter part of

Yorkshire.
 * Pontefract is still pronounced Pomfret in

the eighteenth century. He included in his will a provision that no ordained clergymen should ever enter Girard College. His views are also shown by the names of some of the ships he owned : Rousseau, Voltaire. I think his body lies in the main building of the College. HENRY LEFFMANN.

Philadelphia.

It was Stephen Girard (not Giraud) who founded the " college," whch is really a large boys' school. " The Girard College case " is one of the landmarks of American law. But is it clear that Stephen's remains were in- terred under a Roman Catholic church in Philadelphia ? He was a freethinker, and had an antipathy to all priests, parsons, and preachers, who are excluded by the terms of his will from visiting Girard College, though some have done so in disguise.

RICHARD THORNTON.

"To PILL" (11 S. ix. 148). The word "pill" has a large variety of meanings in slang and dialect, but the following, taken from Farmer and Henley's ' Slang and its Analogues,' probably cover the use of the word in * Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle ' :

"Pill, .<m&s. 2 (common). A disagreeable or objectionable person ; a bore." Hence the adjective " pilling " = disagree- able, boring. " A pilling good - natured curate " ; " pilling reflection " ; " without any sense of pill."

" Pill, verb. 2 (University). To twaddle ; to talk platitudes."

With its derivatives, probably the usual meaning. " Don't pill " ; " Pilled till after 12 " ; " Fears of my pilling " ; " The pill goes on of what we do at Oxford"; "The two pill-consecrated chairs of Poetry and History " ; " Pilsome and unpilsome."

ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.R.S.L.

Bolton.

" SYDNEY CARTON " AT OLD SHREWSBURY SCHOOL (11 S. ix. 149). Whatever the motive for making Carton and Stryver Salopians, theirs is not the only case in which an actually existing school has been given the honour of educating one of Dickens's characters. Richard Carstone in ' Bleak House ' was a Wykehamist. We are told that his public -school career^ had lasted for eight years, and that he " had learnt to make Latin Verses of several sorts in the most admirable manner." Mr. Matthew Pocket, Pip's private tutor in ' Great Expectations,' " had been educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself." In ' Edwin Drood *