Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/297

 12 s. i. APRIL s, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

291

warrants were prepared in those days. It reads : of high treason, and had sentence passed upon him to be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, and there to be hanged by the neck, but not until he is dead, but that, being alive, he shall be taken down and his bowels taken out and burnt before his face, that his head shall be severed from his body and his body divided into four parts, and that his head and body shall be disposed of as We think fit. And Whereas We think fit to remit that part of the sentence directing the burning of his bowels and dividing the body into four parts, Our will and pleasure is that he shall be drawn and hanged, and have his head severed from his body.' "
 * Whereas James O'Coigley, having been attainted

Possibly some one acquainted with the locality can say how much truth there may be in this statement, and especially what has become of the documents referred to.

ALAN STEWABT.

THE EMERALD AND CHASTITY (12 S. i. 125, 197). The story of the royal Hun- garian emerald appears in Fortunii Liceti Gemmarum Anularium,' Patavii, 1653, p. 437.
 * Hieroglyphica, sive Antiqua Schemata

The story as given by Albertus Magnus is quoted, the reference being 2 <de Minerali- bus,' c. 47. Sylvester Petrasanta (' de Symbolis Heroicis,' lib. 3, c. 4) is also men- tioned as having read the story " apud autores non ignobiles." Neither the king's nor the queen's name is given. If, however, the former's name was Bela, he must have been Bela IV., since Albertus describes him as " Rex Hungarise, qui nostris temporibus regnat," and Bela IV. was the only king of Hungary of that name in the manhood of Albertus. According to Albertus, as quoted by Licetus, it was the king, not the queen, who was wearing the emerald when it broke in pieces. Although the words of Pe- trasanta are not given, he appears to attribute the emerald ring to the queen.

According to Betham's * Genealogical Tables ' Bela IV. married Mary, daughter of Theodorus Lascares, Emperor of Con- stantinople.

In the ' Liber Lapidum ' or ' de Gemmis ' of Marbodus is a poem ( vii.) ' de Smaragdo,' in which is the following line (last but two) :

Fertur lascivos etiara compescere motus. I am quoting from "Venerabilis Hildeberti

Opera Accesserunt Marbodi Re-

donensis Episcopi .... Opuscula .... Labore et studio D. Antonii Beaugendre," Parisiis, 1708, col. 1645. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

FATHER CHRISTMAS AND CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS (12 S. i. 69, 173). One of the best known of Jan Steen's pictures in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam represents the Feast of St. Nicholas. The children of the family have been rinding the presents hddden for them. One boy with his fist in his eye is crying, while his sister maliciously holds up his present, a birch rod in a shoe. A sympathetic grandmother in the background beckons to the boy while she lifts a curtain behind which something more attractive is hidden. Jan Steen, I believe, has a similar subject in other pictures.

EDWARD BENSLY.

" BY THE SKIN OF HIS TEETH " (12 S. 1. 167). This phrase was not a " colloquialism with the translators of the epoch of James I.," as MR. LUCAS suggests. The ' Oxford Dictionary ' points out that in the original form " with," not " by " it " is a literal translation from the Hebrew text of Job xix. 20 ; the Vulgate and Septuagint render the passage differently." The Geneva Bible of 1560, quoted in the ' Dictionary,' has : " I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe." G. L. APPERSON.

LOCKER'S * LONDON LYRICS ' : THE COSMO- POLITAN CLUB (11 S. xiu 482). My query remains unanswered, but I am now able to answer part of it myself. Of the seventh edition of the ' Lyrics ' (Isbister, 1874) Locker had a number of copies done up in blue and white paper boards, with a printed slip pasted in, which reads : " Presented to the | Member of the Cosmopolitan Club." In a copy in my possession is added, in the author's autograph : "by Frederick Locker I J. A. Froude, Esq. No. 150." In the "Golden Treasury" edition (1904) Mr. Austin Dobson refers to this issue as being limited to 80 copies, and as containing the Doyle illustrations ; the latter, as he informs me, because a copy in his possession is thus adorned. But I have inspected five copies of this issue, four of which are my own, and none are illustrated. Besides those absolutely presented to members of the Cosmopolitan Club, Locker evidently pre- sented some to other friends, first tearing out the Cosmopolitan leaf. In Mr. Dobson' s case he would appear not only to have torn out this leaf, but to have inserted a set of the Doyle cuts. In another copy, lately in the stock of Messrs. Maggs, there were distinct traces of the torn-out leaf, but the author had inscribed on another leaf an autograph presentation. In two out of the three